Rune Skovbo Johansen, also known as runevision, shared a project exploring an erosion technique he has been developing over the past eight months. As he explained, his motivation came from the challenges of simulating erosion in virtual landscapes, which is slow and impractical for large-scale or chunked generation, and from the need for alternative methods to create the look of erosion without fully simulating the process.

What he developed is basically a special kind of noise that creates branching gullies and ridges, while letting each point be calculated on its own. This makes it fast, GPU-friendly, and simple to generate in chunks. On top of that, it can be applied over any existing height function, essentially serving as a filter to add erosion effects.

Rune didn't come up with the idea entirely on his own, he was inspired by similar implementations from Clay John and Felix Westin. He then developed his own version that works in a completely different way, and in his breakdown, he explains the basics of the original technique and the changes he introduced. While he doesn't plan to develop it further, he has released the code and encourages other developers to experiment and create something new with it.

Check out the Advanced Terrain Erosion Filter here, and read Rune's comprehensive blog post for all the details. Here's his final iteration of the technique, with interactive mouse painting of the terrain:

Here's the Shadertoy where you can paint eroded mountains and islands with your mouse, right in the browser: www.shadertoy.com/view/sf23W1 #ProcGen #vfx #GameDev

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— Rune Skovbo Johansen (@runevision.bsky.social) 30 марта 2026 г. в 17:49

Another recent project by Rune:

I've overhauled my puzzle level generation so a level is now "grown" like cell tissue in a triangle tessellation. New elements can be inserted anywhere, and the whole level deforms to make room. This makes it easier to control topology and create paths that loops around areas. #ProcGen #GameDev

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— Rune Skovbo Johansen (@runevision.bsky.social) 4 января 2026 г. в 19:00

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