Interactive demo
Noise Terrain Generator
Stack layers of different noise types into a heightmap and explore the resulting landscape in 3D. Compare how every kind of noise shapes the terrain.
Loading the 3D view …
Drag to rotate, scroll to zoom. Change the noise layers below to reshape the landscape.
Terrain
Shape
Display
Noise types compared
| Noise | Output | Built from | Work per sample | Smooth |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Value Noise | Scalar field | Random values on a grid | 4 grid points | Yes |
| Perlin Noise | Scalar field | Random gradients on a grid | 4 grid points | Yes |
| Simplex Noise | Scalar field | Gradients on a triangle grid | 3 corners | Yes |
| Worley Noise | Scalar field | Random feature points | 9 to 25 cells | No |
| Blue Noise | Point set | Random candidates around existing points | Up to 30 tries per point | – |
| Fractal Noise | Scalar field | Octaves of a base noise | 1 base noise per octave | Yes |
| Diamond-Square | Heightmap | Displaced midpoints of a grid | 4 neighbors per point | No |
| Colors of Noise | Signal or image | White noise filtered by frequency | 1 FFT for all samples | – |
| Domain Warping | Scalar field | Fractal noise at warped positions | Up to 5 fractal noises | Yes |
| Curl Noise | Vector field | Derivatives of a noise field | 4 noise samples | Yes |
| Noise Terrain Generator this page | Heightmap | Stacked noise layers | Layers × octaves | – |
Noise layers
The layers are combined from top to bottom, the first one is the base. Solo shows a single layer on its own, so you can compare the noise types directly.
1. Heightmap
Every point of the terrain samples the noise layers at its position. The combined value becomes its height, colored from sea and beach to grass, rock and snow.
2. Stacking layers
A layer with a low frequency forms continents and valleys, higher frequencies add hills and roughness. The blend mode decides how a layer changes the result so far: add, subtract, mask it (multiply) or keep the higher or lower value.
3. Which noise for what
Perlin and simplex noise give smooth, rolling shapes, value noise looks a little blockier. Ridged noise forms mountain ridges, billow noise rounded dunes and Worley noise cells and craters.