I'd like to ask a naive question, as I'm not really familiar with procedural terrain generation but I've been curious about it from afar. From what I can tell, most work in this area revolves around manipulating geometric patterns to "look like" mountains/islands/whatever.
Is there any value in modeling geological processes instead? So if you take a flat plane, along with a model of geological forces that could alter that plane, and run some kind of simulation over time (in effect simulating erosion etc), could that not produce a more "realistic" terrain?
I assume it's much more complex, much more computationally expensive, and all that. But I'd be surprised if no one at all has attempted this.
Is there any value in modeling geological processes instead? So if you take a flat plane, along with a model of geological forces that could alter that plane, and run some kind of simulation over time (in effect simulating erosion etc), could that not produce a more "realistic" terrain?
I assume it's much more complex, much more computationally expensive, and all that. But I'd be surprised if no one at all has attempted this.