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Baldrax's Development Notes
Hi, I'm the developer of this toolset. I have been in the Visual Effects industry for about 30 years and have been playing Dungeons and Dragons since I was about 11. I really like the look of TaleSpire but after a few projects utilizing Terrain I decided that there has to be a better way. Others had paved the way to creating the code to import/export TaleSpire slab codes, so I decided to try to use Houdini's terrain generation tools to make terrains for TaleSpire and that is how this project was born.
I do this in my spare time as a Hobby so the development is mainly based on my interests and needs. I do my best to make these tools accessible to others. I'm often asked if I will ever make a stand-alone version of the tools, but that is outside the scope of this project as it heavily relies on Houdini to do the heavy lifting, but I do have thoughts on that (see below).
I've been thinking of ways to make biomes a little easier to deal with, especially when using multiple biomes. While playing Valheim it gave me an idea. They basically have features, essentially masks, that are shared between biomes. So if there are Trees in a location in one biome, when another biome boarders it, there are trees in that same place. So I'm going to start building out a set of "Standard Biome Features" that can be used internally with the biomes. These features would be something like this:
- tall_vegetation 1 2 3 (trees)
- low_vegetation 1 2 3 (shrubs/bushes)
- ground_cover 1 2 3 (grasses/filler)
- dirt
- rocky
- wetland (near or close to the water plane)
- shallows
- shore
- dry
The existing TaleSpire Object node could do for some extra features and further integration with other nodes in the system.
- Create a way to hand place TS Objects in a terrain project.
- Make an option for certain masks and biomes to split up tile generation. Currently all the tiles in the entire terrain are processed from 1x1 tiles to 2x2 tiles without any regards to biome boundaries or other potential features.
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Support other sizes of tiles, 1x2.I think this will be more trouble than it is worth. - Support layers of tiles, for overlapping 2 tilesets over each other for certain effects. (This can be done, but solution is not ideal)
- Support props in tiles.
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Support tiles made entirely of props. I'm not sure how this would work yet.There are better ways to do this.
- Add clustering/piling of props, like piles of leaves and mounds of dirt.
- Add prop debris, like leaves dropped around a tree.
- Prop/Tile Cleanup. Automatic removal of props or tiles that would not be visible.
- Biome Import/Export system or file format.
- Add an option when scattering to limit the height of scattered object to the water level. This would be for things submerged in the water that you do not want poking out of the surface, like seaweed, or swimming fish.
- Allow exporting a slab directly from the node.
Some of these are closer than others to being worked on, but rely on some of the current development to be finished first.
- Roads
- More complex terrain, overhangs, caves, arches
- Procedural building placement for cities and towns
- Farms
- Dungeons
- Houdini Shelf Tools for a better user experience.
If I were to create a stand-alone version of this tool it would have to be a web-based submission and would likely need to be monetized in some way. It would still rely on Houdini running on a server as a service so there would be server fees and software licensing costs. It would not be as fully featured as running the tools in Houdini locally, anything advanced UI-wise would likely not be worth the time investment as TaleSpire may add their own tools for this sort of thing or another VTT will come along that does all of this.
The interface could be as simple as setting a map size and uploading Heightmaps and hand painted masks to depict biomes and masks for scattering features. There could be a form to set custom assets and scattering rules and which masks those are applied to. The projects would have to be saved so this would require a website that allows users to log in, create projects and store data.
The form would then be submitted to the server/servers running Houdini and put in a queue to be processed. Each submission could take several minutes to complete so the results would have to be sent back to the main site or as an email to the user.