Noise

Fig. 1: An render of 2D Worley noise

Noise, simply put, is a random signal. There are numerous approaches to creating noise, but we are most interested in creating coherent noise. Coherent noise refers to smooth, pseudo-random noise produced by a coherent-noise function.

A coherent-noise function has three main properties:

  • There is a 1:1 mapping between input values and output values (i.e. the same input will always produce the same output)
  • Small changes in input produce small changes in output
  • Large changes in input produce random changes in output