v0.8 is progressing well: new ocean generation, basic modding support and new views (one with visible clouds) are done. Don't hesitate to activate the beta branch to test it! Still a few features to work on before releasing it to everyone. So, in the meantime, I would like to rewrite here an old post from twitter (2019!) that was explaining the hexagonal generation I've developped for Plan B. Here it is: How to create a sphere made of hexagons? Hexagons of similar size and orientation? The most common way to do that is to start from a regular icosahedron (solid of 20 of equilateral triangles), then subdiving each triangle (sphere tessellation). Each triangle vertex becomes an hexagon, as you can see in this pic (credits https://twitter.com/AndyGainey ; I'll come back to him): [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43157461/0597bc93a2e4363e2943d15524dc3470fb4c9bba.jpg[/img] Here is a sphere with 5 subdivisions (~10,000 hexagons). It's very nice, that's what I initially planned to use... but it's actually bad for a game. Not because of the 12 hidden pentagons, but because of the non-uniformity of the size, shape and orientation of the hexagons. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43157461/b76a1cad87ac79c368c1530086a33f2d61068e16.png[/img] Here is what you can see at different positions of the sphere ; north pole being on top. Hexagons are of various shape, size, and orientation ; the result would be awful when you scroll in the game, very disturbant. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43157461/6a3f5a7e550b7184030eb1c081c272a49bda58c2.png[/img] There are other ways to do this sphere tessellation, like the very interesting Healpix, which garantees the same size for each area, but have non-uniform shape, and squares instead of triangles/hexagons. https://healpix.sourceforge.io http://montage.ipac.caltech.edu/docs/HEALPix/ [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43157461/0002cf4364aba6aac13287c0a4317830cea47dd1.jpg[/img] A very special and incredibly imaginative solution is the one of @AndyGainey, explained in detail here: http://experilous.com/1/blog/post/procedural-planet-generation To avoid avoid pentagones and predictable irregularities, he decided to do the total opposite: going full irregularity. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43157461/85352e0ba0a6fc48fd490a1d6cd7182ca0ddf020.jpg[/img] When irregularity (in size, shape and number of edges) is everywhere and random, the surface actually becomes regular - homogeneous in its irregularity. Really brillant, but not what I need for my game, as I really want regular hexagons. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43157461/d1425405fc5ade2135b21e695360e48064df778c.jpg[/img] So, what I do is that I divide the sphere in vertical "slices". Inside each slice, the triangles/hexagons are set in perfectly horizontal rows, and are (almost) pefectly equilateral. The non-uniformity is grouped in the links between slice. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43157461/ea6a6e8722846b07c04d00ff23b12b2e70f3d0bf.png[/img] One big advantage is that the more hexagons there are, the more regular it becomes. And for my game, I'll have a lot, lot of hexagons. Here is the sphere with a few thousands ones. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43157461/a6359be5fcfa7ab0f89ea0da7803c375bd39437f.png[/img] And here is a portion of the surface, with a few millions of hexagons. Can you spot the irregular shapes ? Not easy ! They should definitely not be a problem when playing on this field. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43157461/43fd4b7a5f958d37b07430fb90196923e84ca064.jpg[/img] The "Icosahedron tessellation" method produces only 12 pentagons. With my method I get much more: 720 for a sphere of 14000 hexagons (5%). But the more hexagons, the better the ratio is. For 10 millions of hexagons, only 0.2% are pentagons or heptagons. I have calculated the variation in the triangles edge lengths (are hexagons are uniform in shape and size ?): I get a coefficient of variation of 6.5% for the icosahedron tessellation ; but only 1.6% with my method. The best advantage of my solution is about the orientation of the hexagons (are they "horizontal" ? I check the angles of the triangles edges). I get a coefficient of variation of only 3.8%, compared to the 55% with the icosahedron tessellation! Here it is. 5 years later, i have no regret using this system, i still can't think of a more suited one. Although, i can say now that i definitely underestimated the technical complexity of using this system in a full game, to properly manage the slices borders. If I had had more time, i would have loved to research further in this matter. Maybe find a way to avoid the slices. Or something else. If any of you know of some interesting research about it, i'd be very interested to know about it!