26 replies to this topic

[Skarik]

Possible uses: Textures, Clouds, Detail maps, Bump maps, Rocks, Planet generation, Animation uncertainty, Character realism, Camera movement effects, etc etc.
What I use it for: Planet generation, dungeon generation, town generation (it's very powerful and can give a repeated result with the same seed, very desirable for testing)
Uses a slow, iterative algorithm for noise. This is not your "simplex noise," though I can add that on request.
Version 4 (May 2013):
 
EpicHouseStudios.com/staff/skarik/help/Perlin%20Noise%20V4.zip
 
Now that I understand C, no longer uses ridiculous indirection. GMKs now work with GM Studio. Thank you Brawl, again.
 
July 2014: If you have a question for me, try to email me or catch me on GameJolt. I don't go on this forum until someone from elsewhere tells me to, but I will update this sucker.

old versions:

Spoiler

Version 1:

Yeah, so I was like on Mr. Perlin's website and reading up on his noise. I came to a part I couldn't understand, so I Googled it. Second page was basically a whole C++ class for Mr. Perlin's original code. Not hard to find. Anyhow, I thought it was cool, and I can't find anything like this on the forums. Anyhow, it's useful for my purposes ( making a 3d GM game under 5 MB ) so I figured it was worth a try.

http://www.box.net/shared/v9rdv3ys11

Source included. Mess around with the DrawNoise function. I made some pretty colors. I mean, I didn't upload them in this pack, but I was able to get some cool effects. When I figure out how the thing works, I'll see what I can do about animated noise. I think the 3d function is in there...and if not, it's on Mr. Perlin's website. Yeah, so enjoy. Or flame me. I don't know a thing about C++, as others have proved.

Version 2:

http://www.box.net/shared/4susvfotsh

I may have fixed random crap popping up, I know I fixed the indexes problem. There is now support for 3d noise, or 2d animated noise. The function name is GetPerlin3D, but I forgot to include the GML. The DLL totals at 16 Kb, a whole 1 Kb larger than the old one - makes me sad - but hey, should work better. This DLL runs on Wine. I could make it smaller, but then it'll crash on linking, and I like it when it runs on Wine.

Version 3:

http://www.box.com/s...2628bc0f795727e

Fixed the 3d noise issue that was brought to my attention. Thank you Brawl. Project is now in VS2008, but taking V2's VS2005 project and throwing V3's source files will work.

Edited by Skarik, 26 July 2014 - 02:52 AM.

[hanson]

Great! Good luck in the <5mb game making!

Edited by hanson, 16 October 2009 - 04:35 AM.

[Skarik]

Great! Good luck in the <5mb game making!

Ha ha, you're not supposed to see this, but I guess it's safe to say that <5mb is the most popular poll choice.

But yeah, if you want, you can use this as well. It's REALLY nice for the extra details those procedural textures need.

Just set the GM blend mode to multiply and change the input value to go a little bit higher.

Edited by Skarik, 16 October 2009 - 05:05 AM.

[Newly Discovered]

awe it doesn't work for me! it keeps telling me I fail at life.

[Skarik]

awe it doesn't work for me! it keeps telling me I fail at life.

Yeah, there seems to be a problem with the indexes. It'll say that if there's an invalid index. Um, I'll check it out tonight and see what's up. Maybe a better version.

But for now, just avoid DeletePerlin.

Edited by Skarik, 16 October 2009 - 03:33 PM.

[IceMetalPunk]

I get the same vague "Fail" error popping up until I CTRL+ALT+DEL the game (or, I suppose, until I'd let it pop up 65,536 times, but I don't have the patience for that).

The problem, it seems, is not in DeletePerlin, but in NshGetPerlin.

-IMP

[TheMagicNumber]

This could be optimized a lot with the use of GMAPI (direct access to surfaces, too!).

[Skarik]

NshGetPerlin? Really? Huh...must be something different then. This is from just from the example?

GMAPI would be pretty cool, but I'm not too concerned about that, since I'm doing this for 3d stuff right now.

[IceMetalPunk]

Yup, just the example that was zipped in the download. No edits; just opened it and hit Run, and those errors kept popping up.

-IMP

[Skarik]

That's strange. I don't want to have to write an Init function, as that should be called automatically on DLL loadup.

Well, I'll write an Init function anyways. Just in case, you know. I'll upload another like later. Or in a week. Or something.

Arg, I still gotta upload that error for the guys that make Newton...

Edited by Skarik, 17 October 2009 - 04:36 AM.

[TheMagicNumber]

but I'm not too concerned about that

Not concerned about speed? I think you should be.

[Skarik]

It has nothing to do with speed. It has to do with the fact that I'm not using this to draw directly to GM. It also has to do with the fact that draw_pixel is slow whether from calling the GM function from C++ or from plain GM.

Crap, man. You want to tell me how to make it, make it yourself. I'm not too concerned about using GMAPI. I'm concerned more about college applications, friends, organizing contests, and other stuff like that that you probably don't have or don't do. Don't tell me what to be concerned about.

And don't say sorry. That word has no meaning anymore.

[TheMagicNumber]

The biggest thing I have against this would actually be the use of a grid instead of a surface, and the 256 * 256 DLL calls. I understand you have a life, that's great. You do not need to get angry. I was just talking about the future of your DLL, it shouldn't matter too much as you have the source. But for your game, you might not want it to be slow.

[Skarik]

( My game uses Ultimate 3D )

[TheMagicNumber]

That has nothing to do with this, if you're using this, it will be slow.

1. GML is slow, avoid using massive loops.
2. GM DLL calls are slow, avoid mass-use.

You had a massive loop with a DLL call in it. D:

[Skarik]

It takes like one second to generate a 256x256 texture, man. I don't see why it'll be slow.

Normal people shouldn't be using this to generate noise real time. Animated noise, or realism to camera or model animations, I can see that. I don't see people calling this 65536 times per step in normal circumstances.

O_o

And anyways, calling a GML function from C++ is still slow.

Edited by Skarik, 18 October 2009 - 04:59 AM.

[TheMagicNumber]

It takes like one second to generate a 256x256 texture, man. I don't see why it'll be slow.

Normal people shouldn't be using this to generate noise real time. Animated noise, or realism to camera or model animations, I can see that. I don't see people calling this 65536 times per step in normal circumstances.

O_o

And anyways, calling a GML function from C++ is still slow.

On my PC it takes a few seconds, I'm just saying you could probably make it fast enough to animate. By the way, calling GML functions from C++ isn't that slow, you probably wont notice a difference. (Setting a pixel on a surface can probably be done without a single function call.)

Edited by TheMagicNumber, 18 October 2009 - 03:32 PM.

[Maarten Baert]

By the way, calling GML functions from C++ isn't that slow, you probably wont notice a difference. (Setting a pixel on a surface can probably be done without a single function call.)

Calling GML functions from a DLL is faster than calling them in Game Maker .

[Skarik]

It's still slow. Drawing a circle 10001 times took 16 seconds pure GML, but 3 seconds GML from C++. Still slow.

Hey, I'll see about it in the future. Maybe. I'll check out what's wrong with the DLL today, though. Maybe add some 3d stuff for 2d animated textures.

Edit: Whoops, looks like I was passing the address to the index list instead of the number. Tee hee. 3D noise support added a whole 1 KB. That bums me out. I think I fixed everything. Will update in a little bit.

Edited by Skarik, 18 October 2009 - 11:51 PM.

[Skarik]

Right, new version:

http://www.box.net/shared/4susvfotsh

Might have fixed the problems some of you were getting. I had to move some of the code, so the size is increased by 1 Kb, totaling at 16 Kb. However, I also added support for 3D noise. Unfortunately, I forgot to include the GML, so for you guys, the function name is "GetPerlin3D" with four arguments.

[IceMetalPunk]

Well, now there's no errors . But it's still fairly slow. I coded a timer, and it takes ~1.5s to create noise and ~1.5s to draw it (I was drawing to a surface so it doesn't kill the FPS). So 3 seconds each time I needed new noise.

It's not great for realtime applications, but it does look good, so kudos for that.

-IMP

[rymate1234]

This seems to be what I'm looking for

It seems to generate the same noise each time though

Edited by rymate1234, 25 April 2011 - 08:09 PM.

[Digisynth]

It takes like one second to generate a 256x256 texture, man. I don't see why it'll be slow.

Normal people shouldn't be using this to generate noise real time. Animated noise, or realism to camera or model animations, I can see that. I don't see people calling this 65536 times per step in normal circumstances.

O_o

And anyways, calling a GML function from C++ is still slow.

Thanks man! You rule! You are completely right. Generating noise does take time. I also once made my own Perlin Noise generator using only GML, but it would take TWO MINUTES to render a 512*512 image using only seven noise layers.

Thanks again! I will make use of this!

[Mischaal]

hey! First of all thanks for this great post! I'm getting a 512x512 map with rgb-value changes in about 2 seconds!

that's great but I want to get this game also working in html5.
Attempts to get perlin noise with similar effects only in GML took about 30 seconds to create.
It seems another solution would be to run this code in javascript. Without knowledge of JavaScript I'm having some problems here.

But first I'd like to know your opinion (before I spend hours of converting code) if this would be the solution. Maybe there is a solution without a dll which helps me better. Or maybe someone actually made a JAvascript version of this.

 

Thanks for your help

 

Mischaal

[gff1979]

I'm interested in having a Simplex version but only because after reading Perlin's notes, and getting brain fuzzed a little, I assumed it was much faster on the whole and his replacement for the old noise algorithm, not just in higher iterations and dimensions. If I'm wrong then that's fine and this is great work anyway since I don't have to rewrite my own since switching to GM:S. Thanks!

[HellCreator]

Now I know this topic is very old, but how do I implement the 3d Noise...where are the scripts located because GetPerlin3D doesn't show up...

[Skarik]

Now I know this topic is very old, but how do I implement the 3d Noise...where are the scripts located because GetPerlin3D doesn't show up...

Sorry for the late reply, but I'm pretty much not here, ever! Anyhooo you don't. You take in the GML scripts, which are targeted for GM8 and below. Loads in the symbols in the GML.

I'll take some time to update it to GM:S, since apparently the latest Yoyo compiler has a few issues AND IT WOULD BE GREAT TO HAVE MORE PEOPLE COMPLAIN TO ME LIKE I'M SOME SORT OF GOD BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT PEOPLE DO WITH GODS RIGHT, but I don't own GM:S at the moment! It might take a few months I'M ACTUALLY KIND OF BUSY

I'm interested in having a Simplex version but only because after reading Perlin's notes, and getting brain fuzzed a little, I assumed it was much faster on the whole and his replacement for the old noise algorithm, not just in higher iterations and dimensions. If I'm wrong then that's fine and this is great work anyway since I don't have to rewrite my own since switching to GM:S. Thanks!

I have the code somewhere for Simplex (I use both in my project) and it uses the same framework as this one. Who knows, maybe I'll add it! Maybe some diamond-square fun too, because I made an implementation of that that sits on top of the noise.

tl;dr Toot toot updates ahead (once I buy GM:S)