Introduction
This is less of a "how to" on using 2D simplex noise and more of a quest to understand what is happening both in the math and visually. I would rather not copy and paste the code I've found. I really would like to understand it.
I have done my homework on the subject and have read through Stefan Gustavson's paper and other sources many times. I feel like I understand about 70% of what my sources are saying, but when I try to manually follow my code loop through to check my understanding I either get hung up on what the variables represent or the math just doesn't add up.
I have begun to rename the variables in the code I've found in order to better understand what's going on. If someone with some knowledge of what is actually happening can cross reference the original code (basically Gustavson's code) with my code that would be most excellent. I'm not actually done with renaming the variables though, partly because I'm stuck.
My Understanding
Let's say I pass pixel (2, 3) into my noise function. At this point I'm working with a normal grid and my goal is to translate this normal grid into a simplex. This simplex is in the form of many triangles since we're working in 2D and supposedly this is better for various reasons.
To translate this point from the normal grid to the simplex grid, I must scale the point along the main diagonal line. After doing that, I apparently don't care about the decimals because I then Floor the results putting it back near the closest previous grid point.
Now I'm going to align the simplex cell to the normal grid by unskewing the simplex cell. Why I do all this work to get to the simplex cell, then undo it I'm pretty hazy on. Seriously, I think the best way for me to understand this is if someone could whiteboard out in steps what the heck is going on here. Super lost.
I didn't walk away empty handed though. I now have what I believe to be the distance between the original grid point I passed in and the simplex point I translated from that original grid point. Woo.
I think I'll stop here for now, just because I don't want this to turn into a huge wall of text. I'm pretty sure the rest of this will click once I understand the the beginning part.
Weird Math
Using the (2, 3) point from earlier, this is what I get by stepping through my own code on paper:
x = 2
y = 3
skewfactor = 1.830
unskewFactor = 1.479
unskewed_x = 1.520
unskewed_y = 2.520
simplexCell_i = 3
simplexCell_j = 4
x_distance0 = -1.520
y_distance0 = -1.520
i1 = 0
j1 = 1
x1 = -1.309
y1 = -2.309
x2 = -2.5207
y2 = -2.5207
ii = no idea why this isn't i2 or something like that. No idea what this is.
jj = same
Not sure if plotting on a graph would work, but I tried and it looks so bad. I used the original parameters (2, 3), simplexCell_i & j, i1, j1, x1, y1, x2, and y2. Doesn't make any sense visually.
Not just visually, but mathematically as well. What's with (2, 3) returning negative numbers that go off the chart? What am I doing wrong here?