This project is an experiment to test hydraulic erosion on procedurally generated terrain.
It generates Perlin noise to create a basic landscape, then simulates "water" particles to readjust the terrain mesh to have a more natural look.
Hydraulic Erosion Sim
Group Project
Unity Engine | Jan 2021 - Apr 2021
My contributions
Implemented the water particles while optimizing for runtime efficiency.
Programmed flow calculation to determine the path water would take on the terrain dynamically.
Exposed relevant variables and UI to control the sandbox directly.
Converted noise data into a terrain grid for the mesh to adjust to.
Set up a height based color shader for the grid cells to show their elevation
What went wrong...
...and what I wish I had known.
Tech demo VS Games:
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As a technical demo, this project had a lot of time spent on researching the hydraulic process and prototyping different methods to replicate it. Once a functional prototype was up, it became a balancing act between accuracy and reusability.
Due to this, the code was focused on being able to process the terrain in front of the user which came at the cost of limiting it's application on more detailed meshes.
Given more time I would have loved to have applied this project to function in real time as a game system rather than a terrain tool.