Layout Generator Updates

This week I continued to work on the layout generator. I started by changing the way it generates the secondary lot divisions, it originally used a voronoi using the euclidean method then I changed to to use the manhattan method.

However, now after seeing a side by side comparision I may change it back to the euclidean distance method, as I thought the manhattan would be coolder but the vibes are just not right. Which sucks because it wasnt just a setting to get this to work as the mahattan method is not built into Houdini so I had to actually build it (I followed a video, I ain't that smart to make it up myself) but now I have it I might be able to use it in other things; so maybe not a total waste.

Building Spawning

I then worked on building (or more like figuring out how to build) an algorithm(?) to get the building to spawn in a way that I want.

I started by analyzing my reference further: 

I noticed there is lots of repetition of building clusters that are all aligned or parallel to eachother.

I need a way for this thing to be able to spawn repeating building clusters, and also be able to spawn buildings along certain paths almost (not just randomly scattered points),  So I decided that I'm going to attempt to get it to draw polylines as paths almost that can then spawn buildings on them. These paths would inform the dimentions of the building length as well as the orientation.

I made a mockup for this concept with polylines (These test ones were not procedural, but the goal is to get the tool to procedurally generate similar ones) that would instance building blockouts and ajust their dimentions (length only here but same concept) procedurally. It also adds an offset to ensure there is no overlapping.

In order for me to be able to generate these lines, the tool will procedurally "draw" lines forward 1 iteration (say 10 units per iteration for example), and then check for collisions, if there are no collisions it will draw again, until it either collidies or reaches max number of draws. There will also sometimes be a chance for the draw to make a 45 degree turn left or right as well while its drawing.

Ideally this type of line drawing will allow for those aligned building patterns that show in the reference.

Before drawing the lines the tool will select valid points to draw the lines from, it will start by attempting to select multiple (2-3) points that are inline to create a set of drawn line patterns (this creates the repetition), Once it completes this it will attempt to do another set, it will repeat until it cannot draw anymore sets without colliding, or reaches a maximum number of set in the block, then it will only draw singles until it cant anymore or meet the maximum again, lastly it will occasionally put single floating points at random to fill any empty space, but it must ensure it has sufficient distance for any exisitng points.

Thats the plan.

Currently the tool is able to: (1) scatter points along the block boarder (excluding edges that are considered too small), (2) it then culls non-valid points (like the corner points because it will screw the normal direction for spawnning the lines.)

 (3) it then randomly selects a point (currently but Im working on getting it to do the set selection and bla bla bla that I explained last paragraph.)

(4) it then copies a polyline to that point in the correct orientation (90 degrees from the boarder).

I am now working on getting it to select multiple and do the whole line drawing procedurally and collision detection thing.