#world generator

[bigmammallama5]

I like to use this map generator if I’m planning a full world or need ideas! You can change the settings on it for percentage of land to water, to include geography, rivers and bodies of water, and even landmarks like castles and cities.

[baladric]

ouu i made a wee little generator for world-seeding prompts (inspired by avery alder's style of world-building in the belonging outside belonging system), open for use!!

[creaturething-otherentities]

WORLDBUILDING & stuff

Here’s a bunch of resources and links if you’re wanting to read about Earth, how it works, or want to make your own world based off of some of Earth’s rules//quirks. 

Map to Globe: awesome for putting your maps onto a rotating world, in which you can calculate distances, make the rotation of your planet into a gif, create a height-map, figure out what your ocean floors look like etc. (as seen above)

Wikipedia article abt Earth’s Radius.

Ocean Temperatures During the Cretaceous at the Poles: Useful article if you’re wondering how warm your oceans would be if your world was very very tropical and hot. (it also mentions cooling and warming intervals of the Earth during this period)

Why Mars Has Blue Sunsets! (a fun youtube clip explaining light scattering) and the plausible scientific reason behind the phrase “once in a blue moon”

How Ice Ages Happen: The Milankovitch Cycles; another youtube clip by the same person as the above (It’s Just Astronomical!), explaining the Milankovitch Cycles and where we are in them. 

Plate Tectonic Animation: A youtube clip/animation showing Earth’s plate tectonics and paleogeographic evolution from the Cambrian period (540 million years ago) to today. 

Continental Plates Move Faster Than We Thought: an article explaining and talking abt how scientists have figured out continental plates can move up to 20 times faster than previously believed. Using dough as a metaphor and includes a clip of the continental plates pulling apart using updated knowledge.

Food Timeline: a timeline of food and associated recipes, with each food item linked to more info about the how/when/where etc of that particular item. Starts from before 17,000BC and ends at 2013 (at the moment).

Earthlike Planet/World Generator: (also has a bit of info about average surface temperature of earth in relation to ice ages and global tropics). It also has links to other types of generators (eg landscape, town, plant, sci-fi animal etc).

Animal Facts: has a whole collection of different animals, with a whole lot of facts about each one. Includes weirder animals like blob fish, flying snake, yeti crab and mantis shrimp to name a few.

An Easy Explanation of Atmospheric Circulation Patterns: Paul Beckwith explains why and how atmospheric circulation patterns work, and what they do. Probably a good resource for your science class as he’s a geography professor and physicist and explains things simply/really easy to understand. He has heaps and heaps of videos explaining different subjects on youtube. 

Cretaceous Period: an Encyclopaedia Britannica article about all things cretaceous. Includes a large section on paleoclimate (good if your trying to figure out temperatures on your tropical world), marine and terrestrial life, as well as cretaceous geology. 

Links Between Loss of Sea Ice and Climate Change: a ScienceDaily article talking abt the period between 30-100,000 years ago and the abrupt climate change that happened during that period.

The Gulf Stream Explained: the whole youtube clip is animated and brightly coloured, it’s fun, go check it out. 

Distance Calculator: calculates the distances between cities around the world.

All Things Ocean Currents: an Encyclopaedia Britannica article about ocean currents world wide, causes and distributions (with pictures), Coriolis effect, Geostrophic currents, Ekman layer, wind-driven circulation etc.

[killertux]

World Generator: Voronoi Diagram

As described in here, I will use polygons to generate my world. The first step is to generate said polygons.

The Voronoi Diagram is a method to divide an area in polygons in way that the edges of the polygons don’t intercept each other. I used the boost library to do this giving a number of random points. The result is:

Unfortunately, the points created using rand() are not as homogeneous as I would like. So, I used the Lloyd’s relaxation algorithm to solve that problem. The Lloyd’s relaxation consists of substituting each polygon with the correspondent centroid. That is the result after 3 passes:

[killertux]

New Project: World Generator

So, I recently started to look into something new. I really like Grand Strategies Games like Crusader Kings II, Europa Universalis IV and Hearths of Iron IV. Something that was “recently” added to Europa is the Random New World.

This feature creates an entire random “continent” so it can be colonized. But unfortunately, a lot of people criticize that the result is far from realistic. That sparked my curiosity to start studying algorithms that generate “random” worlds.

Therefor, I will be updating here my results in this interesting field. I plan to start by improving the method explained in this article: http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~amitp/game-programming/polygon-map-generation/

[wakor]

Generate a random world you might have tumbled into as a child. Would you stay, or do everything you could to escape?

This book has tons of opportunities for -sonas and world generators. So I made one! I’m open to suggestions for anything I could add! 

How to Interpret Your World’s Alignment:

Wicked/Virtue and Logic/Nonsense are explained in this article by the book’s publishers. However, instead of using “X 1, 2, 3″, I used “minor, mid, high X”. 

However, there are little to no explanations for the minor directions such as Whimsy/Wild, Vitus/Mortis, Linearity, and Rhyme. Therefore, I made up fan interpretations.

Whimsy <--> Wild 

Whimsy 3 = Anything you could ever want is provided for you, all for the sake of enjoyment. Your existence is ruled by constant pleasure and stimulation.

Whimsy 2 = There is a constant quest for pleasure and stimulation, but there is no guarantee you’ll find it. Could be described as hedonistic. 

Whimsy 1 = Seeking joy is important, but it doesn’t consume you. Experiencing misery is unlikely.

Simple = Nothing is life threatening, but nothing is particularly pleasurable either. You are in a state of contentedness. 

Wild 1 = Danger is present, but you can protect yourself if you have the right resources.

Wild 2 = Your life is often threatened, and you have to be aware of your environment at all times. It’s often safer to stay in groups.

Wild 3 = You could die at any moment. The second you show weakness is the second you lose your life. Your existence is ruled by fear, hunger, and anxiety at all times.

Vitus <--> Mortis

Vitus 3 = Life predominates this world. There is no death or reproduction. Only eternity.

Vitus 2 = Denizens live very long lives, and nothing dies of old age. Disease and murder are nearly unheard of. However, while it may be difficult, it is possible for someone to die. 

Vitus 1 = Lifespans are long, but death is common. It is sometimes possible for Immortality to be attained.

Balanced = Everything lives, and everything dies. Death is inevitable and life marches on.

Mortis 1 = Death is inevitable, but not always permanent. Resurrection is a common art.

Mortis 2 = The living and dead coexist. Many types of undead populate this world. Even for the living, however, the line between life and death is blurred.

Mortis 3 = The Afterlife. Only the dead arrive, and no one leaves.

Linearity <--> Paradox

Linearity 3 = Time moves in on direction at a constant speed. It is impossible to go forward or go backward; only the present exists.

Linearity 2 = The past and future exist and can be seen, but nothing can be changed. “Destiny” is a popular concept.

Linearity 1 = Time is still a straight line, but it can be sped up or slowed down by multiple means. The past is concrete, but the future is malleable.

Stable = The timeline is stable and consistent; changes that happen are intentional.

Paradox 1 = Time often speeds up and slows down. The past can be changed. This can retcon the future, but it merely saves over the timeline.

Paradox 2 = The timeline splits constantly. Whether you stay in your original timeline or end up in a new one depends on the situation. Periods of time can sometimes repeat randomly.

Paradox 3 = Time has no meaning. It’s possible to be omnipresent at every second in this world’s existence. You will meet yourself often.

Rhyme <--> Reason

Rhyme 3 = Magic is the main construct of this world and can only be accomplished with sophisticated rhyming, alliteration, and wordplay.

Rhyme 2 = Magic is common and spells are developed using poetic devices. Other components may be necessary.

Rhyme 1 = Magic exists and can be accomplished with a mix of spoken spells and scientific practices or rituals.

Mundane = Magic is not believed to exist, and there are little to no unexplained or mysterious events to suggest otherwise.

Reason 1 =  Magic is not believed to exist, but there are some unexplained and mysterious events.

Reason 2 = Magic does not exist, but magic-like feats can be accomplished through advanced science, some of which may not be understood.

Reason 3 = Magic does not exist. This world is extremely scientifically advanced, and everything “magic” is actually an ingenious construct of science.

[themorbidart]

http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~amitp/game-programming/polygon-map-generation/demo.html

just putting this here for personal reference and for anyone else.