Coding Adventure: Marching Cubes

In this coding adventure I try to understand marching cubes, and then use it to construct an endless underwater world.
If you'd like to support this channel, please consider becoming a patron here:
/ sebastianlague
Project files:
github.com/SebLague/Marching-...
Learning resources:
paulbourke.net/geometry/polygo...
developer.nvidia.com/gpugems/...
people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~jrs...
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:17 Algorithm explanation
3:27 Map editor
3:47 Procedural maps
4:30 Underwater world
Music from filmmusic.io:
"Hiding Your Reality" and "Floating Cities" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licence: CC BY (creativecommons.org/licenses/b...)

[@SebastianLague]

Hi everyone, if you want to learn more about this topic, I have a list of the resources I used in the description. I'd also love to hear if there any topics you'd be interested in seeing covered in the future. If you're enjoying these videos and would like to support me in creating more of them, I'd be tremendously grateful if you'd consider becoming a patron: www.patreon.com/SebastianLague

[@kizz4life]

Is there a way to add collision with good performance? Especially for the last experiment. An interesting topic for the future for me would be reflections, for example on a noisy low poly water surface.

[@StigDesign]

i will when i can :) , i cant right now thoe :( Video tip: Maby make a video on how to make a menu system that has select charakter/Car and then select Level/Track and it then start`s with that Car&Track or Charakter/level, i can think of boolean, but in my game i think it will be alott of performance hit since i have 3 camera`s on eatch car so if i need to have all cars in every scene but hidden and then via menu it cheks for what car is set to true and track that is true it then load the correct scene and show correct car, if you understand :) ps norwegian and dyslexia so am bad at typing and english. :) btw you videos are allways funny and infomatic i learn alott from them on how to code and put things to getther. :) currently am working ona car game so i struggle with the select car and select track and then start with the selcted car&track :D

[@DarkKnight-ke5bx]

What about colliders is there good way to add them without slowdown?

[@stevenhoey9089]

Would be possible to add gravity so that the free floating "chunks" can fall to the surface.

[@cool123xl6]

How would you fix the floaty bits in the end mesh?

[@Ratchet4647]

I personally quite liked the cubes marching at the start of the video and would have been quite satisfied if that was all the video consisted of.

[@lukeduncumb9858]

I'd like the code behind it.

[@ArnoldsKtm]

@@lukeduncumb9858 seriously? It's just an added force that makes it jump to an angle forwards synced with all cubes or the whole group at once.

[@lukeduncumb9858]

@@ArnoldsKtm This is Sebastian we're talking about. It probably is a raycast collision system that has a dynamic comand interface with the options of adding a delay between each cube to cause a cascade look.

[@codingtunes840]

@@lukeduncumb9858 foreach(Cube cube in cubes) { cube.March(); }

[@lukeduncumb9858]

@@codingtunes840 more like: foreach(Cube cube in cubes) { cube.ParadeMovement.March(fl_marchStep, fl_SillyWalkPCent); }

[@elythas128]

*Randomly makes terrain editor* Yup, happens to me every day

[@zenthepig404]

Why are there no comments

[@grunch346]

ZenThePig Because nobody had anything to comment

[@elythas128]

@@grunch346 I didn't even know this had any likes, let alone 750 of 'em, but it is quite weird

[@robbeandredstone7344]

@@elythas128 Now your comment has a like too, ;)

[@andrewherrera7735]

The people who do know how to do this sell the code on the asset store for like $50.

[@profc3027]

Sebastian: The physical feasibility is questionable... Mojang: Wait, that's not supposed to happen?

[@SurnameName]

"I'm afraid that's what passes for humour on this channel" Gosh, you say it like it's a bad thing

[@theafr0842]

I thought it was funny.

[@Songfugel]

That line honestly cracked me up big time... mainly because I was already impressed by the literally marching cubes xD

[@richardmeyer418]

Took me straight to some of the old Monty python cartoons ...

[@espera_2192]

0:06 here we can see an army of angry deleted Blender default cubes joining forces for their counter attack

[@DnBastard]

"WE ARE NOT PLACEHOLDERS! WE HAVE RIGHTS! WE SHALL NOT BE DEFEATED!"

[@711pizzaslice]

@@DnBastard DELETED!*

[@chaotickreg7024]

They have turned FF0000 with anger

[@TheAznCoderPro]

@@711pizzaslice both

[@TheAznCoderPro]

@@chaotickreg7024 oh I get it

[@tomasabrams7234]

As he just casually creates a terrain editor that allows for caves and overhangs, Ok Sebastian lol. This is awesome!

[@drevfx_]

Yeah this guy is amazing, imagine if he works on improving Houdini and World Engine's terrain tools :o

[@tyleralmquist7606]

Now He’s used these cubes to implement terraforming on planets!

[@tomasabrams7234]

@@tyleralmquist7606 holy crap my comment was 2 years ago lol, and ikr!! I love his new video

[@dripnx6381]

bro made minecraft terrain generation but better

[@burningflurber]

the funniest part of that opening joke was that you put the time in to make them not in perfect sync. adorable...

[@lamenwatch1877]

... I actually didn't realize that. Sure gives me a whole new appreciation for that part of the video.

[@rlhugh]

Wow, you're right. Omg. What a God he is. That's amazing. So subtle, and yet, in hindsight, contributes to the feeling that they're organic. People.

[@burgerfanman]

I love how this one cube (third from the front, fourth from the right), is especially out of sync. Poor guy didn't get enough pratice

[@bhaskar08]

Each videos fills me up with joy and creativity!

[@Stonium]

You're quickly becoming my new programming muse!

[@Chickenkeeper]

I'm loving the format of Coding Adventures, and I'm so glad you've discovered compute shaders, can't wait to see what you do with them next :D

[@MrHannatas]

I was just thinking that this combined with the erosion algorithm would bee cool then you said that exact thing at the end of the vid! Can't wait to see this done! :)

[@xMrMiagix]

"So i wanted to explore...." *creates no mans sky 0.9*

[@ewwitsantonio]

The way you document your experience and thought process is excellent!! It's like a mini story, and I find it inspiring! Thanks for sharing this with all of us!

[@jeffreycordova9082]

Hey Sebastian, I've been watching your videos here and there for a couple years now. You're getting pretty good, the sound effects really add value! Keep it up dude.

[@jomative169]

I think Sebastian Lague is one of the smartest coders in the world!

[@GiannyDev]

Hey Sebastian, thanks to your videos I'm only a few days left to release my game. Your content is truly inspirational. Best wishes to you and looking forward to a new Creating a game series.

[@SebastianLague]

Thanks, and congratulations on completing a game! Best of luck with the release :)

[@fabioazevedo2048]

Congratulations, Sebastian! Thank you for this detailed and clear explanation and for this so beautiful application of the marching cubes algorithm. What a nice job!

[@monmonstartv5159]

Wow, Seb I've been waiting for something like this from all over the Internet for ages! And you're even kind enough to give the source code for us to freely explore and learn from! Thanks!

[@TheR971]

Laughed at the intro, cried at Fira Code. What a roller coaster of emotions programming can be!

[@Drascylla]

I'd love to get a lengthy in depth tutorial series on this from you at some point, even perhaps a method to apply marching cube terrain to a sphere.

[@frostden]

Applying a sphere is pretty straight forward. Pick a coordinate for the centre of your sphere. Pick a radius for your sphere. For each cube corner, if the distance from the corner to the centre of the sphere is less than the radius of the sphere, then that corner is inside our solid sphere shape (black, from Sebastian's example). Otherwise it's white.

[@Drascylla]

@@frostden I appreciate the explanation, unfortunately however I tend to follow visual cue instructions a lot better, though if you happen to know of any video tutorials and would like to share them please feel free as it will greatly help me out.

[@Drascylla]

@@monsterkillerxzx8766 Is being degrading towards an individual who merely asked for help also your mental deficiency ? Seriously tough there was no need to act like your the holy massier of knowledge, either way I am still relatively new to coding so giving me some lip about the concept of radius doesn't make any sort of statement to take serious nor are you in the position to speak for the likes of Sebastian himself as to whether a video series is something he'd want to do or not if requested.

[@johndeleon8741]

​@@monsterkillerxzx8766 Seriously, It must suck to be you. Hope your personal problems get sorted out soon.

[@roko567]

@@Drascylla you're asking to be spoon fed with a video tutorial. Beginner programmers do it all the time and it's extremely irritating, hence the harsh response by monsterkillerxzx. Also, if you're that new to coding, maybe you should start with a little less complicated topic? Either way, learning how to learn should be your priority. There aren't gonna be video tutorials for everything you need

[@fazalali2894]

This is one of the best videos I have ever seen. That includes all the movies I have watched. That scene at the end where you're just driving around in a world YOU created is so powerful yet calming.

[@varnonzero]

Hi Sebastian. Something about your visual presentation of signed distance fields really clicked for me. This really helped me address a long running problem in my surface nets terrain generation. I went from accidentally terraced shapes to the perfectly smooth shapes I've been wanting forever! Thanks so much for your work on this and other videos.

[@Juicefoozle]

awesome video. and such a good presentation!

[@peterdodds2694]

Oh look he just made No Man's Sky with 90% of the content

[@pako_powr]

Can't we let that game off the hook now, with all the work the team put into improving the game?

[@rodrijopo]

@@pako_powr No

[@---capybara---]

@@rodrijopo I guess, but they added vr support! Frankly, that's all I need to rate it highly.

[@Yamyatos]

That joke is a couple years late to being funny. Also, as others said they basically deliver what they promised now. Even if they are a few years late :P

[@falcon5178]

yeah, because selling a buggy, incomplete game for 60 USD then taking years to actually develop the game into what it originally promised is perfectly fine right

[@JesseBourretGheysen]

I've watched almost all of the coding adventure series now. Great videos, love em

[@tentakul120]

Great video as always! It helped me understand marching cubes much better than most other tutorials! I would LOVE to see you tackle naive surface nets! I feel like it offers an interesting alternative to marching cubes.

[@technobabble7702]

Oh my God you are a life saver I have been banging my head against this algorithm for days!

[@apancakewithabs632]

I love how even though theeres no fish or anything, its just rock structures, its still awesome to look at xD

[@FedericoLancerin]

Holy crap, this is amazing! Kudos to you for showing us this super cool underwater world you discovered :D

[@feralpapertiger]

Great work! And your explanation of the mathematical relationship between granular cubes (cube marching) was very cogent.

[@albarnie1168]

Holy crap. Every time you upload one of these vids, its it's something ive just done or am about to do. Our interests align. Love your vids man.

[@SebastianLague]

Well I'm not sure what to do next, so let me know if you have any ideas :P Glad you're enjoying the videos!

[@cavalier4789]

@@SebastianLague You should try compute shader particle systems or physics, you can get some ridiculous performance!

[@KyranFindlater]

@@SebastianLague add 'fish' as particle effects with random dithering/directions

[@maximecloutier-gravel8908]

Same for me ! This series is awesome. You could make a second episode on ray marching by covering volumetric clouds.

[@tylerguitar75]

@@SebastianLague make an MMO :P

[@JanTuts]

Very cool, and good explanation! I now finally know how marching cubes actually works! Also, the humour is on point ;)

[@AntonLejon]

Amazing! Love your videos, keep them coming! I didn't know about marching cubes so I was quite thrown off by the intro, but now I want to try implementing this.

[@zambi1239]

I just finished a course in OpenGL where we made crude 3D shapes by mapping vertices... this video really helped to bridge the gap between those concepts and creating more complex models... the explanation for how you developed the terrain editing absolutely blew my mind!

[@countinglampposts]

Holy shit your terrain generator has gotten advanced. This is so impressive! Is there any chance you could explain all of this much slower like your original procedural terrain tutorial?

[@alexchomiak]

Watching this after the titanic submarine hits different 😳

[@vladchira521]

What a video! Absolutely incredible. Such a high quality output. I never knew so much can be done with unity. Well done. Looking forward to your next video

[@imagiromusic]

This is the best coding series I've seen on youtube, keep up the amazing work! fills me with creativity every time :)

[@minecraftermad]

i'm currently smashing this together with your erosion code :)

[@artem_hilia]

Petition to hire this guy for Subnautica development

[@KryptLynx]

But seriously. Already in style and working on Unity :D

[@Gapthrosnir]

This is pretty incredible, soon as I finish my current uni project I'm gonna have to look into this stuff. Thanks for sharing!

[@DJTimeLock]

I always loved messing with vertices and terrain generation, sadly i'm not much of a math person, but i'm glad i can just watch your video's instead while i just watch and you do all the work :D love it!

[@norricommander]

The joke went over my head, at the end I was still waiting to see cubes lol

[@Snowballfred]

MORE , needs more , slap a discord together so we can come banter about these things and share ideas or questions , top stuff

[@Yamyatos]

Not my cup of tea, but some guy actually posted a discord link in one of the discussions above for people to chat / comment on these algorithms and stuff.

[@TomLeys]

I love your marching cubes! Thanks for this great explanation.

[@thehandleiwantedwasntavailable]

This is awesome! 15 years ago I wrote a primitive raytracer in a C scripting language. I always wanted to extend it to handling fractal landscape generation, which is what you’re doing here. I love it! Ryan Geiss is someone who’s done a lot of work in this area too.

[@auxometer]

4:58 an exploration game with that aesthetic would be *radical* and *gnarly*

[@biggieyackboi]

Scanner Sombre is pretty close to what you described

[@softandsgame4874]

It's a prototype for Subnautica game-like :D Good Job !

[@OsvaldoRodriguezTorres]

Super awesome! Can't wait for the tutorial! I was able to make a "marching cubes" styled planet by putting together code from different tutorials but I feel it was very unstable and not fit for real use. Great job. Please do a series on this.

[@druidofpies]

I think calling these "coding adventures" perfectly describes the content and how I feel towards it. It's so interesting, creative, and abstract, all within the logical confines of programming. Can't wait for the next video!

[@Clairvoyant81]

Thank you for this video and the accompanying project files. Really helpful. I have a question, though: At around 3:40 you show a "simple" editor for these density fields / terrain editor. I didn't find that in the project files. Would it be possible to have a look at how you did that?

[@xxzippyzachxx]

I'm also interested In the terrain editor tools!

[@prototy]

@@xxzippyzachxx I assume it's just adding to the grayscale value that determines the surfaces

[@cateyestudios6592]

So i liked the idea of literal cubes marching and one thing led to another and i now have a full scale platoon cube war

[@JimmyDeLock]

You're friggin' awesome, man. I'm blown away by your videos.

[@Confuseddave]

I once spent a few days trying (and failing) to implement a marching cubes algorithm from scratch. "A tremendous headache that I did not want to undertake" is probably the most succinct and accurate description of that process I have yet come across.

[@INeatFreak]

3:40 why did u not include this on project :(

[@redstonebear7_342]

Up next on coding adventures: One person makes Subnautica with random terrain.

[@veizour]

By 0:56 - I've been hearing about marching cubes for so long and kept pushing myself to learn more. You just blew my mind. I had no idea till you demonstrated this. (I'd been dealing with noise+voxel gen). THANK YOU! Oh, and I appreciated your joke :D

[@Komagb]

These are a pleasure to watch, so simple, but impressive!

[@longbowman2306]

anyone else who's completely lost while watching this vid? great video but im scratching my head over here 😂

[@ausderluft4850]

Still trying to figure Out what a marching cube is and how the hell it becomes a terrain Generator.

[@DriitzzCabal]

what got me is the CubeIndex |= 1

[@finian2]

@@DriitzzCabal The = with the / inside it is the same as 'Not equal to', and it kinda depends on the software you're using. Some used !=, while others use .

[@mileswaugh]

DriitzzCabal I am pretty sure that just converts the ID from binary to base 10.

[@jeffwells641]

He uses marching squares in his cave generation video. That's basically a simpler version of marching cubes.

[@mantasvaiciulis3657]

Those marching cubes at the beginning had me dying on the floor xDD. Great video!

[@HypeLozerInc]

wow Sebastian, you've brought us something amazing and I am glad you are here to do that.

[@Democracyphobia]

this channel is a gold mine . thks for all the help man

[@SonicMasterLB]

Holy shiet dud, you are smart af. I like that.

[@gabrielsanchez8408]

Hey guys, any ideas of how to add a collider so that the submarine can't go through the land that is generated?

[@Elyaradine]

Great explanation! The part that's always held me back from making terrain with the compute shader has been getting physics to work with it.

[@eftorq]

Blowing my mind one video at a time. This is so awesome!

[@NGCHunter2]

Wouldn't it be theoretically possible to eradicate the "questionable physically feasibility" parts by having the terrain generator check for mesh elements which vertices have less than xyz connections (from what I've seen, the physically questionable elements all had only a bunch of vertex connections)? Just asking, for the underwater terrain looks really good otherwise!

[@TMtheScratcher]

It would eliminate all small floating mountains, but big floating mountains will still exist. However it is still a good idea, because without it you would have both :D you have to find the perfect middle for the treshhold: Too small and you have a lot of flying stuff. Too big and you will have noticable decrease in performance

[@EpicestGamer]

It maybe more thorough to check from a base point (somewhere in the ground) and make sure you can get everywhere, there'd still be weird overhangs, and it would be *much* heavier, but it would be more thorough. Although from the footage there weren't really any large floating mountains, so I think the first one would be just fine.

[@npip99]

@@EpicestGamer Actually, your recommendation is much easier to compute than going to each coordinate and checking for example 8 coordinates in each direction. Since 8*8=64, the tiny island algo does 64*N operations, where N is the total number of coordinates. Your algorithm would do a+6b operations, where a is the number of coordinates that are actually part of the final ground terrain, and b is the # of coordinates adjacent to the final ground terrain, both of which avoiding N which includes coordinates in the air itself. This is a much much smaller number. (Explanation, being that you start at your base point and check all 6 adjacent locations until you find a new vertex to go to, so "a" is all possible new coordinates, while each "b" which is part of the surface area will be visited at most 6 times, one for each neighbor. This algorithm would be maximally efficient) Actually, I'm not even sure how you'd check 8 coordinates in each direction without simply picking a base point and going from there anyway.

[@therealsemechki]

@@EpicestGamer That's the flood-fill operation he initially mentioned, but that's still quite non-performant.

[@Hilko26]

This all reminds me of the volumetric caves in Deep Rock Galactic, I'd suggest you check it out.

[@animeshkarnewar3]

I have to admit that this is the coolest video on marching cubes I have seen till now. Just sprinkle real-time ray tracing on it and you have an indie game already.

[@pixsaoul1494]

wow this video is just amazing, awesome work ! I was just working on mesh generation for a boxel based level design and I think what you did will help me achieve what I want :)

[@TheGuyWithTheLemon]

Is it bad that i thought this video was actually about how to get cubes marching like in the beginning LOL? And great video man, keep it up!

[@luis96xd]

I thought the same! And We almost got it xDDD

[@augustowang2417]

When you accidentally create astroneer with a terrain editor...

[@beyondlwm]

this is the most clear explanation of matching cube I've ever seen， thank you！

[@dam-ib9fs]

wow almost recreated astroneer with that terrain editor, hats off to you my friend

[@tiagotaquelim1776]

The infinite underwater game would actually be such a cool idea.

[@EpicestGamer]

Boy do I have the game for you!

[@tiagotaquelim1776]

@@EpicestGamer i require more information :3

[@MarkWiemer]

Subnautica!

[@philippbrogli779]

@@EpicestGamer I love how you didn't even bother with answering since everyone knew what your answer is.

[@jufaceambrisar8808]

0:58 I think that's what the fourth dimension looks like

[@porrasm]

I'm writing my bachelors thesis on procedural generation and now I'm interested to try what I've learnt in action. This project helped me get started with that.

[@shles]

Fantastic! I love it! It is the true magic. The combination of math and visuals! OMG you're so cool!

[@r1pfake521]

Did you delete/hide some of your older videos? Im sure you had a video about a object/camera following a path/spline, but I can't find it anymore :(

[@wssdude]

Best intro ever :D

[@littlenarwhal3914]

This is so unbelievably cool! Every episode always seems cooler than the one before. How long did this take you? And where do you get all these ideas for projects from?

[@JJDSG]

Sorry i was a bit late. But man i loved this one immensely. Wow nice work. I hope you use this in your long abandoned procedural world's series. Thanks

[@willd773]

What if you use a non-linear interpolation, like say cubic interpolation?

[@giggleghost3751]

Damn, you are a coding wizard. xD 💖

[@MichaelProstka]

I soooooo look forward to your videos! This is fantastic as usual, thank you!

[@Scarletraven87]

This is ... beauty. It is on a level that is clearly far beyond my skills, and yet so beautiful it doesn't scare me. That's so rare.

[@AtomkeySinclair]

I'm sure this has been asked and answered. What graphics library are you using to represent your data with?

[@AtomkeySinclair]

Well dangit. At least 6 folks agree with me wondering by now. So I assume by the thumbs up. Wishing for an answer still.

[@nickrooker6368]

I just looked through the project on github.. It appears he's using unity, but I might be incorrect.

[@Yamyatos]

He works with Unity. And in his 2D Terrain Generation series he wrote everything from scratch, building a mesh and coloring triangles based on their height and so on. So i highly doubt he uses anything other than Unity in this example either. If that does not answer your question, he posted the entire project in the description so you can simply download and import it and see for yourself how he did all the things.

[@Nightmare-or2yd]

PLEASE make a tutorial for this. You may not be the most experienced in the field but you are so good at explaining things and I think a lot of people would be interested.

[@DragonHeart000]

I'm trying to learn about marching cubes to start a side project game that will use it and this was a really good starting point!

[@damagedtalent]

That was quite beautiful to watch thank you

[@CaptainJeoy]

Sebastian makes me remember why I wanted to do game development in the first place

[@Wylie288]

Gamers are shitty people these days. Don't recommend it.

[@CaptainJeoy]

@@Wylie288 Oh, hahaha. i forgot to reply this. I had already been a game developer when i made that comment, i was just reminiscing on the first love i had on the medium.

[@Kirton1541]

Which script is the line of code in to change from a 2d terrain to a planet? (i.e value = radius - ...) be grateful if anyone can let me know. Edit: nvm after playing around i found out you have to create an empty object in the left hand menu, then drag the SphereDensity script in Scripts->Density onto the object, then set the density generator in the mesh generator to sphere density

[@fisthacker1325]

hi, i did this and i am just getting a round sphere not a terrain sphere/ planetary terrain. can you explain please.

[@HunternifArt]

The terrain generation tool looks like it could be an awesome general-purpose sculpting tool as well!

[@Felix-wq2ec]

This is cute. I like the marching cubes at the beginning. The atmospheric submarine adventure at the end has character.

[@Parzival0152]

are you going to continue the neural networs series?? it has been a really good one at that

[@digitalArtform]

If you do this in 2D you get the algorithm Adobe Illustrator uses to turn pixels into vector tracings.

[@satibel]

I used that algorithm to turn a picture into g-code (which is basically vectorisation), and also to make a map out of 2D sprites (like rpg maker).

[@markezzg]

The visual explanation is awesome 👍💪

[@FreekHoekstra]

would love to see erosion applied to this indeed :) very cool video and love that you show your mishaps as well as your successes!!!

[@Magnogen]

Could you also do a type of hydraulic erosion on this kind of thing to make the terrain a bit more natural?

[@Yamyatos]

I highly doubt that this plus erosion would be manageable in realtime, considering his erosion example took nearly a second to generate. Even if you sped that up multiple times and cache / save chunks after their first time being generated, i believe walking into a new area and forcing new content to be generated would either cause a noticable latency between frames, or a pop-in on chunks depending on threading. Nontheless, if this is possible it would surely look amazing!

[@Magnogen]

@@Yamyatos Ok, that makes sense. I wonder if there is a more efficient way to do erosion that can be done with this kind of generating... Like some sort of pseudo-erosion.