Shadowing Practice: How I Learned Procedural Generation - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

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So I finished learning how to make an FPS controller,
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So I finished learning how to make an FPS controller,
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but if I want to make a more polished looking game,
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I will need to work on my environment.
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And since I'm more of a coder than an artist,
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I think there's no better way than with procedural generation.
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So let's begin by starting a new project.
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Next it's time to go on my usual YouTube grind and figure out how to do mesh generation.
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Thankfully Bracchus has three videos on this topic.
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Three days later.
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After watching Brackey's videos, I'm now able to generate meshes of any size that I need,
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and all it took is the code you see on the left.
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Now to make this look like terrain,
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use something called Perlin Noise,
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which is an algorithm created by Ken Perlin to help make more natural looking textures and terrain on the movie Tron.
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What I'm using here is the 2D version which generates values between 0 and 1.
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To represent this, I map the numbers closer to 0 as black and numbers closer to 1 as white.
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The power of this algorithm comes when you multiply that Perlin value by a number.
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For instance, I can use Perlin noise multiplied by an amplitude to procedurally generate the height of my terrain.
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This is all fine and dandy,
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but I wanted a little bit more control over my environment.
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Thankfully I found this tutorial series by Sebastian Legg,
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and it covered everything I wanted to know and more.
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It seriously was so good that I gave it a watch a few times over.
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The problem is, it goes into so much depth that it is too comprehensive for my puny brain to handle.
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So I took two of the simpler concepts to add to my generator.
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One was the ability to finely tune the noise,
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and two was this concept of multiplying the the Perlin noise with the falloff map to create islands.
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I actually wrote my own version of Sebastian's falloff map so that I could set where the falloff begins and ends.
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Here's a preview of that code for those of you who are interested.
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I also fixed Sebastian's noise generator because I think he broke it around episode 6 and then never fixed it.
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When you change the scale you're supposed to be able to zoom in
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and out of the Perlin map but right now it almost seems like you're generating a new map.
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I narrowed down the problem to these lines here.
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Changing this also fixed the parallax effect Sebastian had when changing the offset.
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Now that we have more control over our environment,
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it's time to move on to my favorite topic from elementary school,
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and that is coloring.
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So for coloring, I spent about a week or two trying to recreate the style Sebastian had for his intro.
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He shows that he's generating a texture with these nicely rounded edges,
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but in the tutorials, he only teaches us how to make a pixelated texture.
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One solution I had was to increase the number of sample points we use in the texture,
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but if you zoom in,
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we still have the problem of seeing each individual pixel.
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Then I remembered watching a video by Sebastian where he used marching cubes,
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and I was almost certain this is the approach he used for generating his texture.
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So I watched this video by the coding train and converted his marching squares algorithm from JavaScript into C-sharp.
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I got pretty close to the results I wanted,
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but when you view this on the terrain,
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you could still see each individual pixel.
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So I gave up on using a texture approach.
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I really tried to avoid this as much as I could,
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but I was left with no other choice but to dive into shaders.
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After messing with shader graph for a few hours,
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I came up with this decent shader here.
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I surprisingly had a lot of fun making this and it turns out shaders aren't too hard after all.
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With my new love for shaders,
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I looked up a bunch of more tutorials on YouTube.
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I found this tutorial for creating a gradient skybox with stars,
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but I noticed there's a little bit of distortion near the edges.
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So I found this article that taught me how to do proper UV sphere projection,
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and yay, no more distortion.
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But I wasn't quite satisfied yet.
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I also found this awesome cloud shader that I needed to use as well.
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And now our skies are looking not too bad.
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Then to top it all off I used these two videos to make a stylized water.
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Alright let's finish off this last bit here.
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So to finish off this project let's add some vegetation.
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I hopped in the blender and made this very beginner friendly tree
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but I don't want to manually place hundreds of trees on the terrain because that would take forever.
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And we are going for a complete procedural generation.
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Thankfully, I remember watching this video from Jonas Tyroller a
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while back where he talked about creating random levels for his game Islander.
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Basically, if you shoot a raycast onto a random point on the island,
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you can check if it's a valid spawn point for a tree.
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If so, spawn the tree.
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Then you can do this for as many times as you want trees,
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or whatever object you want to randomly place.
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So I created this simple prefab spawner script where I can select a prefab to spawn.
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Then to determine if a spot is valid to place a prefab,
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I just check if the the hit location is above the sea level.
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I also have the script randomly change the scale
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and rotation of the prefab we are spawning so that we have a bit of variation.
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Lastly, let's add some grass.
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I found this video to create a quick grass texture,
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then I put together a bunch of planes in blender to display it.
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Back in Unity, I just reused my prefab spawner script to spawn my grass around the island.
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Although, to really bring this grass to life,
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I watched this video from Bracuse.
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And now, we have Sway in our grass.
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So I brought over my FPS controller from the last video so that we can explore the island.
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And after working on this for so long,
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it's super cool to see this from the first person view.
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With what we have here,
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it's really starting to feel like a really polished game.
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The sky, the water, with the FPS movements,
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everything ties nicely together to really bring that GAME FEW.
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To be honest, I could keep on going and continue to add things to my procedure generator,
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but then this video will never end.
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I definitely will be working on this tool in future videos
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and I am just so pleased with how much I was able to figure out.
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This is definitely going to help me out in any future game that I make,
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and even just this island already feels like a cool spot to do 1v1 deathmatches on.
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I can imagine doing some sick multiplayer battles on here,
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finding good angles to pick off people on the island.
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But anyways, if you stuck around this long,
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thank you so much for watching,
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and I hope to see you in the next one.
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Peace.

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Why practice speaking with this video?

Engaging with this video on procedural generation not only enhances your technical acumen but also provides an excellent opportunity for English speaking practice. As the speaker navigates through the intricate world of coding, listeners are exposed to a rich vocabulary around programming, artistic design, and algorithmic concepts. This multifaceted context helps learners to improve their ability to articulate complex ideas, making it a perfect scenario for learning English with YouTube. By practicing with this content, you can refine your pronunciation, enhance your fluency, and build confidence in discussing technical subjects—that's where a shadowing app comes in handy. By mimicking the speaker, you can learn effective pausing, intonation, and the rhythm of English speech.

Grammar & Expressions in Context

As you delve into the video, pay attention to key grammatical structures and expressions that enhance clarity and precision in communication:

  • Conditional Structures: The speaker often uses conditional phrases like "if I want to" and "when you change". These constructions articulate the outcomes related to specific conditions, vital for forming complex sentences.
  • Present Simple for Ongoing Actions: Phrases like "I finished learning" and "it's time to go" are examples of the present simple tense, signifying actions that are currently relevant. This is a useful structure to master for discussing processes or ongoing tasks.
  • Descriptive Language: The speaker employs descriptive adjectives, such as "more polished" and "natural looking", to give vivid context to their programming journey. This adds depth to communication and helps learners express ideas more vividly.

Common Pronunciation Traps

While watching, be mindful of certain tricky words and pronunciations that can pose challenges:

  • Procedural: This word can be a tongue twister; focus on breaking it down into syllables: pro-ce-du-ral.
  • Perlin Noise: The speaker's reference to this algorithm may lead to mispronunciation. Ensure to stress the first syllable: PER-lin Noise.
  • Algorithm: Often mispronounced, practice saying it with the emphasis on the third syllable: al-GOR-i-thm.

Through these focused practices, you can greatly enhance your proficiency in both technical discussions and regular conversations, making this video a valuable resource for your English learning journey.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

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