I have been gone for a while, but I've noted that in the latest version, the Random Terrain option produces a terrain much different that earlier versions. The older versions were more dynamic and better looking, with shorelines, and taller hills. Why was this changed, it was much better before!

Welcome back, SunDevils! The random terrain has that "quilted" look. I don't know why, but Lee said he will fix it. It was pretty decent before, for sure. What I've been doing is loading up the last beta of Reloaded and generating terrains with that, then saving the map. I don't know if that even works anymore, it's been a few betas since I've done that. I've been messing with UE4 and the whole Blueprint thing for the last several months while things get sorted out here.

Hey there Jerry... How are you?

Glad the hear that Lee will fix it, the older terrains where much better...

I latched onto a copy of Leadworx on Steam for $30. Haven't played with it yet, but at first blush it looks a bit like FPS.

I said that I might take a 3rd pass at Blender, and I did, and it's beginning to make some sense. It really is a great creation program. I plan to up-load my first Blender model to the store later this week.. The Red Brick Diner.

UE4 looks very high end! I'm thinking about the new TGC AppKit, and building some 2D games for ios and win 10.

Not the result that we wanted from the Devils this year, but it was exciting. ASU baseball starts in two weeks... Go Devils

LOL, I bought Leadworks as well a few weeks back, maybe the same deal. I messed with it for a little bit, but I wasn't really very impressed. I think it's worthwhile just waiting for GG to mature. I don't do any of this with any intention of producing a commercial product so time is not of the essence. I just want to learn as much as I can about the whole game creation thing. I have a day job that is much too demanding!

I'm with you..no illusions of grandeur here.. I just love this stuff. Good luck with UE4

Thanks! The one thing I don't care for about UE4 is if you start making something in one engine version, an update comes along a month later and is often not compatible with what you've been working on. New features are often of no benefit to a WIP. On the plus side it lets you at least keep each version. However, they take up a lot of space. I have 8 or so engine versions in my library, LOL. I'm glad GG isn't like that!

Would be great if will could manipulate it like Terragen.

I miss terragen lol

You can download a free version from their site.

Terrains have gone a bit downhill since Reloaded times. Now a random map is just a set map loaded over and over. Try it, you won't see any difference now. The carpet effect has been here longer though, and looks terrible compared to how Reloaded looked 2 years ago. I believe it was done for a performance boost myself. It needs some more work for sure. I am still unhappy with the invisible glitches you see on the horizon. The only real way to avoid the carpet effect is to have very little detail in the texture, or rather nothing to stand out too much on each tile.

Yeah, Unreal and most pro dev kits are like that if you work on a game you just stick to the version you start with. You also get plugins and add-ons with similar issues. However I find Unreal far too slow on my system in editor and build wise. The game itself runs fine but boy does it take some time to build it! Even loading a scene for the first time can take hours! Put me right off, although there was no doubt the end result looked amazing graphically. Perhaps I will give it another look if I get a decent new base unit, but, I'll still probably stick with GG. An upgrade would help both

Yes Terrains need some serious help I agree in those and other areas. The 2 years have seen quite a deterioration, leaving aside any performance benefits if there are any which may have exchanged one benefit at the expense of others.

LOL, classic!

I have to agree ...... worse thing was I paid the full £75

Our friend Ravey changed the algorithm. If there are any savvy C++ coders out there, I have attached the source code in case you wanted to improve on the values generated by our present Diamond Square system:

void thecode ( void )
{
DiamondSquare ( 0,0,1024,1024,400,128 );
}

void DiamondSquare(unsigned x1, unsigned y1, unsigned x2, unsigned y2, float range, unsigned level)
{
if (level < 1) return;

// diamonds
for (unsigned i = x1 + level; i < x2; i += level)
{
for (unsigned j = y1 + level; j < y2; j += level)
{
float a = t.terrainmatrix[i - level][j - level];
float b = t.terrainmatrix[i][j - level];
float c = t.terrainmatrix[i - level][j];
float d = t.terrainmatrix[i][j];
float e = t.terrainmatrix[i - level / 2][j - level / 2] = (a + b + c + d) / 4 + ((float)Rnd(100) / 100.0f) * range;
}
}

// squares
for (unsigned i = x1 + 2 * level; i < x2; i += level)
{
for (unsigned j = y1 + 2 * level; j < y2; j += level)
{
float a = t.terrainmatrix[i - level][j - level];
float b = t.terrainmatrix[i][j - level];
float c = t.terrainmatrix[i - level][j];
float d = t.terrainmatrix[i][j];
float e = t.terrainmatrix[i - level / 2][j - level / 2];

float f = t.terrainmatrix[i - level][j - level / 2] = (a + c + e + t.terrainmatrix[i - 3 * level / 2][j - level / 2]) / 4 + ((float)Rnd(100) / 100.0f) * range;
float g = t.terrainmatrix[i - level / 2][j - level] = (a + b + e + t.terrainmatrix[i - level / 2][j - 3 * level / 2]) / 4 + ((float)Rnd(100) / 100.0f) * range;
}
}

DiamondSquare(x1, y1, x2, y2, range / 2, level / 2);
}