Miscellany

Ready to Rumble with the Tectonic Tumble

I completed the code that was splitting the world into tectonic plates, and I've started work on the tectonic-based elevation generation.  Alas, while I had a good concept, I found a minor problem with my initial approach - it only impacted the cells directly adjacent to the plate boundaries.  This isn't what we want - major collisions of plates generate widespread uplift.  Uplift limited to the two pixels on either side of the boundary isn't cutting it.  The world map does at least show all the plates in pretty colors (blues for ocean, browns/reds/tans/greens for land).

The blue plate special

So I thought to myself, why not check out what was done by Andy Gainey on his Experilous planet generator.  And after all of a minute I found the code I was looking for, and remembered his code is a vector-based 3D approach implemented in JavaScript, while mine is a raster-based 2D approach implemented in C#.  The concepts still apply, but I need to compile much more data before I can use anything resembling that approach.  I need to know which cells are the borders of each plate, and for every other cell (pixel) I need to know which border cell is it closest too.  Then I can use the Gainey's technique, or mine with a few modifications, to make mountains and rifts.  So that's where the plate tectonics work stands right now.

Reading

I am currently working my way through As Told at The Explorers Club: More Than Fifty Gripping Tales Of Adventure, edited by George Plimpton.  While I'd hesitate to agree that every tales is truly gripping, they've all been interesting so far, and several really have been gripping.  I'll have a more in depth review when I finish.  I really need to remember to renew the book through the library's website.

That's the book that sits in the car, for lunch time or when otherwise out and in need of reading.  On my Nook I've been reading a classic adventure tale, Talbot Mundy's King of the Khyber Rifles, which I obtained from Project Gutenberg.  That book has been gripping.

Ruritania

My planning and outlining for the Ruritania story continues, and a couple stumbling blocks cleared up yesterday, thanks in part to a blog post by Sarah Hoyt at her blog, According To Hoyt.  There are some social factors I'd forgotten (only tangentially related to what was discussed in that blog post) that post brought to mind, whose resolution cleared up a number of stumbling blocks in the plot outline.  Hopefully that means I'll find time to make some rapid progress on that front.