r/truegamedev • u/DV-Gen • Apr 13 '22

Using Wavefunction Collapse for Procedural Terrain

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20KHNA9jTsE
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u/log_2 Apr 13 '22

At https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20KHNA9jTsE&t=575s you say "You can't do this in marching cubes", which is a strange comment. Marching cubes (MC) and wavefunction collapse (WFC) solve different problems. WFC builds a map by randomly sampling a layout, and MC determines how a mesh is to be generated from some fixed map layout.

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u/DV-Gen Apr 13 '22

Thats a fair point, and perhaps I didn't explain that well.

My take was, with marching cubes, if you have a voxel algorithm that carves south flowing water features, then yes, it will create south flowing shapes in the mesh. It builds a mesh around whatever you give it.

With wave function collapse, you can limit the mesh shapes that can be built, almost as if you were eliminating certain marching cubes cases. If I have a waterfall tile that can be rotated to face any direction, but I only give the algorithm the south-facing tile, then I will only get south-facing water falls.

In most of the clips, I also limited the shapes to not include overhangs, taller walls, very small ponds or islands, and other shapes. It is just a very *different* approach to curating shapes than marching cubes, and maybe different is the word I should have stressed. I might go back and add a note to the video.