Map Magic World Generator - a node based procedural and infinite game map tool

I guess you've got to make little graphs for all the biomes such as this:


And here is the button to save it as a graph:

It really should be in docs, that's why I'm currently updating wiki.


BTW speaking about docs: today I've finished the descriptions for all of the map generators.
I thought that this little feature will be handy: you can open up generator wiki page directly from the graph:

 

ya that is how I did that part as I knew about the raw Input. that was the easy part.

 

Thank you, that event should make it much easier than trying to poll for it like I was thinking. Thanks!

 

I tried this and it doesn't seem to work on non pinned terrains in the built version of the project. Non pinned terrains still remain black in the build. It did address some of the other issue though. Any thoughts. Thanks.

 

I think you need to explain what you think "biome" means. A RAW file is just an two dimensional ordered set of floats, a greyscale image. In MapMagic a "biome" is an -entire graph- that can be layered within another graph using the -biome node-. You say you're trying to make biome's with a raw file, but a biome in MapMagic is an entire graph, not a raw file.

Now if you want to use your raw files to define where a biome is located, you can use your raw input files going into a curve node and feed that in a biome input.

The point of the "biome" node in mapmagic is to create a standalone snow area or desert area, etc. And then use a top layer to manager what gets turned on where.

What is it that you are actually trying to do? Place trees? Texture terrain? Manage heightmaps? You can control any of those with raw files and you can group any of those using biome nodes.

 

Any help, the grass dont spawn in all terrain
http://prntscr.com/g7jpx8
http://prntscr.com/g7jqp0

 

@borjanews are you using any other third party software to improve grass?

 

I know all about making the actually biome..... That is the easier part...The issue I had, was the asset files... Something I do not use.. and was not clear to me, as I never seen another program for terrains use before so that was new to me.. and I did not see it in the Doc's..But I did find a video after the fact after I figured it out....anyways Thanks anyways... The making of the actually biome is not the part I needed help with, I'm not using Map Magic for anything, but blending my biomes..... That is it. The way Denis stated about Raw input, and height, which where I had to make my graph when I edited the biome node. I made my Raw Input, and Height node, very small graph, which is what he said, I did this before, he said that.. as it made sense to.. That part I had no issues with... It was the asset data, I was unclear, hope your understanding the part I had issues with. sorry if I didn't explained it not clear enough......

 

@malkere as seen here... This is what I did before he said this, that is what I was replying to... I already knew about this part. I was having issues with the asset data only.. Hope its more clear where the issue was..it had NOTHING to do with knowing what a biome is, if I didn't know what one was...I would of been fired years ago LOL......

 

Yep, you are right, that should not affect build in any way. I'll test it out and see what I can do with this issue.

It seems that you are exceeding the maximum grass limit for the terrain. Try lowering the grass density or change the Patch Res value in Grass Output. Anyways, the density of 20 is too high, I'd really like to recommend you lowering it just because of the performance reasons.
I've already saw these images somewhere today

recon0303, I'm sorry for not being able to get your though right, but MapMagic got different users with the different experience - some know what biomes are while others don't. If I can't determine the user experience level I usually assume that he is novice - it's not a big deal if pro will get an obvious response (he can clarify it then), but if a novice will get something that's out of his league he will be extremely confused and may give up being curious.
So - could you find out what you needed from the biomes video?

 

I explained what I needed, not sure how much more clear I can be about the asset data... Your BIOME nodes require asset data.... I'm using MY OWN RAW FILES that I DID NOT make in MAP MAGIC..... So I'm not asking for what a BIOME IS....or how to make a BIOME... at all... as I make my own.. in another program...

The only part I'm using in Map Magic, is to BLEND MY BIOMES......That is it.. The issue I had, was, which was confusing to me, was the fact you have a BIOME NODE, and in general settings, one looks like it needs the asset File...The other a matrix asset file...

So Step by step to what I did, you can tell me what I did wrong, if you would please....Again, I hope you are clear On the part I'm using of Map Magic...

Step One....I added Map Magic from game object 3D, Which added the the terrain for Map Magic....
Step two I open the editor to make a graph.... I make a Biome node... Which then I create the the data file from the biome node. This shows this in your video...Step , by Step was followed...

I edited that biome node... Which a new graph opened.....I made a mini graph, as I want to use my raw files.. So I added a Raw Input node , with a height in this graph nothing more.....browsed for my raw file. added it, I had to import it, as well otherwise you get an error.. So you are require to save the file. I connected the two nodes..

Now I exited the biome node... I added a constant node, to check it , and changed 0 to 1...to test my terrain. it works.. I did all this before I ever talk to you...


Now...pinned more terrains .... I added a Simple Form, set to gradiant Z... I also made a noise,Curve , and Normalize ... connected each together, to the biome that I made.....

Now I have not made my others biome yet, as I was getting some errors every time I would do these steps and sometimes, the terrain would work, and sometimes it didn't


The Main thing that confused me is the general settings, also has the asset generator , as well as a biome node, I don't understand the difference 100%..

These are the steps I took....Let me know if that made it more clear...

Again this has nothing to do with knowing what a "BIOME " IS....as I said, no idea where this idea came from....as I never mentioned anything about NOT knowing what a biome is, I mentioned, many times, about the asset File.....and I needed help with this....So again if I was unclear, sorry but I can't be anymore clear then saying this and that I have 20 years experience, with all kinds of terrain tools, and THAT I'M NOT....using Map Magic to even make a height map at all......I need it to Blend My own terrains.....that I made, which have 5 biomes, which as an example, are swamp, Forest, etc...I can't share it as its for a game... as we are a small company, that do work for AAA and indies...

I used to do this another way but when I seen how Map Magic does it with there blending tools, it seem to be faster way and nicer way that the old school way with Photoshop ....anyways....Let me know if this is enough information ..

Last, if its still NOT, I can email you a video of me doing the steps, but it would need to be emailed and NOT posted publicly as it shows some of our terrains, that we do not want public. Thanks.

 

That's the key to all of it, I guess. Are you talking about the errors in the console? What were these errors?

PS Feel free to email me.

 

is there a way I can get you on Skype? possible I been working on this all weekend, on a deadline . Would be great. if you could. Thanks!

 

You must be in a real rush if you are busy with this Sunday evening (at least my region time) Check your PM.

 

I keep height data and textures out of the biomes. My biomes only have trees and grass. This keeps things simple as all my height stuff is in one group. Same for textures. I only have 8 textures (RTP) so it's simpler to organize them in one group. It also means I can turn on and off biomes as needed without affecting the underlying height and texture.

 

Hi, I'm using mapmagic with uNature, but I don't want to use the built-in integration of MM&uNature. I have my own integration scripts and only use the interactive tree feature of uNature.
But I found it impossible to deactivate the integration between MM and uNature. In uNature's Extension window, there is a checkbox to let me enable or disable the integration, but whenever I disable it, it will be enabled again after the scripts get compiled.
I suspect it's some settings in MM's scripts that forced he integration, any ideas where should I change in scripts to let me control the integration?

 

I've updated the documentation on creating a custom generator. You might find it useful if you are going to write your own generator or update it to make compatible with the last MM version.

And BTW I've updated the docs for all of the MM generators too.


Harekelas, you've got to remove WrGlobalDefineSwitcher.dll from MapMagic folder (Editor\Plugins). This way you can set scripting define symbols manually (Edit - Project Settings - Player - Other settings - Scripting Define Symbols). Make sure that UN_MapMagic keyword is not present in that string.

 

I still get open seams at 0,0 sometimes =[
Must be related to slight noise differences, or? If it's only me...

My height weld's are at 4?

 

Thanks, that helped alot ^_^

 

Thanks for the tip! I'll try it, for now I just commented all scripts related to #if UN_MapMagic

 

malkere, could you please report an issue? I'll need a screenshots of your scene and the graph.

Any time

 

Is terrain generated through Map Magic optimized for mobile devices? i am looking for making off-road simulation game.

 

Would it be possible to extend Map Magic to Cubic Projection?
So that Planetary Terrains could be created.
With the disappearance of Planetary Terrain v2 by Henry V, map magic might be even more interesting. So I'm not talking about atmospheres, etc ..
There are already a lot in the asset store. But procedural planets would be very interesting.
Would be cool to see in a future update.

 

I'm currently working on a Custom Shader Output, that will replace RTP, CTS and MegaSplat Outputs (actually they have much in common). It will not apply CTS components to all of the terrains, actually, it can use no CTS component at all - just CTS Profile assigned to generator. This way it does nor lags in editor neither creates black terrains in build. You - and any other MapMagic user - can try it by getting a MapMagic Beta from GitLab, just email me your order number.

haroonyousaf, MapMagic uses the standard Unity terrains. If you can optimize them (by setting pixel error and base map distance) for your target platform then you can use MapMagic. You can always try the evaluation version to try to optimize terrains before purchasing MM.

Diego_Graphics, since MapMagic uses the standard terrains it cannot make cubes or spheres - you just can't rotate a terrain to make it vertical. Making this will require a separate terrain engine, it's out of the MapMagic scope. However I have plans for creating a pseudo-planetary terrain - it will be flat but tiled in all directions. Guess with the assets like Curved World you can make it look like a planet.

 

@Diego_Graphics you could generate the terrain, then use a convert to mesh script or tool to achieve any of those effects. Once the terrain is generated the tree locations, splatmaps, heightmaps, all the data is there on the terrain. Anything is possible. That's not at all what MapMagic or any of the terrain generation tools are built for though.

 

This idea is cool! I was thinking about using MM to make a 4 direction tile-able solution to make a planet.
Then I can link the coordinate system to latitude and longitude and make some climate differences through skybox system!

 

Hi,

It would be very nice to add some sort of "absolute paint" mode in the Voxeland output in MapMagic.
This way we could blend different bloc types, not just on the surfaces, without modifying the landscape shape.

If I want the RTP triplanar tessellated shader working with Voxeland, do I have to ask it to Thomasz Stobierski from RTP ?
If I wanna have megasplat working with Voxeland in MapMagic, do I have to ask it to Jason Boots from Megasplat ?
If not, I am asking those things to you.

I am starting to experiment Voxeland in MapMagic, and I really enjoy it.

 

I'm playing with the demo of Mapmagic it seem that it will take me a while before finding the graph parameters for good looking terrains. It remind me of world machine however I'm far from expert about this kind of terrain creation with nodes.

This asset really need more graph examples, something like plain, desert, mountains, swamps, islands or forests will really help to kickstart a project.

Maybe this has been already discussed, but I think that will be also nice if there is some kind of community sharing website for graphs. I'm sure a lot of people already created some nice good looking terrains!

 

(Talking to anyone not the quote, sharing my experience)

It's important to note that this is very limited and will crash any dream of seamless space to planet gameplay, I tried to go in that way but it might cause more problem than solve them.

If anyone want to use such a system (which is a 4d torus if it has wrap around) they need a transition cut from space to atmosphere, and you can't scout location from space AT ALL (it's physically impossible), I know some think that a 2d map representation can do the job, it doesnt lol, I did and broke my heart and my sanity! If you go up to the north pole on such a map you appear on the south one, that's now how a planet work.

I have seen many project being abandoned because they didn't anticipate those minor problem. Don't be like them. I got back to working on a proper planet system with inflated cube, the corner are the thing to stitch, the equatorial ring is actually contiguous and can be assume to be a big array (that's 4 faces done easy), the problem is now that you have two pole where the edge don't match a clean grid lay out with the ring, but if you figure out the corner, it's not a problem. Deformation is less a problem since there is a well known way to mitigate it.

The way I handle it (still ongoing) is that I consider all face separate construct, I only spawn terrain around the player radius (above a low poly proxy planet that is only visual) and only if it overlap a face. SO at worse I have 3 terrains at the same time (planet size planet), and use a reference system to single out edge/corner tiles to stitch data by sharing them between terrain.

If you don't have planet size planet (ie smaller than the visible radius) then you don't have problem at all, just generate the whole thing and tesselate for LOD.

 

I want to replace my personal world generator with the vastly superior Map Magic. Anyone have any ideas as to how to go about this?

My Project:

My project depends heavily on a finite world. It features a saving system that accounts for nearly everything in a chunk-based manner: rocks, trees, buildings, so on. Everything can be changed at runtime. I would like to include minor terrain modification at runtime as well.​

Integration concept:

When a new game is set up in the Main Menu scene, initialization requires a one-time generation step. In a 'headless' manner (no world rendering, camera 'loading' display), Map Magic generates each chunk. When a chunk is finished, terrain data is saved to disk and all the objects Map Magic placed are converted into additional save data. After the generation step the Game Scene is loaded. My scripts will load the data Map Magic helped create and manage chunk loading / unloading. The Game Scene won't have a Map Magic object.
​

A few questions:

1. Is any of this unreasonable?
2. Can I force Map Magic to generate chunk data with disabled renderers?
3. Can I force Map Magic to generate at a given location? Pinned or unpinned?
4. Are there MM hooks for when a chunk or all chunks are finished?

EDIT:
questions 2, 3, 4:

https://gitlab.com/denispahunov/map...at-some-custom-area-is-there-any-way-to-do-it​

 

1. Not at all.
2. According to the documentation yes. I have only tried to briefly once and didn't get it to work, and have not found the time to look into it/provide Denis with an example scene displaying the error, unfortunately. I actually found that MapMagic generates the terrains faster than I can load them off of the disk, so I let it create them, and then do with them everything you're talking about. Place encounters, manage resource nodes, save player buildings, etc.
3. According to the documentation yes. I've never needed this and so haven't tried, but I think you could command it internally not too difficultly, as well as use "spawn near objects" manually placed objects to control generation/degeneration.
4. Yes, I also use a different technique of generating each terrain with a script on it, something MapMagic can also do. When the script becomes enabled or disabled it calls all of the functions I need for regeneration or destruction.

 

I'd like to endorse this idea: I've created a special page for that and added two first biomes as an example. Enjoy:

Community Graphs.

The "Paint" mode does exactly what you are talking about. Am I missing something?

It's a Voxeland question Anyways: If you are going to use RTP you just have to buy it - Voxeland is compatible with it out of the box: video

Speaking about MegaSplat: it's not supported yet, but you don't have to ask anyone, it's in my to-do list and Jason is aware of it.

Obviously, this will not make your planet really round. All of the cheat will get out if only you would try to leave the planet, but as long as you walk on foot it would be okay.
I have not thought about a tiling algorithm yet, but when I'll get into this task I'll try to think about the cube pattern at the first place.

I don't think that generating all the terrain at once would be a good idea - it will take lots of time especially when the land is vast and user CPU has few cores. I'd like to recommend you using gradual generate, when new terrains are created only when player comes to them. The way MM work by the default. You can save only the generated terrains - or even only the changed terrains to reduce the save size.

You can do this with the Events.

 

Great! This is the terrains from the biome tutorial right? I was wondering where to find this.
I will try this asap Thanks!

I played a little bit more with Map Magic and I'm starting to get pretty good result. Once graphs is mastered I thinks this asset is fantastic and really powerful to create a good range of different terrain and biomes. Definitely love it

Also I have other questions:

• Does it possible to generate a simplified 2D map of multiple chunk from a specified size (5x5 tiles or more)? I need something to represent the height and some objects (trees, villages, etc...)? To be more specific I need something that a player can use to locate himself.
• Does it possible to use something like the scatter and the stamp to create different biome on a map, where each stamp will be a random pickup of a list of biome?
• Does it possible to automatically generate a lower resolution terrain for surrounding tiles to create some kind of horizon?

 

Hi!

Happy to share some tests between MapMagic and the new Volumetric Fog & Mist 8 to add infinite cloud layers and thick fog (to conceal the terrain chunks popping-up). Support for alphatest trees, billboards and particles has been improved as well in this new major release.

MapMagic is a wonderful and impressive tool in terms of performance, allowing real-time generation with very low performance hit. Check out this video:

To create this video, I just used one of the demos provided, adding Volumetric Fog & Mist and Beautify for some additional FX. Cheers!

 

I'll give it a go this weekend and share my results (if worthwhile) since it sounds like others have had similar needs.


Has anyone managed to create a nice non-photo-based island(s) mask? Would make a lovely contribution to the Community_graphs page.
My personal generation scripts used an equivalent pyramid mask + noise + high turbulence.
Any chance turbulence could be a standalone node? Maybe a highly turbulent noise node that dynamically creates an image that can be mapped similar to a raw image?

 

Sorry if I missed it but is there a tutorial on MegaSplat and MapMagic integration? Having some difficulties.

Additionally, Is there a way to grow or shrink an output?

Thanks!

 

Yep. That's the biomes from that video.

Do you mean a heightmap or minimap? In the first case you can call the Calculate function to generate Matrix (consider it float[,]) of the the area you want with a resolution you want. It will generate splatmaps and objects as well.

Theoretically you could use Blob Generator's output as a biome mask, but you can get an issues on the chunk seams. Blobs cannot be placed between chunks. I'd like to recommend you using noise with a low Detail level instead. It's more complicated but will give you a nice results.

Not now. I was experimenting with this feature, but it's still not yet implemented.

Thrawn75, Thanks for the video! Greate you could integrate Volumetric Fog & Mist with MM!

You might use a Curve like this one:

It inverts (1-value) all the values that are higher than 0.5. Actually, this algorithm is applied in each noise iteration when using turbulence. And since it happens per-iteration turbulence cannot be made as a separate mode.

Since the new version a new node would be used for that: Custom Shader Output. It's currently in beta stage (you can join the beta if you email me your order or invoice number). You can find the steps to make it work with MegaSplat here.

 

Hello any can help me ? i put cts but i cant add cts in map magic
http://prntscr.com/gcwnga
Any help?
Thanks

 

Is it possible that some form of blurring could take place within a Noise Generator, therefore eliminating the safe borders required by the Blur Generator? I find that for certain land forms, blurring is 100% needed to reduce jagged terrain (for example the tops of sand dunes that use Turbulence, when the dunes generate at awkward angles to the terrain's polygons).

Trying to get really smooth dunes is difficult because you'll see occasional jagged areas that aren't blurred due to Safe Borders.



Same thing kinda goes for almost any generator that uses Safe Borders unfortunately, there's always areas along terrain borders that suffer. It seems for this instance, using blur and 0 Safe Borders, with larger Weld Margins numbers helps the most, but then there's the floating object issue.

 

I still have stitching errors at 0,0 very frequently. Does no one else get this? Weld margins are at 4, but I still get half meter gaps.

 

The paint mode applies like a projection from top to bottom.
For exemple, there is no easy way to paint sand on the floor of caves underground without modifying the terrain shape.
Or paint veins of gold in the rocks without obstructing the existing tunnels.

What I imagine, would work like the absolute mode (thickness and height inputs) but instead of placing blocks, it paint the blocks.

 

borjanews, what MapMagic version are you using (see About foldout)? Try updating to 1.8.3.

Exbleative, noise generator should not blur anything, but I guess I know what causes that issue. Might be safe borders do not take the last (the border one) pixel into account, I've got to find it out for sure.

malkere, is this issue reproducable? If so could you please email me your scene (only scene with no objects except MM and a graph if you are using separate file for it).

Hexaedre, so it should replace only already existing blocks, leaving empty ones ("air" blocks) untouched? At first glance it sounds easy, but Voxeland Output was designed that way that it does not get any information from Voxeland data, but in this case it should. So it might be tricky. I will see what I can do, but do not expect this feature soon.

 

@Wright I actually messaged you a week ago with a download link to a project I built to show the error.

 

I realise you don't want to blur noise by default, just wondering if there'd be some way to integrate a blur or smoothing effect into it (a custom generator maybe) to sidestep the safe borders stuff.

Honestly have never thought safe borders is a great solution (but probably the only one! ), especially with blur, when you'll always have a border of unblurred pixels for every terrain segment. The more you blur something, the more obvious the borders will be as well. Probably not a huge issue for most terrain types/games, but if you need super smooth terrain it's a problem.

Thanks for looking into it! Regards.

 

Hello,
I am not sure if that is bug, but when i use Stamp node i got different size depending on resolution.

How to solve that?

Thanks

 

You have to adjust the noise size accordingly (in your case raise or lower the size, if that is the noise that defines you craters).

I had that problem a few version back. The resolution pretty uch changed the tiling. Before, it just added details. I still cannot say if this was a bug in one version or not. I´ve just tried to reproduce it, but in 1.8.2 all works fine again.

 

I tried remove noise node but problem is still here, problem is in Scatter node or Stamp. Im using 1.8.2

 

Yep, that's a bug. Node effect should not depend on resolution. I'll fix it for 1.8.4, I plan to submit it tomorrow.

Btw in 1.8.4 Custom Shader Output will be able to export not only RTP, CTS and MegaSplat materials, but will be able to create per-channel control texture and assign it for any custom terrain shader:

 

Hi Wright. I'm experiencing border changes after i move across my pinned terrain. They look so flat and on other side border of pinned terrain look like a giant wall. Well I'm using a 4k height map but I change resolution to 1k in general settings and also I change terrain size to 4k with 800m height.
So my question is why I'm getting noticeable border change ? Or do I need to scale my pinned terrain like you did in your demo video ?
well i did scale my terrain using 4k map and having 1k terrain resolution for better quality and performance ,about size of 1000 and 800 height but some terrain showing. height difference in newly generating terrains

 

Hi @Wright ,

Just purchased Voxeland5 and MM last night and after importing I ended up with ~214 compile errors about missing "using Voxeland5" in a lot of the generator scripts.

I added the "using Voxeland5" and as expected they went away, however, not sure that is the correct fix as everyone would have had this issue.

Also, I have several errors remaining as show below, I could fix them but no sure why they are showing up in the first place.

Assets/MapMagic/Demo/Scripts/GeneratingLabel.cs(11,19): error CS0234: The type or namespace name `MapMagic' does not exist in the namespace `MapMagic'. Are you missing an assembly reference?

Assets/MapMagic/Demo/Scripts/GuiController.cs(27,20): error CS0234: The type or namespace name `MapMagic' does not exist in the namespace `MapMagic'. Are you missing an assembly reference?

Assets/MapMagic/Demo/Scripts/GuiController.cs(27,56): error CS0234: The type or namespace name `MapMagic' does not exist in the namespace `MapMagic'. Are you missing an assembly reference?

Assets/MapMagic/Demo/Scripts/GuiController.cs(27,56): error CS0234: The type or namespace name `MapMagic' does not exist in the namespace `MapMagic'. Are you missing an assembly reference?

Assets/MapMagic/Main/Preview.cs(15,28): error CS0246: The type or namespace name `IMapMagic' could not be found. Are you missing an assembly reference?

Assets/MapMagic/Main/Preview.cs(89,17): error CS0246: The type or namespace name `IMapMagic' could not be found. Are you missing an assembly reference?