I’ve always been fascinated by procedurally generated structures, be it dungeons, maps, towns, or really just anything. The concept of creating something vast and complex from a tiny set of rules is just magical to me.

Harita means map in turkish – cognate with chart, by the way.

Concept

The magic happens through two main components: elevation and precipitation. We’re using Perlin noise here, which is great for making natural-looking landscapes without jagged edges.

1. Elevation: This is all about how high or low a spot is. By generating random numbers with noise functions, we can simulate the ups and downs of the land—think oceans, plains, hills, and mountains.
2. Precipitation: This part determines how much rain an area gets, which affects what kind of vegetation grows there. High rainfall? You might see lush forests or jungles. Low rainfall? Dry as a bone, welcome to the desert!

So, we generate two random grids – each pixel relates to two data points: elevation and precipitation.

Biomes

So, how do we turn those two random grids—one for elevation and one for precipitation—into biomes? It’s all about looking at the values from these grids and applying some logical rules. Here’s the breakdown:

1. Intrepret the Grids: We used Perlin noise to create two grids, one for elevation and one for precipitation. These grids are basically 2D arrays filled with values that vary smoothly. The grids have values ranging from -1.0 to 1.0. We’ll pretend that -1.0 means low elevation/precipitation, and 1.0 means high elevation/precipitation!
2. Evaluating Each Tile: As we loop through each tile in our map, we look at its corresponding values from both grids. Here’s where the fun starts!
   • Elevation: First, we check the elevation. Higher values generally mean we’re in mountain territory, while lower values might point to oceans or plains. For example:
     • If elevation is above 0.85, it’s definitely a Mountain.
     • If it’s between 0.65 and 0.85, we could be looking at a Highland.
     • Anything below -0.2 might be part of the Ocean.
   • Precipitation: Next, we factor in the precipitation. This determines how lush or dry an area might be:
     • Areas with lots of rain (over 0.75) could turn into Rainforests.
     • Moderately wet regions (between 0.5 and 0.75) might be Forests.
     • If it’s pretty dry (below 0.2), we could end up with a Desert.
3. Combining the Two: By looking at both the elevation and precipitation together, we can more accurately classify the biome. For instance, a high area that gets lots of rain could be a Rainforest, while a similar elevation with low rain might just be a Mountain.