Procedural Terrain Generation with Unity

In this two part lecture we will step through all the existing terrain creation tools implemented in Unity to give you a better feel for what's possible.

In the second half of this two part lecture we will examine the adding of details to a terrain and finalise our discussion on the terrain object.

In this lecture we will examine some of the design principles that will help you take your terrain design skills to the next level.

For this challenge you should recreate your favourite vista as a Unity Terrain. 

Test your knowledge about Unity Terrain Object.

In this lecture we will begin by getting the Unity environment ready for creating a custom editor that will be used to control the terrain settings.

In this lecture we will create the code for our first customised part of the editor and hook it up ready to implement a random height creation algorithm.

This lecture continues the development of the first custom editor for the terrain and now concentrates on your very first procedural algorithm for modifying height values.

In this lecture we'll use height data from real world geography and load it in as an image to set the heights on a terrain.

Test your knowledge of the Unity Terrain Object

Completed code developed to this point.

In this lecture we will take a look at the theory behind one of the most popular algorithms used for creating terrain.

In this lecture we will implement a simple version of Perlin Noise and use it to adjust the height map for a terrain.

This lecture builds on the last introducing the idea of adding several Perlin Noise functions together in another popular algorithm called fractal Brownian motion.

This is a short lecture explaining how to pad out the area around the GUITable if you run into troubles later on.

In this lecture we will create a table of Perlin Noise parameters in the inspector and pass them to a new method for adding multiple curves to a terrain.

Completed code developed to this point.

In this lecture we will create a procedurally generated peak with surrounding sloped terrain inspired by Voronoi tessellation.

In this lecture we will examine the use of mathematical functions to alter the slope types created on the side of mountains.

This lecture begins with a challenge to see if you can complete the functionality of the Voronoi component by yourself.  It then continues by providing a solution and suggesting ways to integrate Voronoi peaks into terrain creation.

This lecture will take you through the process of integrating multiple functions into the code to use with the voronoi peaks.

Completed code developed to this point.

In this lecture we will start building the Midpoint Displacement algorithm and concentrate on the Diamond Step.

This lecture continues the development of the Midpoint Displacement Algorithm by adding in the Square Step.

This lecture will discuss the creation of a smoothing algorithm to rid your terrain of sharp peaks.

In the second part of the smoothing lecture we will examine how to add a smooth amount to the algorithm.

Completed code developed to this point.

This article will explain how to update the code in this section to deal with changes made to the terrain structure in Unity V.2018.3

In this video we will start exploring the use of textures for colouring the terrain and develop code to add them for use by splatmaps.

In this lecture we will add the logic to our code to develop the blending functionality of the splatmap to draw different textures at different terrain heights.

In this lecture we will look at how to feather and blend the edges where two textures meet on the terrain.

In this short lecture I will show you how to expand the available space in the inspector editor by adding a scrollbar.

In this lecture we will extend the splat map functionality to restrict certain textures to be placed on terrain based on the steepness.

In this video we will create an editor window and give it the functionality to display a procedurally generated texture.

In this lecture we will modify the noise algorithm being used to develop a seamless texture.

In this lecture we will add saving functionality to the editor window to save the generated image to a png file in the Asset folder.

Sometimes the resolution of the final image isn't quite what you'd like.  In this lecture we will add extra features to improve the image quality.

This exercise will challenge your knowledge of height maps and editor coding.

In this lecture we will start working with the data structure that holds the information about trees and other vegetation.

In this second part of this lecture we will start placing trees on the terrain with code.

In this lecture we will create an automatic layer adding method to assign the terrain object to a physics layer for later raycasting.

In this lecture we will use ray casting to locate the true height of the terrain below vegetation objects for accurate positioning.

This lecture starts by presenting a challenge to produce and interface that will allow full customisation of the vegetation on the surface of a terrain.

This article will explain how to adjust your code to deal with resizing the terrain in the Inspector.

In this lecture we will examine the detail map system and start populating the terrain with grass and rocks.

In this lecture we will examine how to add in height and slope ranges to the placement of detail as well as modify the visibility distance.

Completed code developed to this point.

In this lecture we will add a water object to the terrain through code.

In this lecture we will continue building the shoreline by combining the quads into a mesh and adding an animated texture.

Completed code developed to this point.

This lecture introduces the types of erosion that will be implemented as algorithms in this section.

In this lecture we will setup the inspector editor with erosion parameters and then create the most simplest of the erosion algorithms, rain.

In this lecture we will add the functionality to simulate thermal erosion on our terrain.

In this lecture we will examine areas where the water plane is added and create an algorithm to erode away shorelines.

In this lecture we will examine one of the more complex erosions systems that can be simulated on a terrain; running water.

In this lecture we will add in the functionality to erode the height map of a terrain by simulating wind.

In this lecture we will extend the wind algorithm to allow for the specification of a wind direction to cause the ripples to form in different ways across the terrain.

In this video you will be challenged to create a canyon that makes its way across the terrain.

Completed code developed to this point.