Rivers and Flooding
I tried to implement proper rivers the other day (which flow from mountains to the sea over different levels of terrain.) The problem is, with our water system, this naturally leads to flooding as the rivers pile up water onto the seas, and the rivers eventually run dry! So I’ll have to come up with another solution for rivers in the future. It does make for some pretty pictures though.
If the map is relatively static, you can periodically drop a tiny amount of water everywhere, then repeatedly run the flow algorithm for all spots that are less than some threshold. This will concentrate rainwater into creeks. You can then trace these creeks upstream to find their sources. From then on, create a small amount of water at each water source and let it flow downhill.
I used something along those lines for a game I worked on which was largely about water flow (see here). It worked reasonably but wasn’t perfect.
That’s a great idea thanks!