Hello Watabou could you make a car generator like your tank generator but from profile i want to make 3d model of cars for a game i'm making (for now i'm really at the begining) so i do not want to copy real car brand to make my vehicle (l'il post this in comment in different itch.io webpage of your generator so you will find my comments more easily)
Hello Watabou could you make a car generator like your tank generator but from profile i want to make 3d model of cars for a game i'm making (for now i'm really at the begining) so i do not want to copy real car brand to make my vehicle (l'il post this in comment in different itch.io webpage of your generator so you will find my comments more easily)
I love the work you've done here! I'm confused though as to what the exported JSON is good for. I don't see a means to load a saved file other than under the style settings but that seems unrelated.
when I view the console output during village generation, I'm seeing a lot of cool stuff that isn't shown on the map. Apparently the map I generated has a town hall, a tavern called The Black Chalice, an inn called The Wet Lady, and a home belonging to someone named Saer Eastshield... I'm guessing this is all stuff you're working on surfacing at some point or another via a landmark feature w/ a legend. In the map settings, you can control population density but not the actual population. Being able to manually enter that would be super helpful vs rolling new villages till you get into the ballpark you're looking for. :)
Currently you can only load those JSON's in City Viewer. I don't plan to add a save/load functionality in this generator.
The work on points of interest is on hold at this moment, but yeah, eventually these names will be shown on the map.
Because of the algorithm specifics it is not possible to request desired population, but in the next update it will become possible to enter any number to be displayed as the village population. The effect is the same :)
Ah, I see. Thanks for the response. I was hoping that population X density equated to how many buildings got output, but it doesn't seem like that's the case. I look forward to seeing the points of interest getting output, I liked seeing the names in there when I inspected the page and having them surfaced on the front end would make the maps super interesting. (especially if you're using these maps as inspiration for a book you're writing, like I am) ^__^
I struggled to make points of interest interesting and not too extravagant at the same time. They tend to be repetitive which is not wrong - most villages need just a tavern, a mill and some kind of basic shop. But it's boring especially when creating multiple settlements in a row. Instead of adding more exotic venues (a necromancer's shop, a fighting club, a spa etc.) I'd like to be able to provide interesting details to mundane locations. That's what I'm going to work on.
This is harder than it may seem. The difference between river and coast maps is that on river maps bridges are allowed and on coast maps they are not. So it is difficult to mix them but I'll find a way eventually.
Hi, I want to replicate this for a personal project. Are you able to explain how it was coded and the process you went through making this? Is there anywhere else I can contact you?
I have no code to share, sorry. But here is another generator based on the similar (but not exactly the same) idea with open code and some explanations of the method: City Map Generator.
About being lost: don't let yourself be intimidated by the academic lingo. For example, when I started reading that paper I didn't know what tensor fields are. So I've read a Wikipedia article on them and got back to the paper. And then I realized that I didn't need "tensor fields" to get the idea at all...
Hey watabou, this is absolutely wonderful and very, very impressive. Donated a bit :). I was just wondering if you could fix a tiny issue I found: the night-styled maps do add outline to the texts to ensure they are readable, however, exports (at least in PNG) don't include this outline. Apart from that, haven't found any other issue so far, it's just awesome.
As possible improvements... Perhaps add option to include fortifications in the future? Pallisade, watchtower, small local keep, tavern, generated shops/other points of interest with legend assigned?
Yeah, I'm aware of this issue, but there is no easy way to resolve it (that outline is created by applying a glow filter to the text, but apparently filters stop working on images which are too big). Probably I'll have to implement another way to add outline (e.g. like in MFCG) when there is more text in this generator.
Regarding those improvements:
Points of interest - definitely.
Local keep (or anything else that different from regular cottages) - unlikely.
Palisade - maybe. I didn't plan to add it, but it's a pretty popular request.
Sorry, with how everything works now that's not possible. Villages are grown "organically" and the generator doesn't how large a village will be in the end. It is possible, of course, to regenerate a village until its population is close enough to the target value, but considering how much time it takes to build a single instance, it will be too slow.
How about letting us change the population number without actually changing anything about the map? Like we change the town name. Just so that it's the desired number when printed out?
Thank you for this (and the others) wonderful tool! One thing I have noticed is that houses are sometimes placed on fields. It's not a big thing, but is there a way to prevent houses from spawning on a field?
Apparently people are bothered by houses on top of fields. Actually, this was sort of intentional. At first I discarded such fields, but then decided to keep them to emulate crofts. I can try to draw them a bit differently - as orchards or pastures.
This is an awesome village maker! If I could make two small requests for the future... I've had what appeared to be ponds come up a couple of times on the screen. These may be a fluke but if they are not I'd like to see more of them. Any chance to have ponds/lakes added with more frequency? Second request- I like the look of the trees but would like to have a "sparse" option where you would just have a few lone trees here and there. And perhaps palm shaped ones for the islands. Otherwise this is awesome!
Actually, these puddles are a source of numerous glitches. For example, often piers get spawned in them instead of "big water". So it's more likely I'll try to get rid of them :)
I'm planning to implement finer control over tree coverage but I'm not sure how exactly it's gonna work.
This is great! My only suggestion, something I've been looking for everywhere, is this same functionality with the ability to import a heightmap for the landscape.
Thank you very much for this generator! The best I have seen so far. I am definitely going to show my supports to you once I get my Paypal in order.
I am very excited to see the new updates and improvements you will be doing. It would be amazing to see options to select specific building to be included (/Church/market/other), or a central place!
Currently there are only two types of buildings in the generator - small ones and large ones. In the future I'll try to make them look more diverse, but I wouldn't like to assign any specific functions to them like "church" or "tavern". But I do plan to add village greens/town squares. Cheers!
Great generator, I fell in love, but would it be possible to add the ability to place each ceiling in a different color? or trees, it would be really cool
Are you talking about roofs? They differ slightly in brightness from each other. I think that adding more colors for buildings would make "styling" them less intuitive.
For trees you can assign two colors and every tree is painted in a random color from the range between those colors. It works only in "simple" and "cotton" modes.
I love this tool and others you've built for DND. The only requests for this creator is could we add the option for a t-junction/crossroads and an option to save the default and night presets in one go. The latter would just save me a couple of clicks as I import both into a rollable table on Roll20.
Crossroads are on my to-do list and probably they will be implemented in the next update. Saving a map in the Default and Night colours is a little too specific request. I mean somebody else might want to able to batch save in different styles (incl. custom ones) e.g. normal + haunted or summer + autumn + winter. I'll think about how it could be generalized.
Do you have an example of a map by any chance? My idea of bayou is pretty vague, so I can imagine mangroves and alligators, but I'm not sure I know how a "bayou village" should look.
This map from Hunt: Showdown is a fair example of the idea I'm thinking of, though the buildings are significantly more spread out than yours tend to be.
Fields were an excellent addition, and they're really well implemented too! Thank you :D
With the current algorithms being used, is it possible to add a function to generate based off of a small number of user-provided landscape features? For example, letting a user provide a main road and a river (via uploaded image) and generating the remaining features off of those? The idea being that, one may have a large map already and would like to create detailed randomized local maps. I think this would take VG from a simple generator to a premium map tool!
It would be pretty easy to implement custom "water maps". User-defined main roads are harder but also feasible. Actually, there are more things that could be customized, e.g. elevation, population density etc. Probably some of these options will be added in the future, but not until generated stuff is stable enough.
Wonderful, looks very organic and pleasing. I know others have been suggesting a (typically) stone keep/castle for defensive works. If you are thinking about adding some, perhaps a more pleasing and fruitful endeavor would be to implement motte and bailey fortifications, or earthen hill fortifications such as the Celtic oppidum or the mounds of Cahokia. These varieties of earthworks would fit particularly well with the graphic design and goal of this generator.
Yeah, tree coverage depends on where fields are, so I just reroll trees when they are toggled. It is possible to keep forest shapes constant and just apply additional "thinning" by fields, but it seemed too much work to bother.
Are you using some kind of algorithm? Or are you developing your own algorithm? I am building my generator, base points are hard to find. Starting on the road?
There is a pretty large number of algorithms in play for different aspects of the generator. The roads are based on "Parish-Müller's approach". Try googling these two names together, this should give links to a number of their papers.
I've been following this for a while and I'm definitely enjoying the improvements. There seems to be a bug with the island water type generation on tiny maps, where all it does is generate a solid green view. It may exist in other sizes, too, but it is frequent and consistent with tiny maps.
<3 the fields, they add another dimension. If this could be merged with MCG I'd be overjoyed. Having said that, it must be difficult for you when lots of people ask for just that little bit more... so I will be happy with what you have already created.
I like the individual buildings in VG compared with MFCG's blocks and would like to see the trees in MFCG too. However, it's more the other way round i.e. bring castles/churches/plazas/citadels etc. into VG. And also have it link to and from Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator. Thanks for asking. :-)
I love this generator and will be using it for my commercial products (with attribution, of course!)
If I may suggest one thing for an addition, I'll add my voice to those suggesting walls and a "keep"-like building (maybe a tower?) like in the city generator. Even villages need a bit of protection :)
This is incredible. It still has quite a few things to add, like walls or castles. If it could be set as Medieval Fantasy City Generator it would be a program of another level.
This is an amazing discovery, wonderful work thank you. I just generated 5 villages for my Pendragon campaign, then realised after downloading the PNG that I'd love to have nighttime and simple versions too. I guess its too late and I'd have to start again or is there away to re-import them to the tool?
Really nice work, it's already pretty cool but it would be cooler if it was possible to have river confluences as an option. Quite many villages or even towns are built on river confluences and it also brings more variety for random settlements. One can use coast and river but it doesn't really looks like a confluence, coast being for too large waterbody than a river when in reality sizes are mostly equal.
Why? You think it will randomly place a bridge on the merging point sometimes? I think it will be possible somehow to prevent merging area getting a bridge. I don't exactly know how you place the bridge on the map but I do think it won't be that much too random, there must be some excluded areas so I guess it will be possible to exclude that very problematic spot as well. Anyways, thanks for attention.
To place a bridge is harder than it seems. Initially the generator could place several bridges over a river, but it often produced weird configurations with a road changing sides back and forth. With two rivers I will have to allow multiple bridges again and there will be even more opportunities for the generator to build something silly.
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nice
Hello Watabou could you make a car generator like your tank generator but from profile i want to make 3d model of cars for a game i'm making (for now i'm really at the begining) so i do not want to copy real car brand to make my vehicle (l'il post this in comment in different itch.io webpage of your generator so you will find my comments more easily)
Hello Watabou could you make a car generator like your tank generator but from profile i want to make 3d model of cars for a game i'm making (for now i'm really at the begining) so i do not want to copy real car brand to make my vehicle (l'il post this in comment in different itch.io webpage of your generator so you will find my comments more easily)
You are a litteral life saver I use these generators for all of my DnD maps. Thank you for your hard work!
I love the work you've done here! I'm confused though as to what the exported JSON is good for. I don't see a means to load a saved file other than under the style settings but that seems unrelated.
when I view the console output during village generation, I'm seeing a lot of cool stuff that isn't shown on the map. Apparently the map I generated has a town hall, a tavern called The Black Chalice, an inn called The Wet Lady, and a home belonging to someone named Saer Eastshield... I'm guessing this is all stuff you're working on surfacing at some point or another via a landmark feature w/ a legend. In the map settings, you can control population density but not the actual population. Being able to manually enter that would be super helpful vs rolling new villages till you get into the ballpark you're looking for. :)
Thanks!
Ah, I see. Thanks for the response. I was hoping that population X density equated to how many buildings got output, but it doesn't seem like that's the case. I look forward to seeing the points of interest getting output, I liked seeing the names in there when I inspected the page and having them surfaced on the front end would make the maps super interesting. (especially if you're using these maps as inspiration for a book you're writing, like I am) ^__^
I struggled to make points of interest interesting and not too extravagant at the same time. They tend to be repetitive which is not wrong - most villages need just a tavern, a mill and some kind of basic shop. But it's boring especially when creating multiple settlements in a row. Instead of adding more exotic venues (a necromancer's shop, a fighting club, a spa etc.) I'd like to be able to provide interesting details to mundane locations. That's what I'm going to work on.
I fully support this line of thinking, and offer my assistance if ever needed. ^__^
All of your generators are amazing, watabou. I'm so impressed and so grateful for all the work you've put in to let us use these.
Any plans in the future on being able to check both river and coast?
Thanks!
This is harder than it may seem. The difference between river and coast maps is that on river maps bridges are allowed and on coast maps they are not. So it is difficult to mix them but I'll find a way eventually.
I need a generator option that allows me to disable houses that appear on fields.
Or maybe the ability to delete houses by click? If that's easier to code.
In the next update I will do something about those houses, not sure what exactly though.
That's great! I look forward to seeing what you come up with.
Hi, I want to replicate this for a personal project. Are you able to explain how it was coded and the process you went through making this? Is there anywhere else I can contact you?
Hi. Basically this generator is an implementation of the idea explained here: link.
I just read the paper and I am lost.
Are there any tutorials or are you able to share some code?
I have no code to share, sorry. But here is another generator based on the similar (but not exactly the same) idea with open code and some explanations of the method: City Map Generator.
About being lost: don't let yourself be intimidated by the academic lingo. For example, when I started reading that paper I didn't know what tensor fields are. So I've read a Wikipedia article on them and got back to the paper. And then I realized that I didn't need "tensor fields" to get the idea at all...
Is there a way to disable houses and roads?
No, why? Do you you need a generator of... empty spaces? :)
Haha! Yes, I would love to generate empty fields and islands for DND! Love your tools my friend!
Hey Watabou when we can place buildings and trees fields by ourselves?
Saying "never" would be a too harsh reply, but nothing like that is planned at this moment :)
Hey watabou, this is absolutely wonderful and very, very impressive. Donated a bit :). I was just wondering if you could fix a tiny issue I found: the night-styled maps do add outline to the texts to ensure they are readable, however, exports (at least in PNG) don't include this outline. Apart from that, haven't found any other issue so far, it's just awesome.
As possible improvements... Perhaps add option to include fortifications in the future? Pallisade, watchtower, small local keep, tavern, generated shops/other points of interest with legend assigned?
Yeah, I'm aware of this issue, but there is no easy way to resolve it (that outline is created by applying a glow filter to the text, but apparently filters stop working on images which are too big). Probably I'll have to implement another way to add outline (e.g. like in MFCG) when there is more text in this generator.
Regarding those improvements:
Cheers!
I love this! Thanks so much for sharing your work with us all!
One "small" request: Would it be possible at some point to be able to set the desired population?
I like that you included population density, but I cannot find an option for population count.
Sorry, with how everything works now that's not possible. Villages are grown "organically" and the generator doesn't how large a village will be in the end. It is possible, of course, to regenerate a village until its population is close enough to the target value, but considering how much time it takes to build a single instance, it will be too slow.
How about letting us change the population number without actually changing anything about the map? Like we change the town name. Just so that it's the desired number when printed out?
I can do that.
Thank you for this (and the others) wonderful tool! One thing I have noticed is that houses are sometimes placed on fields. It's not a big thing, but is there a way to prevent houses from spawning on a field?
Cheeers! I commented on this here:
Thanks!
This is an awesome village maker! If I could make two small requests for the future... I've had what appeared to be ponds come up a couple of times on the screen. These may be a fluke but if they are not I'd like to see more of them. Any chance to have ponds/lakes added with more frequency? Second request- I like the look of the trees but would like to have a "sparse" option where you would just have a few lone trees here and there. And perhaps palm shaped ones for the islands.
Otherwise this is awesome!
Thanks!
Nooooooo~ I love the ponds! It's not uncommon to have piers in lakes anyway! If my opinion means anything, I'd like to put in +1 vote for keep them~
Fascinated with the night view of the village - is that a style setting that can be toggled?
In the context menu:
Style settings... > Presets > Night
You can also create your own styles including night-like. The key is to set the "Lights" color to anything lighter than black.
This is great!
My only suggestion,
something I've been looking for everywhere,
is this same functionality with the ability to import a heightmap for the landscape.
Hi,
Thank you very much for this generator! The best I have seen so far. I am definitely going to show my supports to you once I get my Paypal in order.
I am very excited to see the new updates and improvements you will be doing. It would be amazing to see options to select specific building to be included (/Church/market/other), or a central place!
Currently there are only two types of buildings in the generator - small ones and large ones. In the future I'll try to make them look more diverse, but I wouldn't like to assign any specific functions to them like "church" or "tavern". But I do plan to add village greens/town squares. Cheers!
Are you talking about roofs? They differ slightly in brightness from each other. I think that adding more colors for buildings would make "styling" them less intuitive.
For trees you can assign two colors and every tree is painted in a random color from the range between those colors. It works only in "simple" and "cotton" modes.
I love this tool and others you've built for DND. The only requests for this creator is could we add the option for a t-junction/crossroads and an option to save the default and night presets in one go. The latter would just save me a couple of clicks as I import both into a rollable table on Roll20.
Thank you.
Crossroads are on my to-do list and probably they will be implemented in the next update. Saving a map in the Default and Night colours is a little too specific request. I mean somebody else might want to able to batch save in different styles (incl. custom ones) e.g. normal + haunted or summer + autumn + winter. I'll think about how it could be generalized.
Wow! I am seriously in love with this ❣
I really like this, but do you reckon it's possible to have a sort of 'bayou' setting, with lots of patchy waterways? That would be super neat.
Do you have an example of a map by any chance? My idea of bayou is pretty vague, so I can imagine mangroves and alligators, but I'm not sure I know how a "bayou village" should look.
This map from Hunt: Showdown is a fair example of the idea I'm thinking of, though the buildings are significantly more spread out than yours tend to be.
Fields were an excellent addition, and they're really well implemented too! Thank you :D
With the current algorithms being used, is it possible to add a function to generate based off of a small number of user-provided landscape features? For example, letting a user provide a main road and a river (via uploaded image) and generating the remaining features off of those? The idea being that, one may have a large map already and would like to create detailed randomized local maps. I think this would take VG from a simple generator to a premium map tool!
It would be pretty easy to implement custom "water maps". User-defined main roads are harder but also feasible. Actually, there are more things that could be customized, e.g. elevation, population density etc. Probably some of these options will be added in the future, but not until generated stuff is stable enough.
Wonderful, looks very organic and pleasing. I know others have been suggesting a (typically) stone keep/castle for defensive works. If you are thinking about adding some, perhaps a more pleasing and fruitful endeavor would be to implement motte and bailey fortifications, or earthen hill fortifications such as the Celtic oppidum or the mounds of Cahokia. These varieties of earthworks would fit particularly well with the graphic design and goal of this generator.
Thanks!
Yeah, I think I'll have to implement something like that in the future. Adding a palisade and (optionally) a simple keep shouldn't be too hard.
Great work as always. I like the fields update but, can you make the roads make some sense with the fields? Just a suggestion.
How do you mean? Is it about fields not hugging roads or trails crossing fields or something else?
but it does more, it re-generates trees for me
Yeah, tree coverage depends on where fields are, so I just reroll trees when they are toggled. It is possible to keep forest shapes constant and just apply additional "thinning" by fields, but it seemed too much work to bother.
Are you using some kind of algorithm? Or are you developing your own algorithm? I am building my generator, base points are hard to find. Starting on the road?
There is a pretty large number of algorithms in play for different aspects of the generator. The roads are based on "Parish-Müller's approach". Try googling these two names together, this should give links to a number of their papers.
This is a fantastic tool. Thanks for sharing.
I love your work, great inspiration my friend, left a tip
Cheers!
I've been following this for a while and I'm definitely enjoying the improvements. There seems to be a bug with the island water type generation on tiny maps, where all it does is generate a solid green view. It may exist in other sizes, too, but it is frequent and consistent with tiny maps.
Thanks for the report! I've uploaded a version which should fix (hopefully) this bug.
When's the next pixel dungeon update?
Looks great, except for all those buildings on top of the fields. But the fields are great
I'll comment on this in the post on Patreon (which is coming soon).
<3 the fields, they add another dimension. If this could be merged with MCG I'd be overjoyed. Having said that, it must be difficult for you when lots of people ask for just that little bit more... so I will be happy with what you have already created.
Thanks! What features of VG do you miss in MFCG?
I like the individual buildings in VG compared with MFCG's blocks and would like to see the trees in MFCG too. However, it's more the other way round i.e. bring castles/churches/plazas/citadels etc. into VG. And also have it link to and from Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator. Thanks for asking. :-)
Noted!
Amazing job!
Yo this tool is very fresh, kudos!
I love this generator but is there anyway you can give mountains as well??
I love this generator and will be using it for my commercial products (with attribution, of course!)
If I may suggest one thing for an addition, I'll add my voice to those suggesting walls and a "keep"-like building (maybe a tower?) like in the city generator. Even villages need a bit of protection :)
This is incredible. It still has quite a few things to add, like walls or castles. If it could be set as Medieval Fantasy City Generator it would be a program of another level.
This is an amazing discovery, wonderful work thank you. I just generated 5 villages for my Pendragon campaign, then realised after downloading the PNG that I'd love to have nighttime and simple versions too. I guess its too late and I'd have to start again or is there away to re-import them to the tool?
There is no way to save/load a village, sorry. In the next update it will become possible to get a seed of a village to regenerate it later.
Hi Watabou, what is the JSON export used for? Thought that would be to import and closed my village only to find out I was wrong.
Edit: Found it. Would still love to see an import back into this generator when/if feasible.
"Currently you can only load those JSON's in City Viewer. I don't plan to add a save/load functionality in this generator."
Really nice work, it's already pretty cool but it would be cooler if it was possible to have river confluences as an option. Quite many villages or even towns are built on river confluences and it also brings more variety for random settlements. One can use coast and river but it doesn't really looks like a confluence, coast being for too large waterbody than a river when in reality sizes are mostly equal.
Adding confluences is trivial, but I think it will break my bridges...
Why? You think it will randomly place a bridge on the merging point sometimes? I think it will be possible somehow to prevent merging area getting a bridge. I don't exactly know how you place the bridge on the map but I do think it won't be that much too random, there must be some excluded areas so I guess it will be possible to exclude that very problematic spot as well. Anyways, thanks for attention.
To place a bridge is harder than it seems. Initially the generator could place several bridges over a river, but it often produced weird configurations with a road changing sides back and forth. With two rivers I will have to allow multiple bridges again and there will be even more opportunities for the generator to build something silly.