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Sasha

Terrain Generation

9 posts in this topic

The current terrain generation in TerraFirmaCraft feels very noisy, jagged and unrealistic. I think the 6 - 10 meter high hills seen absolutely everywhere throughout TFC worlds firstly makes the terrain ugly to look at, but more importantly, doesn't provide a good basis for building on.

TFC demands more and more expansive structures to be built by the player just to progress, whereas vanilla minecraft only requires a house with a few specialised rooms. This means players need to find more areas suitable to their building needs. Typically, this is dependant on what natural resources there are. For example, bloomeries, forges and fire pits are more likely to be built close to mines, and mines are more often going to be built near low-tier metals (this is the result of progression. you need low-tier metals to proceed, so naturally, these mines are dug and used first)

Once agriculture comes into effect, players will be looking for vast open plains suitable for farming, rather than having to level acres worth of those ugly hills before they can even begin considering irrigation.

Another thing that irks me is the haphazardness of biome appearance. We can still see deserts joined directly to snow biomes and swamps connected to plains. What I'd like to see is biome generation based on 1) What biomes are nearby, and 2) the latitude of the biome. This way, oceans could be more likely to generate near oceans, deserts and snow could be separated by kilometres at least and jungles/marshes could occur in the minecraft equivalent of tropics.

Finally: ever since the introduction of the nether, I've yet to see someone use it's 1/8th distance conversion effectively. This is possibly because all the resources a player could need are within overworld walking/rail/boat distances. To make players consider developing the nether, biome size could be increased to span hundreds or thousands of metres. This would mean more exploration is required by the player to find the resources they need, but it would also mean that: travel through the nether becomes a reasonable choice, finding decent-sized flatlands for building would be easier and the world would look more realistic.

I've also noticed that as a result of the extreme hillyness of the terrain, everywhere is permeated by 1 - 2 meter deep tiny pools/lakes. This adds another degree of ugliness to the world, as the player sees more land that needs to be levelled in order to build decent-sized structures. Though this is nothing compared to the ugliest feature in minecraft since Notch first touched a keyboard: "Notch Ponds" the little sunken pools of water that appear randomly at any altitude in any biome. Please, for the sake of decent-looking worlds, remove these abominations!

To sum up this post:

1) smoother terrain

2) latitude and local biomes determine biome generation

3) larger biomes

4) notch ponds >.<

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Bioxx has contacted someone that's modded the world gen code and hopefully he'll hear back and get some help. AFAIK he's already shown an interest in changing the world gen. I've got my fingers crossed.

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Eeehh? But I love how vastly wild the terrain can get. Take away the craziness and visual landmarks will be less effective, probably aiding in a people getting lost a little easier. I mean the plains biomes, yes, those need to be seriously altered. Those are not plains. Deserts should probably be as well, as I don't think I should be able to see the rock underneath as often and easily as I do. Sand would blow around and cover it up.

Other than those two types I like it how it is. I -really- don't like your idea of linking same biomes together. It has too much potential for unplayability. Some of the biomes can be ridiculously large as it is, requiring extensive travel to find something new. Now take that, and start in a plains biome. What's likely to be around in that scenario? More plains. Granted it would be a different number plains, but they all share a similar problem: what will you have a really hard time finding any of in plains? Trees. No trees, no progress. Same applies to desert, mountains, and oceans. People thought oceans were endless before? Woo-boy. It basically translates to a lot of extra travel time to get what you want, whether it be different wood or different scenery. The stone strata for different biome numbers of the same type seems to alter enough where finding specific rock types for certain ores doesn't feel a likely problem.

And those notch ponds? You're probably going to want to keep those. Last I heard finite water was an actual planned addition, so every last drop could end up precious. I could be mistaken, but even then I'de still want ponds here and there. Take them away and what do you see? Green, green, and more green (or white snow, yellow sand, etc). The bright blue breaks up the color monotony of any area in my opinion. Plus, until wooden buckets are put in at least, the ponds allow players more locations to start farms (and by extension homes), so they don't have to plant wheat next to the ocean or in a swamp. Yes, there are river biomes, but the notch ponds still add more feasible locations to settle for the time being. If you really don't like them, it won't take much dirt to fill it in. Even if it's different dirt, when grass grows over it will all blend together.

For the part about the nether, there's no TFC way of accessing the nether as it is. Unless you get lucky with zombie drops for iron/buckets, or don't turn off Generated Structures and find what you need in dungeons/mineshafts.

Re-reading this post before posting I realize that it really seems like I'm attacking you, but I just feel really strongly about my opinions on the terrain generation. The wild terrain has always been my favorite part of minecraft as a whole, because when I build around the terrain I can create unique structures that can only exist properly in that specific spot. Just bulldozing an area to build a standard square house is kind of boring to me. Also, I'm having a hard time expressing hesitation in type format since at the behest of friends I've recently tried to cut back on using ellipses (...) (/rant/ Language is a living thing! It changes! Things can develop new meanings! If it didn't we would still be talking like Shakespeare! /endrant/), so as a result most of my statements probably seem much more stern than they actually are. At the very least I do wholeheartedly agree that the plains need to be flattened/smoothed. I probably still sound incredibly rude though -_-

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Just wanted to point out that the nether-distance thing is utilized quite effectively in FFA SMP-servers, for better and for worse. I agree on the distance thing though, although it would take quite a toll on SMP-servers (having to generate much larger worlds for instance)

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The current geology in the real world implies that deserts are mostly located around planes biomes.

Plains are then close up to forests.

forests are then hooked to jungles.

And jungles are then hooked up to swamps.

It all depends on the humidity of the area and climate.. Of course swamps are in 1st place in humidity levels then going to jungles which are the 2nd...

Mountain biomes can be butted up to hill biomes as the terrain gets more rough to travel.

Snow biomes can occur near forests and other types of snow biomes such as the sequoia one...

And finally deserts are butted up to Oceans which then lead to other land masses.

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The current geology in the real world implies that deserts are mostly located around planes biomes.

Plains are then close up to forests.

forests are then hooked to jungles.

And jungles are then hooked up to swamps.

It all depends on the humidity of the area and climate.. Of course swamps are in 1st place in humidity levels then going to jungles which are the 2nd...

Mountain biomes can be butted up to hill biomes as the terrain gets more rough to travel.

Snow biomes can occur near forests and other types of snow biomes such as the sequoia one...

And finally deserts are butted up to Oceans which then lead to other land masses.

Pretty sure Rain Forests are more humid than Swamplands. They're called Rain Forests for a reason.

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Pretty sure Rain Forests are more humid than Swamplands. They're called Rain Forests for a reason.

rainforest =/= jungle

...Gotta admit, adding rainforests would be pretty badass...

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i like this except that i do not think that deserts should be next to oceans just a new beach biom that can grow palm trees and coconuts, coconuts would be a good adition too, and looking at california's geography tells me that slight forests or plains can get pretty close up to the water, maybe just barely meeting the water for a few metters but for the most part it would be beaches. also there should be slightly more variation on what biomes meet what biomes as your way pretty much only allows for you to be on a huge funky looking dart board, so maybe make it so 2 or 3 biomes can connect to one another so you can have multiple biomes connected to a forset biome you start out in so you have 2 or more choices if you don't like forests, like swaps and forests next to plains, and wet lands, wet lands are alot like a cross between plains and swamps, very wet but very flat with few trees, and wet lands are usualy not only home to very tall grasses that but also a variety of wildlife and can be a good place to find certain animals

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I support bigger biomes from a surface perspective, on the other hand, I have spent almost a week now looking for gabbro to make black steel, and I only found one and it was at surface with no ores. Making bigger biomes would just exaggerate the problem.

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