Even things like Minecraft world generation essentially boil down to noise functions. One can imagine the height of the terrain could be generated by a simple 2D Perlin noise map, while caves could be generated the same way, but using a 3D map. It's more complicated then that now, but the concept is still largely the same!
Further reading: https://www.alanzucconi.com/2022/06/05/minecraft-world-generation/
austinapatel
Adding onto the comment about noise generation for maps: EECS126 teaches more about Perlin noise and the probability behind it if you are interested in further information about it.
ncastaneda02
To add onto the previous comment about perlin noise, the reason why Perlin Noise in particular has become commonplace in terrain generation is that it is well behaved and smooth - meaning if you sample the distribution at two nearby points, you will get two values that are relatively close as well. You can imagine why this would be useful for terrain generation - no one wants a mountain that is a foot wide that drops into a valley a thousand feet deep. Simplex noise is another such distribution that some say actually performs better than Perlin!
joeyzhao123
Noise in general is very nice. In a lot of computer generated things, they tend to be too perfect. The noise that creates imperfections provides more realism because the real world isn't perfect.
stexus
Bouncing off of Joey and going off a tangent, many games purposely add "noise" to actions such as damage numbers; in other words, they have variance and this variance makes the player feel the numbers are more natural and not boring and static.
Even things like Minecraft world generation essentially boil down to noise functions. One can imagine the height of the terrain could be generated by a simple 2D Perlin noise map, while caves could be generated the same way, but using a 3D map. It's more complicated then that now, but the concept is still largely the same!
Further reading: https://www.alanzucconi.com/2022/06/05/minecraft-world-generation/
Adding onto the comment about noise generation for maps: EECS126 teaches more about Perlin noise and the probability behind it if you are interested in further information about it.
To add onto the previous comment about perlin noise, the reason why Perlin Noise in particular has become commonplace in terrain generation is that it is well behaved and smooth - meaning if you sample the distribution at two nearby points, you will get two values that are relatively close as well. You can imagine why this would be useful for terrain generation - no one wants a mountain that is a foot wide that drops into a valley a thousand feet deep. Simplex noise is another such distribution that some say actually performs better than Perlin!
Noise in general is very nice. In a lot of computer generated things, they tend to be too perfect. The noise that creates imperfections provides more realism because the real world isn't perfect.
Bouncing off of Joey and going off a tangent, many games purposely add "noise" to actions such as damage numbers; in other words, they have variance and this variance makes the player feel the numbers are more natural and not boring and static.