Lithosphere is a GPU driven terrain generator. It allows you to create and export material textures and heightmaps intended for use in realtime graphics applications.http://lithosphere.codeflow.org/ (http://lithosphere.codeflow.org/)
All terrain algorithms are implemented as GLSL fragment shaders operating on floating point textures. This allows realtime modification of the terrain. A graph of nodes is evaluated in order to arrive at the terrain output.
Features
Realtime terrain modification
Save/Open of scene.lth files
Simplex noise height source
Wind and Erosion algorithms
Gaussian Filtering
Mixing and Adjusting
Mathemathical operators
Float array and DXF mesh export
PNG texture export
Requirements
Lithosphere requires a fast computer and graphics card to operate. It also requires specific opengl compatibility
OpenGL shading language version 1.20
GL_ARB_texture_float
GL_ARB_pixel_buffer_object
GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object
GL_ARB_framebuffer_object
Recommended system specs
Intel Quad Core CPU
2gb RAM
Nvidia Geforce GTX-285
1gb video ram
Working with
Nvidia Geforce GTX-285
Nvidia Geforce 8800 GTS
Nvidia Quadro FX1700 512mb
Not working with
Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (no floating point textures)
Mac OSX Leopard (comes with python2.5, you can install python2.6)
Geforce 7700 (too slow)
Multiple grapics cards in use on the system (non SLI, tri-monitor setups etc., OpenGL context sharing does not work in such setups)
License
Lithosphere is licenced as AGPL version 3.0 or above.
Who
Lithosphere is written by Florian Bösch (facebook, linkedin)
Standalone
The standalone distribution contains all dependencies but no python, you will need 32bit python2.6 installed on your system. It has been tested with windows and linux, no test on snow leopard so far, it might run. Execute the file "run.py" contained in the distribution to run the application.
Version 0.1.2 - Mon Mar 29 2010
Lithosphere 0.1.2 Alpha tgz
Lithosphere 0.1.2 Alpha zip
What's new in 0.1.2
Ambient occlusion strength saved in scene file
fixed the simplex noise shader to be glsl 1.20 compatible
See the full changelog
Examples
These are examples that are also contained in the source.
examples.tgz
examples.zip
Linux
A Linux debian installer package is in the works.
Windows
A windows executable and installer is in the works.
Mac OSX
I have no suitable apple machine that would run lithosphere, help appreciated
Viewport Navigation
In order to use the 3d viewport, you have to click into it to focus. It gets an orange border when it is focused.
Mouse drag for look
keyfor flying left and key [F] for flying right
key [E] for flying forward and key [D] for flying backwards
key [W] for flying up and key [R] for flying down
key [Right Shift] for slowing movement speed to 1/10th
Sliders
The sliders you find in lithosphere can be very sensitive. If you want to slow down the rate of change of a slider, you can hold [Right Shift] while you modify it. Sliders can be modified in these three ways:
Drag them with the mouse
If a slider is focused (glows orange) use the mouse scroll wheel to change it
If a slider is focused use the cursor keys (/) to change it
Toolbar
The toolbar allows you to save/open scene files and create nodes from which you create your terrain.
Nodes
Nodes appear in the work area (bottom of the screen) when you create them. The nodes may have inputs, which are on the left side of the node widget. Nodes have output, which is on the bottom right side of the node Widget. Outputs can connect to many Inputs, but one Input can only connect to one Output.
There are three kinds of nodes. Source nodes have no input, they are what you start with. Operator nodes combine multiple inputs to one output. Filter nodes modify primarily one input, and optionally a weightmap that determines the weight of the effect.