[Mod] River / mountain range mapgen [0.7.2] [watershed]

[spillz]

Do you really want continents or island fiefdoms? Think about the gaming implications?

[paramat]

spillz, this mod does both, now i've 'turned on' the XL scale (8000 node) height variation:
"a web of winding mountain ranges / ridges that surround large smooth lowland areas and lakes. All this is placed on top of a very large scale height variation that creates alternating contients and archipelagos, the island chains being the tops of the submerged mountain ranges."

[paramat]

Version 0.2.16 (will be 0.3.0 soon)
Big change, this is now a singlenode mapgen realm with sea level at y = 1.

There is a spawn player function that searches for low land, occasionally you may spawn in a river, swim up.
Singlenode is selected automatically, no need to specify in minetest.conf or the ingame menu.
Many other code improvements, slightly faster mapgen.
Turquoise river water / freshwater to contrast with the blue sea water.
Magma rises from an underground layer towards the ridges, i'm still working on making the magma rise to the surface occasionally (see image) ... generative volcanoes? i will try.
Lava cooling by water.
The mod's own lava has range 2, same as the river/fresh water.
Buckets are registered for mod water and lava.

I'm considering a gamemode version of this because there's lots in the default mods i can clear out for a smoother game, also because new games are required for the minetest engine.

[philipbenr]

Awesome. I can't wait for release.

Keep up the good work!

[spillz]

Great stuff! and good idea to make into a game. Would be nice to include some critters in it...

Some maps:

Top view


Cross Section -- Facing south at -1600Z:

[spillz]

So my one question is whether the scale of things is slightly too big. It takes a long time to walk between the various biomes. And the forest is impenetrable (but mostly in a good way). Would love to see some trails built into the game.

[paramat]

Version 0.3.0
Added snowy plains biome to make 9 biomes in the temperature / humidity grid.

I might thin the pine trees a bit, i could also use a noise to create some paths and clearings in the forests.
Nice maps, you have missing apple and acacia leaves, new nodes for colors.txt:

Code: Select all

watershed:acacialeaf 47 80 41
watershed:appleleaf 47 80 41

The biomes feel big, but i find smaller biomes don't suit this large scale mapgen. I chose a spread of 512 for temp and humidity because a temp / humidity biome system tends to produce biomes down to half that size.

[LazyJ]

Paramat, you do amazing work!

[paramat]

Version 0.3.1
You should all update, a month ago i made a change to rivers which broke the way they thinned to a stream in the highlands, no one noticed lol, now fixed.
Started work on obsidian-walled volcanos, currently abstract and sinister (see image).
At at a certain depth everything is lava, the lava surface has a shell of obsidian and gentle undulations, under the ridges these undulations become taller blobs of lava that break the surface, becoming an obsidian walled volcano. Since this mapgen models continental plates edged by mountain ranges/archipelagos, i realised lava should rise in walls under the ridges, it then seemed natural to make the whole realm float on a deep sea of lava, this can then become a challenging obstacle to build through to reach any realms stacked below.
Thanks LazyJ, i do appreciate everyone's support. The most difficult thing about this mod is tuning the large scale parameters, each tweak theoretically needs a 16kmx16km area to see the result, so all i can do is make a good guess from the noise code. Unfortunately for you people using this the only certainty is that there will be no certainties, but i am happy to explain any changes and help people maintain a reasonable compatibility with their long-term worlds.

[RHR]

Paramat your mod/mods and the speed you are creating new features is amazing!!
The results are amazing too!
[^_^]

[paramat]

Version 0.3.4
Tuned volcanos, lava flows again with range 2, no use of 'flagmask' for 0.4.9dev compatibility.

[paramat]

Version 0.3.5
Finally tuned the volcanos to something reasonable. They are found in the rough high terrain at the ridges/mountain ranges/island chains.
Mod clouds return at y = 256, but no dark clouds.

[paramat]

Screenshots removed.

[glenstein]

Maybe I'm missing something really obvious, but how come you have WS Stone (watershed stone) instead of regular stone?

[paramat]

Minetest has a bug where if you use normal default:stone or default:desert_stone in a mapgen mod unwanted patches of dirt, grass and trees appear on the stone. Using default nodes in a mapgen mod causes other problems, which is why so many 'normal' nodes have been edited into mod versions.
When you dig watershed:stone it will 'drop' default:stone, likewise for some other nodes.

[PilzAdam]

Minetest has a bug where if you use normal default:stone or default:desert_stone in a mapgen mod unwanted patches of dirt, grass and trees appear on the stone. Using default nodes in a mapgen mod causes other problems, which is why so many 'normal' nodes have been edited into mod versions.
When you dig watershed:stone it will 'drop' default:stone, likewise for some other nodes.

Have you tried chaning the alias for "mapgen_stone"?

[hoodedice]

You know what I would really like to see?

An amalgamation of all of your mods in one. Ported to Mapgen v7. Generates a chunk in 2 - 3 seconds. Pre-generation in engine upto 1000 in each direction. Default.

[CraigyDavi]

You know what I would really like to see?

An amalgamation of all of your mods in one. Ported to Mapgen v7. Generates a chunk in 2 - 3 seconds. Pre-generation in engine upto 1000 in each direction. Default.

Nice idea!

[glenstein]

Minetest has a bug where if you use normal default:stone or default:desert_stone in a mapgen mod unwanted patches of dirt, grass and trees appear on the stone. Using default nodes in a mapgen mod causes other problems, which is why so many 'normal' nodes have been edited into mod versions.
When you dig watershed:stone it will 'drop' default:stone, likewise for some other nodes.

hmm. For me, when I dig watershed:stone it's dropping watershed:stone to my inventory and I can't craft it into anything. Is it possible to add it to the stone group?

[paramat]

PilzAdam, thanks i'll look into that.

hoodedice, i intend to combine a few mods and make a game in lua, and also try porting a mapgen to core, i have been asked to by the devs, hmmmm is busy so its up to me to do it ... actually he mentioned he may add pregeneration to mgv7, its a good idea and less hacky than teleporting the player around in a lua mod.

glenstein, =/ thanks that was a mistake, new version soon.

[Mikerhinos]

Trying it right now, despite being slooooow to display, it looks totally stunning...

[paramat]

Thanks Mikerhinos. I saw some recent chat on IRC, you're right in thinking this has nothing to do with mapgen v7, it forces singlenode instead and does everything in lua. Hoodedice was referring to my 'paragen v7' mod viewtopic.php?id=7366, this adds biomes to the bare stone of mapgen v7, it's slower because it's an older mod that doesn't use the voxelmanip and perlinmaps added in Minetest 0.4.8.

[hoodedice]

Thanks Mikerhinos. I saw some recent chat on IRC, you're right in thinking this has nothing to do with mapgen v7, it forces singlenode instead and does everything in lua. Hoodedice was referring to my 'paragen v7' mod viewtopic.php?id=7366, this adds biomes to the bare stone of mapgen v7, it's slower because it's an older mod that doesn't use the voxelmanip and perlinmaps added in Minetest 0.4.8.

Umm, at that time, I was mistaken and thought your watershed required v7 to run...

[Mikerhinos]

Ok Paramat

I generated like 5 watershed worlds doing tests since yesterday, and I'm amazed each time at how good it looks, I could fly on it all day long like that http://youtu.be/7PmUemZywgg?t=35s lol.



Edit : nether won't work with that mod ? I'm at y=-5000 and it's normal stone. Looks like there are no ores too no matter the depth :s
Wow there's a crazy *ss canyon in a moutain starting around 991,134,1082, I could go down to -418m without breaking a single node (fly mode) but as it's pretty giant maybe it's possible to go even deeper.

[paramat]

Which nether mod? and yes it's probably incompatible but i'll try to find out why.
There are certainly ores see post 30 and 31 in this thread, i spent days tuning them =/. Ores are in weblike seams that are themselves within thin horizontal rock strata, compared to the Minetest standard ores are harder to find but when you find a seam mark it's position, set up a mine and follow it and it will provide a large amount of ores. All ores are available at all altitudes, including floatlands.
I find the idea of setting up scattered mines when rare ore seams are found a more interesting gaming experience, it forces more travel.
Best place to find seams is in the fissures or in the cliff walls, but of course you need coal to make torches to see in the fissures, so there is an initial challenge of finding a coal seam. Perhaps i should add a few glowstone nodes in the fissures which can be crafted to lights.

The canyon you found, perhaps you found the fissures? they go all the way to realm base YMIN.

Another tip fopr everyone, floatlands are found rising in 'walls' above the ridges all the way to atmosphere top YMAX, a natural and intuitive place as if the mountains are forming blobs of land that float up.