WORLD'ED

Atari ST - 1993



World'ed was a world editor and generator created in 1993 and closely related to my space exploration game called Malstorm. The Editor allowed you to create your own terrains, by pushing or pulling land from a top view (in a way similar to Bullfrog's Populous). Various random functions based on the same algorithms used in Malstorm could also create random worlds, and the ultimate idea was the use a similar technique to generate the planets from the Malstorm universe.



Then things would become a bit more interesting. You could switch to a 3D view and see the world thus created. I didn't write "proper" 3D projection but my own 3D algorithms... I couldn't really turn around the world, but I could zoom in or move to the side, and the rendering had this nice horizon curvature. Sadly the Atari ST was not powerful enough to do any more than this - I had more functions that could use hand-drawn sprites of rocks and trees but render times where really slow... I invite you to look at more recent attempts to experiment with same algorithms on more powerful PCs: 3D WORLDs

Here is an animation rendered with the program. Such animations would often run through the night in order to render... I now somehow know where I get my patience from...


WORLD'ED is ©1992 - Laurent KERMEL