How do I generate terrain like that of Scorched Earth?

Posted by alex on Game Development See other posts from Game Development or by alex
Published on 2011-03-06T11:39:54Z Indexed on 2011/03/06 16:19 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 312

Filed under:

JavaScript

|

procedural-generation

|

terrain

Hi, I'm a web developer and I am keen to start writing my own games.

For familiarity, I've chosen JavaScript and canvas element for now.

I want to generate some terrain like that in Scorched Earth.

Scorched Earth

My first attempt made me realise I couldn't just randomise the y value; there had to be some sanity in the peaks and troughs.

I have Googled around a bit, but either I can't find something simple enough for me or I am using the wrong keywords.

Can you please show me what sort of algorithm I would use to generate something in the example, keeping in mind that I am completely new to games programming (since making Breakout in 2003 with Visual Basic anyway)?

© Game Development or respective owner

Related posts about JavaScript

CHAT ROOMs 7 by 6

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I am looking for chatroom on one page with 7 loggedin users and 6+rows for say 42 users.these users will keep on adding wthnew users.Need urgent help.A PRETTY UNUSUAL Q FOR MOST OF U.What is MORE REQ new features: Usernames are unique to users currently chatting You can see a "currently chatting"… >>> More
Integrating JavaScript Unit Tests with Visual Studio

as seen on Stephen Walter - Search for 'Stephen Walter'
Modern ASP.NET web applications take full advantage of client-side JavaScript to provide better interactivity and responsiveness. If you are building an ASP.NET application in the right way, you quickly end up with lots and lots of JavaScript code. When writing server code, you should be writing… >>> More
Has Javascript developed beyond what it was originally designed to do?

as seen on Programmers - Search for 'Programmers'
I've been talking with a friend about the purpose of Javascript, when and how it should be used, etc. He quoted that: JavaScript was designed to add interactivity to HTML pages [...] JavaScript gives HTML designers a programming tool HTML authors are normally not programmers… >>> More
PHP, javascript, single quote problems with IE when passing variable from ajax post to javascript fu

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hi! I have been trying to get this to work for a while, and I suspect there's an easy solution that I just can't find. My head feels like jelly and I would really appreciate any help. My main page.php makes a .post() to backend.php and fetches a list of cities which it echoes in the form of: <li… >>> More
Javascript in XSL that is loaded by Javascript

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Is there anyway to have javascript run when a XSL sheet has been applied to an XML file by Javascript? I am using a JQuery plugin to apply the sheet to the xml but the javascript that is located inside of the XSL file will not run. I put the Javascript at the bottom of the file and it still does… >>> More

Related posts about procedural-generation

Procedural Generation of tile-based 2d World

as seen on Game Development - Search for 'Game Development'
I am writing a 2d game that uses tile-based top-down graphics to build the world (i.e. the ground plane). Manually made this works fine. Now I want to generate the ground plane procedurally at run time. In other words: I want to place the tiles (their textures) randomised on the fly. Of course I… >>> More
Tile Engine - Procedural generation, Data structures, Rendering methods - A lot of effort question!

as seen on Game Development - Search for 'Game Development'
Isometric Tile and GameObject rendering. To achive the desired looking game I need to take into consideration which tiles need to be drawn first and which last. What I used is a Object that is TileRenderQueue that you would give it a tile list and it will give you a queue on which ones to draw based… >>> More
Difference Procedural Generation and Random Generation

as seen on Programmers - Search for 'Programmers'
Today, I got into an argument about the term "procedural generation". My point was that its different from "classic" random generation in the way that procedural is based on a more mathematical, fractal based, algorithm leading to a more "realistic" distribution and the usual randomness of most… >>> More
Manually writing a dx11 tessellation shader

as seen on Game Development - Search for 'Game Development'
I am looking for resources on what are the steps of manually implementing tessellation (I'm using Unity cg). Today it seems that it is all the rage to hide most of the gpu code far away and use rather rigid simplifications such as unity's SURFace shaders. And it seems useless unless you're doing… >>> More
Map Generation Algorithms for Minecraft Clone

as seen on Game Development - Search for 'Game Development'
I'm making a Minecraft clone for the sake of it (with some inspriation from Dwarf Fortress) and had a few questions about the way the world generation is handled. Things I want it to cover: Biomes such as hills, mountains, forests, etc. Caves/caverns/tunnels Procedural (so it stretches to infinity… >>> More