Do you think Mapgen V6 is the comfiest of all mapgens?

[minerman]

Anyone here felt that Mapgen v6 kinda much comfier to settle dan explore than other mapgens? Based on my experience, mapgen v6 geography was somehow felt much more 'compact' and stuffed.
Mapgen v7, in my experience was felt too big in scale, which in turn somehow felt more tiring to explore. Yes, i know that v7 has more features like extensive biomes and beautiful landscapes, but for me there is something alluring about v6 simplicity and compactness.

[Sokomine]

Same here. I still start new worlds with v6 mapgen due to its terrain unless I need to test something with a diffrent mapgen. The small-scaledness of v6 interacts well with the rather short view range. After all all those glorious mountains are invisible most of the time unless I walk there. However, carpathian mapgen is also tempting sometimes. Feels like flat land, sourrounded by higher hills. Good in theory for larger projects.

[v-rob]

I don't really build huge stuff in Minetest, but instead built tiny, self-sustaining villages. v6 is perfect because you don't have to explore much to find what you want. You can find a perfect little cozy spot and you just settle down. In the other mapgens, you have to explore to find the perfect area, but it still might be marred by something like enormous cliffs nearby, or it might be in or close to a biome you don't like. v6 doesn't have many annoying biomes, like permafrost.

[minerman]

Same here. I still start new worlds with v6 mapgen due to its terrain unless I need to test something with a diffrent mapgen. The small-scaledness of v6 interacts well with the rather short view range. After all all those glorious mountains are invisible most of the time unless I walk there. However, carpathian mapgen is also tempting sometimes. Feels like flat land, sourrounded by higher hills. Good in theory for larger projects.

This, v7 beautiful landscape is basically kind of invisible for mid end laptop user like me, v6 is perfect for short view range.

I don't really build huge stuff in Minetest, but instead built tiny, self-sustaining villages. v6 is perfect because you don't have to explore much to find what you want. You can find a perfect little cozy spot and you just settle down. In the other mapgens, you have to explore to find the perfect area, but it still might be marred by something like enormous cliffs nearby, or it might be in or close to a biome you don't like. v6 doesn't have many annoying biomes, like permafrost.

ALSO THIS! v6 is basically perfect for quickstarters and small village builders. v7 is just too large to find a cozy spot to settle at.

Hmm, Sometimes i wondered, would it be possible to replicate v6 geographical form (not the biomes) in newer mapgens like v7 using Perlin magic?

[Hume2]

It is possible to transform the x/z coordinates by Perlin noise to different coordinates. I call this coordinate noise. After that, it can happen that features from both v6 and v7 appear in a single world. The coordinate noise changes somewhere slowly and somewhere rapidly. When the coordinate noise changes rapidly, it generates v6-like terrain and when it changes slowly, it generates v7-like terrain.

These screenshots are from terrainbrot, which uses this mechanism. Both come from the same world:

[minerman]

It is possible to transform the x/z coordinates by Perlin noise to different coordinates. I call this coordinate noise. After that, it can happen that features from both v6 and v7 appear in a single world. The coordinate noise changes somewhere slowly and somewhere rapidly. When the coordinate noise changes rapidly, it generates v6-like terrain and when it changes slowly, it generates v7-like terrain.

These screenshots are from terrainbrot, which uses this mechanism. Both come from the same world:

This is beautiful, but is it possible to use it Only for mgv6 features only?, also compared to other mapgen, how fast was it?

[Hume2]

This is beautiful, but is it possible to use it Only for mgv6 features only?, also compared to other mapgen, how fast was it?

Well, terrainbrot wasn't designed to imitate v6 or v7 mapgen but I imagine that coordinate noise can be used to achieve that. The speed of terrainbrot isn't much worse than v7. Terrainbrot does far more sofisticaded calculations but it doesn't use any 3D noise. However, this is specific to terrainbrot, coordinate noise itself doesn't cause any mandatory load.

I didn't tell you one thing: The cooridnate noise in terrainbrot transforms the x/z coordinates to 80-dimensional coordinates. In your case, less dimensions might work also but it should be higher than 2. If you make the coordinate noise transform the x/z coordinates to 2-dimensional coordinates, it might happen that all mountains/valleys/rivers/whatever will be the nearly same, only deformed differently. And how to make a multi-dimensional mapgen? Make a 2D mapgen with parameters. When you're sure that your 2D mapgen generates nice terrain for multiple parameters, you say that each parameter is another dimension. And that's it.

[minerman]

Make a 2D mapgen with parameters. When you're sure that your 2D mapgen generates nice terrain for multiple parameters, you say that each parameter is another dimension. And that's it.

Thats the hurdle, i'm afraid we basically needed a new mapgen if we want a basic v6 geographical features with cutting edge mod support.

[Hume2]

Thats the hurdle, i'm afraid we basically needed a new mapgen if we want a basic v6 geographical features with cutting edge mod support.

Yes, it will require a new mapgen. I was thinking about a simplier mapgen using coordinate noise but I left that due to lack of motivation. It might be a good idea for a v8 mapgen.

[paramat]

Mapgen V6 seems to me to be possibly good for younger children as everything is much smaller scale and ores are shallower.

> It is possible to transform the x/z coordinates by Perlin noise to different coordinates. I call this coordinate noise. After that, it can happen that features from both v6 and v7 appear in a single world.

Not really, there are many features in Mapgen V7 that cannot appear in Mapgen V6 through co-ordinate processing.

[minerman]

Mapgen V6 seems to me to be possibly good for younger children as everything is much smaller scale and ores are shallower.

Agreed. Imho v7 biomes are beautiful. Perhaps theres a way to reduce v7 geographical scale using perlins. Like making the terrain much more simpler (like mgv6 small hills ) and biome size smaller. We already got settings to non-generate mountains and ridges for example, but with its vast plains somehow still make it felt too big.

[Hume2]

> It is possible to transform the x/z coordinates by Perlin noise to different coordinates. I call this coordinate noise. After that, it can happen that features from both v6 and v7 appear in a single world.

Not really, there are many features in Mapgen V7 that cannot appear in Mapgen V6 through co-ordinate processing.

Well, I was talking only about the concept. Of course that this would require a completely new mapgen.

[minerman]

Well, after trying all mapgens, i think i'll stay with valleys mapgen. Aside from it's high mountains and occasional vast plains, valleys in my opinion is the mapgen with the nearest comfy level with mgv6. It's river somehow produced tight open space like v6 mapgen

[paramat]

Mapgen V7 can be configured to be very similar to Mapgen V6, the mapgens are extremely flexible. Smaller biomes are also possible.

[Wuzzy]

I can agree that v6 has its own charme due to its simplicity. It's also one of the few mapgens based on 2D noise instead of 3D noise. You will never see floating islands in v6.
There's a reason why I keep supporting v6 for MineClone 2. :-)

There are even games that are entirely designed around v6. Did you check out Voxelgarden? viewtopic.php?t=6346

Smaller biomes are also possible.

Yes, but most people don't know how, so I'll explain:

For v6: Edit the settings “mgv6_np_biome” and “mgv6_np_humidity” and change the values “X spread” and “Z spread” equally. Larger values lead to larger biomes.
For other mapgens: Same as for v6, but edit the settings “mg_biome_np_heat” and “mg_biome_np_humidity” instead.

It's also possible to shrink the terrain itself, so it's totally possible to have a “small scale v7”, but I believe this is much trickier to do in v7 …

But indeed, the mapgen settings are *extremely* powerful, I don't think most players realize how powerful they are. Many players dan't understand the “hardcore” mapgen settings such as those noise parameters. It's quite intimidating for non-technical people.
And even if you do, it takes a lot of patience to tweak mapgen settings to get a good result.

I remember a VERY long time ago I messed around with v6 mapgen settings and basically got HUGE gravel deserts and weird canyons everywhere. The terrain way pretty crazy. I don't know the settings today, sadly.
But yeah, even with the v6 mapgen, you can get some pretty crazy results.

[minerman]

Mapgen V7 can be configured to be very similar to Mapgen V6, the mapgens are extremely flexible. Smaller biomes are also possible.

This is interesting, is there any documentation about what every noise in mgv7 do?

For v6: Edit the settings “mgv6_np_biome” and “mgv6_np_humidity” and change the values “X spread” and “Z spread” equally. Larger values lead to larger biomes. For other mapgens: Same as for v6, but edit the settings “mg_biome_np_heat” and “mg_biome_np_humidity” instead.

Whoa im gonna try this! thanks Wuzzy!

Edit: I just fiddling “mg_biome_np_heat” and “mg_biome_np_humidity” by halving them and this is the result, apparently there are several biome that got much smaller while another (I feel) biome became larger.

[Wuzzy]

This is interesting, is there any documentation about what every noise in mgv7 do?

Yes, but it's very technical. (Almost) every setting has a description, just click “Change” in the All Settings menu. But that's not enough, you also need to understand how noises work in general.

The meaning of “spread”, “octaves”, “seed”, etc. is explained in lua_api.txt. This is obviously even more technical. And it's the best we got atm (sorry).
I meant to write a more player-centered help for the mapgen settings in the wiki, but I haven't done it so far. Maybe later.

Edit: I just fiddling “mg_biome_np_heat” and “mg_biome_np_humidity” by halving them and this is the result, apparently there are several biome that got much smaller while another (I feel) biome became larger.

To be precise: Those settings actually scale the entire heat/humidity noise, not neccessarily the size of individual biomes. It would be more correct that these settings change how “fast” the biomes change.

So the overall size of biomes tends to go down. There can still be some statistical outliers. But even those have to be smaller. The biomes in your screenshots aren't that large anyway. The biomes can be much larger under default settings.

[minerman]

To be precise: Those settings actually scale the entire heat/humidity noise, not neccessarily the size of individual biomes. It would be more correct that these settings change how “fast” the biomes change.

So the overall size of biomes tends to go down. There can still be some statistical outliers. But even those have to be smaller. The biomes in your screenshots aren't that large anyway. The biomes can be much larger under default settings.

Hmm, is there a minimal value requirement of heat and humidity noise for a biome to appear?

[Wuzzy]

Yes. Actually, the heat and humidty need to be inside a given range.

For v6, heat and humidity valuse are (roughly) between -1 and 1. This chart then applies: https://wiki.minetest.net/images/6/6a/Biomes_v6.png

For other mapgens, heat and humidty are (roughly) between 0 and 100. The biomes are defined by the game, so they are different each game.
Games must define points in a Voronoi diagram (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voronoi_diagram) for each biome
with heat being the one axis and humidity being the other axis. And each “cell” represents a biome and the “center” of each cell are the points that the game defines. Look up “Amidst for Minetest”, this program displays the Voronoi diagram for various mapgens in different games.

In all mapgens, the heat and humidity values are calculated for every possible X/Z coordinate using Perlin noises. It is these Perlin noises that you control in those “_np_” settings I told you about earlier.

Look, I told you it was going to be technical! :D

[minerman]

Yes. Actually, the heat and humidty need to be inside a given range.

For v6, heat and humidity valuse are (roughly) between -1 and 1. This chart then applies: https://wiki.minetest.net/images/6/6a/Biomes_v6.png

For other mapgens, heat and humidty are (roughly) between 0 and 100. The biomes are defined by the game, so they are different each game.
Games must define points in a Voronoi diagram (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voronoi_diagram) for each biome
with heat being the one axis and humidity being the other axis. And each “cell” represents a biome and the “center” of each cell are the points that the game defines. Look up “Amidst for Minetest”, this program displays the Voronoi diagram for various mapgens in different games.

In all mapgens, the heat and humidity values are calculated for every possible X/Z coordinate using Perlin noises. It is these Perlin noises that you control in those “_np_” settings I told you about earlier.

Look, I told you it was going to be technical! :D

This is so cool! Okay, i;m gonna try it out. Thanks Wuzzy!

[voxelproof]

V6 is a mapgen which I'd say is able to generate 'plausible' albeit not realistic worlds. The same to some extent applies to v7. I especially like caves in v6, with those walkable corridors, galleries, hidden passages, underground chambers and cloisters forking into intricate mazes. Exploring these spaces is a pretty good fun.

[minerman]

V6 is a mapgen which I'd say is able to generate 'plausible' albeit not realistic worlds. The same to some extent applies to v7. I especially like caves in v6, with those walkable corridors, galleries, hidden passages, underground chambers and cloisters forking into intricate mazes. Exploring these spaces is a pretty good fun.

Afaik there's a fork of valley mapgen with v6 caves by duane-r, but unfortunately it seems that it was gone viewtopic.php?f=3&t=14318

[paramat]

> is there any documentation about what every noise in mgv7 do?

Yes, i wrote a summary somewhere in the 'Ask your mapgen questions here' thread. I recommend reading the whole thread, lots of useful information.

> I just fiddling “mg_biome_np_heat” and “mg_biome_np_humidity” by halving them and this is the result, apparently there are several biome that got much smaller while another (I feel) biome became larger.

The average size will have halved, biomes are random so there will always be variation.

> is there a minimal value requirement of heat and humidity noise for a biome to appear?

For MTGame and all mapgens other than Mapgen V6, the biome map is here viewtopic.php?f=18&t=15939
The values listed on the left of the image are the heat/humidity points for each biome.

> Afaik there's a fork of valley mapgen with v6 caves by duane-r

All non-Mapgen-V6 mapgens now have new mapgen parameters added allowing Mapgen-V6-type caves to be added, they are just not added by default (yet).
See https://github.com/minetest/minetest/bl ... mple#L2170
The parameters are called 'mgxxx_small_cave_num_min/max'.
Note that similar parameters have also been added for the 'large caves' (the occasionally flooded caves), so you can control the variation of the number of those too.

[minerman]

Yes, i wrote a summary somewhere in the 'Ask your mapgen questions here' thread. I recommend reading the whole thread, lots of useful information.

I see, i'll read them all, thanks!

For MTGame and all mapgens other than Mapgen V6, the biome map is here viewtopic.php?f=18&t=15939
The values listed on the left of the image are the heat/humidity points for each biome.

Fascinating, so technically 100 is the minimal heat/humidity points for every of biome to appear?

All non-Mapgen-V6 mapgens now have new mapgen parameters added allowing Mapgen-V6-type caves to be added, they are just not added by default (yet).
See https://github.com/minetest/minetest/bl ... mple#L2170
The parameters are called 'mgxxx_small_cave_num_min/max'.
Note that similar parameters have also been added for the 'large caves' (the occasionally flooded caves), so you can control the variation of the number of those too.

This will be very helpful for miners, thanks!

[davidthecreator]

IDK... I always use v7 ...