Procedural City

This project was a research project as part of the Computer Graphics(CS4800) class at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs.

When the user presses the spacebar, a new city is generated using Perlin Noise to determine the height of each city block. The individual buildings within each block varies the base height of the block to give the block more artificial, man-made look. Each individual building is made up of a series of floors and each floor customizes itself based on a simple algorithm that uses a random number generator and the provided height of the floor.

The city also generates a number of city parks or nature areas based on a percentage of the total area of the city. Each park randomly picks a type of park: bamboo forest, North American forest, plains, or lake. The bamboo forest 'grows' each shoot based on a Perlin Noise map that used the world position of the shoot as a seed. The North American forest uses Perlin Noise to determine where each tree, bush, and flower is placed. To make the forest look less organized, each item is rotated by a random amount. The plains follow the same logic as the North American forest with more of a focus on flowers, bushes, and grasses. The lake uses the cellular automata generation technique to generate a unique but realistic lake.

In addition to city blocks, buildings, and parks, the city also generates a number of graveyards based on the average number of graveyards per acre of real world cities. Each graveyard has an upkeep value that determines how rundown the graveyard looks, this value is determined by the Perlin value of the surrounding city blocks.