[ Lord Logics Fractal Landscape ] Type: LL_FRAC /? for help What the heck, the source is included as well . . . Anyway, no doc's here, just a basic info file on this. I wrote it mainly for a friend of mine that was doing a class project which entailed entering in a bunch of data to generate a landscape for placing a house or something. Anyway, we didn't see a need to enter in the data if we could have the computer do it, so I wrote this. It didn't take me long to write, and if you look at the source code you can see that. I was actually amazed that it worked. Its not very often you can say "hey, I think I'll write a such and such program" and then have it working within two hours or so. Well, this one was *almost* like that. Took me about two hours to get it "generally" working, but then I had to add a few features to make it more user-friendly. Basically, in case you were wondering, the way this works is as follows: Let's say you have the following points: 1 3 1 3 2 3 1 3 1 Ok, first, you take the average of all points 1 and add some height variance to it to make point 2. You then average the upper left heights and sub-divide all sides and the center in the same fashion. Repeat this a certain number of iterations, and boom, you have a cool fractal landscape. From the side, after 5 iterations, one row may look like: 4 5 5 | | 3 4 2 | | | | 5 3 5 | 5 | | | | | | 4 1 1 4 5 | | | | | | | | | | | 5 | | 5 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 1 5 4 5 3 5 4 5 2 5 4 5 3 5 4 5 1 See, you take the height of the two 1's and average them then add some variance to it and that will then give you point #2. You then (working to the left) take the left 1 and the 2, average 'em and add a variance. That gives you point 3. Average 1 and 3 and add the variance and that gives you 4. 4 and 1 average with the variance makes 5. You then do that for all substeps, and then you have a fractal mountain (sort of . . . actually, you have a line, but had you been doing it with four points, you would have a fractal. Almost . . . Fine, its a crappy example and you didn't learn anything from it. I don't really have much time to explain it. Anyway, the guy I wrote it for says the landscape load too slow for his tastes. I agree. Unfortunately, I don't have the file structure for the 3DS format, so, I had to use what I could figure out. If you have the 3DS format, or any other graphical format that you want this to be coded to fit, email it to me (the description of the file format) Email it with some money and it will get done faster :) Basically, I need to know how to define vertices (points) and faces (triangles that join 3 points together) as well as any "header" information. Then I just write a little new routine or two to this, and *BOOM* a new version. If you want Rivers, Trees, Boulders, or anything like that added, you'll have to give me some money. I really need money. Also, if you know where I could find the IPAS toolkit for 3D Studio, I'd be interested in porting this into an internal routine, although I'm not sure what all that entails. I have read on the network that the routines are public domain, so if you know what FTP site they are on, PLEASE email me the info. I am a lowly college sophomore and don't have the $250 to get it from AutoDesk. Oh yeah, this program LL_FRAC.EXE is public domain/ shareware/ freeware/ whatever you want to call it. If you want to send me money, hey, I'm game :) If you want to give me a job for any reason, again, I'm game. Email me: ketrenoj@ucs.orst.edu -or- If its after June 1, 1993, email, ummm, peterl@hood.uofport.edu and ask him to forward the message to me, and I'll get back to you. Money can be mailed to: James Ketrenos 885 S.W. 84th Ct. Portland, OR 97225 And 3D Studio and anything else I may have mentioned that is Copy- righted by someone else is Copyright by Autodesk or whoever it is that owns the rights of the program I mentioned. Clear? Good. [ Lord Logics ]