✨ Crafting Procedural Landscapes in Godot 4: A Tool for Your Worlds! ✨

#godot #gamedev #tool #opensource

Hello Dev.to community!

My name is EmberNoGlow, and I'm thrilled to introduce my tool for Godot 4: the Procedural Terrain Generator. This generator allows you to easily create procedural landscapes using MeshInstance3D and heightmaps. What's especially cool is that generation is available both directly in the editor and during runtime!

❔ Why a Procedural Terrain Generator?

In game development, the need to create large and unique game worlds is common. Manually crafting every hill, valley, or mountain can be incredibly time-consuming. Procedural generation is the key to:

Saving Time: Quickly generate detailed landscapes.
Uniqueness: Each generated landscape can be one-of-a-kind.
Scalability: Easily build expansive open worlds.
Dynamism: The ability to modify terrain in real-time.

My generator is designed to simplify this process for Godot 4 users.

🚀 How to Use the Procedural Terrain Generator

Integrating the generator into your Godot project is a breeze!

Attach the Script: Add the terrain_generator.gd script to a MeshInstance3D node in your scene.
Set the Heightmap: In the inspector, select a texture to serve as your heightmap (e.g., a .png, .jpg file). Lighter areas of the texture will correspond to higher points, and darker areas to lower points.
Adjust Subdivisions: The Subdivisions property controls the detail of your terrain. Important: Set the Subdivisions value to be no larger than your heightmap's dimensions. Exceeding this can lead to "steps" on the surface!
Save Data (Optional): If you want to generate the landscape in advance and use it without regenerating the mesh every time you run the game, specify a data saving path in the inspector. Then, simply click "Generate Landscapes".

💡 Editor and Runtime Generation

One of the key advantages of my generator is its flexibility. You can:

Generate in the Editor: Ideal for creating static levels or pre-compiling complex meshes. This avoids runtime generation overhead.
Generate at Runtime: Perfect for dynamic worlds, on-the-fly procedural generation, or when you need a unique landscape for each game session.

📜 License and Compatibility

This tool is developed for Godot 4.4. It is in the public domain, so you can use it however you wish – in personal projects, commercial games, for learning, or experimentation.

👇 Get Involved and Try It Out!

GitHub Repository: https://github.com/EmberNoGlow/Procedural-Terrain-Generator-for-Godot
I would love to hear your feedback, suggestions, and bug reports. If you like the project, please consider starring it on GitHub! ⭐

Thanks for reading! I hope this generator helps you in crafting your game worlds.