How can I make my own perlin noise function?

MGlolenstine

Ok, so I wanted to make my own perlin noise function so I'd learn a bit more about perlin noise and how it works, but I'm unable to find any good explanations on how it works or any pre-made code. None of the code I found worked and all it did it returned 0.0 or 0.5 when I was looping through all X positions on screen and sending X coordinate in noise function to get Y coordinate back. I was trying to make a natural looking graph.

Questions:

• Was I using it wrong?

• How does Perlin noise work?(I know that it looks upon neighbouring tiles to figure out what's the next one going to be)

• How can I implement my own version of it?

• Maybe any hints on improving it?

Thanks in advance, MGlolenstine

jeremydouglass

@MGlolenstine -- Interesting project. One thing you could do is look at the source code for Processing, which is open source and available online.

• https://processing.org/reference/noise_.html
• http://processing.github.io/processing-javadocs/core/processing/core/PApplet.html#noise-float-
• https://github.com/processing/processing/blob/master/core/src/processing/core/PApplet.java#L5070

Re: understanding. The top search hits for Perlin Noise:

https://www.google.com/search?q=perlin+noise

...are Wikipedia, then a tutorial/walkthrough on github and Khan Academy. What specific questions were you left with after reviewing this material?

No way to know if you are using it wrong unless you share your code....

MGlolenstine

Thanks for your answer. You are correct... No way to know if I'm using it wrong unless I share my code.

I'll use your links to learn and hopefully re-write the Perlin Noise function.

Once again, thanks for taking your time and answering my question :)

jeremydouglass

@MGlolenstine -- good luck, and follow up in this thread if you have more questions.