Procedural Generation of Favela Layouts on Arbitrary Terrains

Abstract

The procedural generation of content for virtual worlds is a technique widely explored by the game industry since it allows a reduction in the development costs and time. Procedural city generation is a very common topic, given the growth in the size of scenarios in games and simulations. However, traditional city-generation techniques do not represent some particular variations found in urban spaces, such as informal urban settlements. This paper proposes a method for generating procedural favelas, containing its road system, division of building lots, and alleys. The road system uses the A* algorithm and is based on the heightmap, having the characteristics of favelas on uneven terrains. The method allows zigzag roads to adapt to the steep elevations, a higher number of dead ends, and large blocks, fitting several buildings, and an alley system. The generation of building lots and alley system is based on the quadtree algorithm. Each block is subdivided to fit its building lots. The buildings are positioned on their lot, leaving a free space for the alleys. The alley system connects all the buildings that are inside the city block to the road. Our purpose is to generate the layout of a favela on arbitrary terrain procedurally. The results can be used in games, animations, and different types of simulations involving this scenario, such as traffic analysis, natural disasters, and future urban growth.