Reputation: 143
I'm trying to implement the Perlin Noise algorithm in 2D with a single octave with a size of 16x16. I'm using this as heightmap data for a terrain, however it only seems to work in one axis. Whenever the sample point moves to a new Y section in the Perlin Noise grid, the gradient is very different from what I expect (for example, it often flips from 0.98 to -0.97, which is a very sudden change).
This image shows the staggered terrain in the z direction (which is the y axis in the 2D Perlin Noise grid)
I've put the code that calculates which sample point to use at the end since it's quite long and I believe it's not where the issue is, but essentially I scale down the terrain to match the Perlin Noise grid (16x16) and then sample through all the points.
So the code that calculates out the gradient at a sample point is the following:
// Find the gradient at a certain sample point
float PerlinNoise::gradientAt(Vector2 point)
{
// Decimal part of float
float relativeX = point.x - (int)point.x;
float relativeY = point.y - (int)point.y;
Vector2 relativePoint = Vector2(relativeX, relativeY);
vector<float> weights(4);
// Find the weights of the 4 surrounding points
weights = surroundingWeights(point);
float fadeX = fadeFunction(relativePoint.x);
float fadeY = fadeFunction(relativePoint.y);
float lerpA = MathUtils::lerp(weights[0], weights[1], fadeX);
float lerpB = MathUtils::lerp(weights[2], weights[3], fadeX);
float lerpC = MathUtils::lerp(lerpA, lerpB, fadeY);
return lerpC;
}
I believe the issue is somewhere here, in the function that calculates the weights for the 4 surrounding points of a sample point, but I can't seem to figure out what is wrong since all the values seem sensible in the function when stepping through it.
// Find the surrounding weight of a point
vector<float> PerlinNoise::surroundingWeights(Vector2 point){
// Produces correct values
vector<Vector2> surroundingPoints = surroundingPointsOf(point);
vector<float> weights;
for (unsigned i = 0; i < surroundingPoints.size(); ++i) {
// The corner to the sample point
Vector2 cornerToPoint = surroundingPoints[i].toVector(point);
// Getting the seeded vector from the grid
float x = surroundingPoints[i].x;
float y = surroundingPoints[i].y;
Vector2 seededVector = baseGrid[x][y];
// Dot product between the seededVector and corner to the sample point vector
float dotProduct = cornerToPoint.dot(seededVector);
weights.push_back(dotProduct);
}
return weights;
}
Setting up the heightmap and getting the sample point. Variables 'wrongA' and 'wrongA' is an example of when the gradient flips and changes suddenly.
void HeightMap::GenerateRandomTerrain() {
int perlinGridSize = 16;
PerlinNoise perlin_noise = PerlinNoise(perlinGridSize, perlinGridSize);
numVertices = RAW_WIDTH * RAW_HEIGHT;
numIndices = (RAW_WIDTH - 1) * (RAW_HEIGHT - 1) * 6;
vertices = new Vector3[numVertices];
textureCoords = new Vector2[numVertices];
indices = new GLuint[numIndices];
float perlinScale = RAW_HEIGHT/ (float) (perlinGridSize -1);
float height = 50;
float wrongA = perlin_noise.gradientAt(Vector2(0, 68.0f / perlinScale));
float wrongB = perlin_noise.gradientAt(Vector2(0, 69.0f / perlinScale));
for (int x = 0; x < RAW_WIDTH; ++x) {
for (int z = 0; z < RAW_HEIGHT; ++z) {
int offset = (x* RAW_WIDTH) + z;
float xVal = (float)x / perlinScale;
float yVal = (float)z / perlinScale;
float noise = perlin_noise.gradientAt(Vector2( xVal , yVal));
vertices[offset] = Vector3(x * HEIGHTMAP_X, noise * height, z * HEIGHTMAP_Z);
textureCoords[offset] = Vector2(x * HEIGHTMAP_TEX_X, z * HEIGHTMAP_TEX_Z);
}
}
numIndices = 0;
for (int x = 0; x < RAW_WIDTH - 1; ++x) {
for (int z = 0; z < RAW_HEIGHT - 1; ++z) {
int a = (x * (RAW_WIDTH)) + z;
int b = ((x + 1)* (RAW_WIDTH)) + z;
int c = ((x + 1)* (RAW_WIDTH)) + (z + 1);
int d = (x * (RAW_WIDTH)) + (z + 1);
indices[numIndices++] = c;
indices[numIndices++] = b;
indices[numIndices++] = a;
indices[numIndices++] = a;
indices[numIndices++] = d;
indices[numIndices++] = c;
}
}
BufferData();
}
Upvotes: 2
Views: 260
Reputation: 143
Turned out the issue was in the interpolation stage:
float lerpA = MathUtils::lerp(weights[0], weights[1], fadeX);
float lerpB = MathUtils::lerp(weights[2], weights[3], fadeX);
float lerpC = MathUtils::lerp(lerpA, lerpB, fadeY);
I had the interpolation in the y axis the wrong way around, so it should have been:
lerp(lerpB, lerpA, fadeY)
Instead of:
lerp(lerpA, lerpB, fadeY)
Upvotes: 3