[Mod][Merged] Valleys Mapgen [valleys_mapgen]

[duane]

After a spate of fixes and adjustments, here's another screenshot.

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[Dragonop]

I think the plains/hills need more grass or some other decoration, like small rocks and stuff.

[duane]

I think the plains/hills need more grass or some other decoration, like small rocks and stuff.

I think you're right. I've just started on the lua portion, so there's a lot of room for improvement. It looks really good with Plantlife, especially the ferns.

Speaking of which, VanessaE has outdone herself with textures to support vmg in her HDX high-resolution packs. They look amazing. Now we need higher resolution textures for the new flowers and trees.

https://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?pid=19702

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[duane]

This looks better. A little color, to keep them from merging into a dull mass.

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[Gael de Sailly]

I'll release version 2.2 this weekend.

EDIT : done.

[duane]

The latest github version of lua vmg has a new option, vmg_caves, that lets you turn off cave creation. It would be a lot for me to give up, since I like caves, but the trade-off is that the mapgen runs about twice as fast as normal (up to four times as fast on my old linux laptop). This could be worthwhile for those who aren't as concerned about the underworld. (And you won't have to worry about falling into a hole while you're mining.)

Edit: This is the original, lua vmg, not the C++ version.

[Ivà]

The latest github version of lua vmg has a new option, vmg_caves, that lets you turn off cave creation. It would be a lot for me to give up, since I like caves, but the trade-off is that the mapgen runs about twice as fast as normal (up to four times as fast on my old linux laptop). This could be worthwhile for those who aren't as concerned about the underworld. (And you won't have to worry about falling into a hole while you're mining.)

But this option turns off v7cavegen too or only the vmg cavegen?

[duane]

But this option turns off v7cavegen too or only the vmg cavegen?

This time, I'm referring to the original, lua version of Valleys. The v7 caves option only applies to the C++ version.

The original Valleys Mapgen's cave creation algorithm (which I also ported to C++) uses several 3D noise maps, which can take a lot of CPU time to create. Both the lua and C++ versions have this issue, but in the latter case, the v7 mapgen's cave generation is available. We don't have a more efficient option for the lua version of Valleys, but now you can at least turn caves off to speed everything else up.

It makes a huge difference in speed.

[Sokomine]

This mapgen should be merged into the main engine as the fifth option, really. It provides a realistic terrain that is a lot more interesting than v6 and less fantasious than v5 or v7, for those who prefer that style of land.

Yes, that's an issue for me as well. I don't like the fancy, unrealistic terrain of v5 or v7 much. It's good for some special situations and sometimes looks great - but it's not a place where it's likely that people would choose to live.

Whoops. That's my autorun code, ala world of warcraft. I hate having to hold the forward key all the time. I'll have to fix that since it's causing problems.

Edit: Done. It has a default now -- the F key.

I want that code as well, please! It annoys me to always have to press w to run forward, sometimes in combination with e. It's particulary annoying on Android devices, but also on the desktop. Please get it merged into the main branch of MT. My fingers would thank you!

As to the speed gain you encountered: Most of it seems to be related to the noise calculation/handling if I got you right? Of course I'm intrested in any speed gains. The village code runs pretty fast by now, but it can't be as fast as a native mapgen. Importing and exporting the voxelmanip data structure to and from lua takes a significant amount of time. But then there are other manipulations of the terrain needed apart from flattening and placing the actual houses. So perhaps voxelmanip will always be needed for the villages.

[duane]

I want that code as well, please! It annoys me to always have to press w to run forward, sometimes in combination with e. It's particulary annoying on Android devices, but also on the desktop. Please get it merged into the main branch of MT. My fingers would thank you!

As you know, I posted this earlier as a patch. I haven't looked into what's required for merging into the game. However, I still find it suspicious that all the autorun code is already there, but not tied to a key. I think someone must have decided that it was a bad idea at some point, so I wonder if it would be accepted anyway.

As to the speed gain you encountered: Most of it seems to be related to the noise calculation/handling if I got you right? Of course I'm intrested in any speed gains. The village code runs pretty fast by now, but it can't be as fast as a native mapgen.

The biggest cpu load I found in profiling vmg-c was the generation of 3D noise tables. Everything else together took about a tenth of that time. After that came lighting and liquid handling, and again, everything else together took about a tenth of that time. I was always taught that optimizing for a 10% performance gain (or less) is usually a waste of time.

I wonder if people aren't overstating the speed of C++ mapgens. There's certainly a performance cost for calling to lua and back, but I don't think it's nearly as great as a lot of other aspects of the game. And lua is designed to be very fast for a scripting language. I've heard it's about half as fast as C at number crunching. There are probably a few compiled languages that can't manage that.

The version 7 mapgen code shows a lot of thought about how to avoid wasted time. The terrain (and cave) generation may be a little strange, but it's efficient. That may have more of an impact than the C compiler.

Edit: I put in a pull request. We'll see what happens.

Edit: Since the two ports are now handling about the same features, I did a set of average chunk times on each. I set vmg_caves to false in the lua version, since we already know that's an issue. The times I got on my rickety, old laptop were 745ms for the C++ version (with its lua companion code) and 1482ms for the original, so the C++ is running about twice as fast. Ok, that's fairly significant.

[duane]

The lua code that I've tinkered together in the valleys_c branch of Valleys Mapgen now adds all of the capabilities from the main branch that weren't included in the C++ code. It features generic trees that replace the default trees (and look much better, for my money), cave decorations, and the flowers we have that are not in the default game. I've also included small and large rocks that can be used to create stone, in case you want to skip wooden tool making (but they're mostly for decoration). I made the rock models myself.

Remember that you must use the C++ vmg to get the full effect (though the lua should work perfectly well with the stock mapgen).

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Edit: What I said about the lua working with earlier mapgens is no longer true. I had to add a lua function for working with the biomemap, so this code will now only work with the C++ version of Valleys Mapgen. However, I now have arrow arum growing in the water, where it belongs.

[duane]

I put together some higher resolution textures for the flowers that aren't in hdx textures, in case anyone wants them.

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[prof-turbo]

Duane : create your repository for your own hdx textures, and post them in the texture packs section of the forum :)

[duane]

Valleys Mapgen is now using a tweak thought up by Hybrid Dog, which allows it to cooperate with other mods that use voxelmanip. Mods like Caverealms and Intersecting used to have serious issues running with VMG, because the latter builds the world from scratch. When other mods loaded first, they'd look around and find no world to work with. Thanks to a one-line fix, that shouldn't happen anymore.

This solves one of the main problems that started me on the C++ mapgen project. The only catch is, it could get hairy if another mod uses the same trick.

[kaadmy]

What are the name of the noise param settings in the minetest.conf?
Are mgv7 noise params used?

[duane]

What are the name of the noise param settings in the minetest.conf?
Are mgv7 noise params used?

In the lua version the noise parameters are:

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vmg_noise_1 = -10, 50, (1024,1024,1024), 5202, 6, 0.4, 2
vmg_noise_2 = 0, 1, (256,256,256), -6050, 5, 0.6, 2
vmg_noise_3 = 5, 4, (512,512,512), -1914, 1, 1, 2
vmg_noise_4 = 0.6, 0.5, (512,512,512), 777, 1, 1, 2
vmg_noise_5 = 0.5, 0.5, (128,128,128), 746, 1, 1, 2
vmg_noise_6 = 0, 1, (256,512,256), 1993, 6, 0.8, 2
vmg_noise_7 = 3, 1.75, (256,256,256), 1605, 3, 0.5, 2
vmg_noise_8 = 0, 1, (32,32,32), -4640, 4, 0.5, 2
vmg_noise_9 = 0, 1, (32,32,32), 8804, 4, 0.5, 2
vmg_noise_10 = 0, 1, (32,32,32), -4780, 4, 0.5, 2
vmg_noise_11 = 0, 1, (32,32,32), -9969, 4, 0.5, 2
vmg_noise_12 = 0, 1, (64,64,64), 3314, 4, 0.5, 2
vmg_noise_13 = 0, 1, (256,256,256), 2835, 5, 0.5, 4
vmg_noise_14 = 0, 1, (256,256,256), 6674, 5, 0.5, 4
vmg_noise_15 = 0, 1, (256,256,256), 6940, 5, 0.5, 4
vmg_noise_16 = 2, 8, (256,256,256), 2349, 3, 0.5, 2
vmg_noise_17 = 0, 1, (768,256,768), -1805, 4, 0.5, 4
vmg_noise_18 = 0, 1, (243,243,243), -5787, 4, 0.5, 3

In the C++ version, these are copied from V7:

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mgdjr_np_filler_depth = 0, 1.2, (150, 150, 150), 261, 3, 0.7, 2.0
mgdjr_np_v7_caves_1 = 0, 12, (100, 100, 100), 52534, 4, 0.5, 2.0
mgdjr_np_v7_caves_2 = 0, 12, (100, 100, 100), 10325, 4, 0.5, 2.0
mgdjr_np_biome_heat = 50, 50, (750, 750, 750), 5349, 3, 0.5, 2.0
mgdjr_np_biome_heat_blend = 0, 1.5, (8, 8, 8), 13, 2, 1.0, 2.0
mgdjr_np_biome_humidity = 50, 50, (750, 750, 750), 842, 3, 0.5, 2.0
mgdjr_np_biome_humidity_blend = 0, 1.5, (8, 8, 8), 90003, 2, 1.0, 2.0

These are copied from VMG lua:

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mgdjr_np_terrain_height = -10, 50, (1024, 1024, 1024), 5202, 6, 0.4, 2.0
mgdjr_np_rivers = 0, 1, (256, 256, 256), -6050, 5, 0.6, 2.0
mgdjr_np_valley_depth = 5, 4, (512, 512, 512), -1914, 1, 1.0, 2.0
mgdjr_np_valley_profile = 0.6, 0.5, (512, 512, 512), 777, 1, 1.0, 2.0
mgdjr_np_inter_valley_slope = 0.5, 0.5, (128, 128, 128), 746, 1, 1.0, 2.0
mgdjr_np_inter_valley_fill = 0, 1, (256, 256, 256), 1993, 6, 0.8, 2.0
mgdjr_np_caves_1 = 0, 1, (32, 32, 32), -4640, 4, 0.5, 2.0
mgdjr_np_caves_2 = 0, 1, (32, 32, 32), 8804, 4, 0.5, 2.0
mgdjr_np_caves_3 = 0, 1, (32, 32, 32), -4780, 4, 0.5, 2.0
mgdjr_np_caves_4 = 0, 1, (32, 32, 32), -9969, 4, 0.5, 2.0
mgdjr_np_lava_1 = 0, 1, (32, 32, 32), 75266, 4, 0.5, 2.0
mgdjr_np_lava_2 = 0, 1, (32, 32, 32), -89113, 4, 0.5, 2.0
mgdjr_np_water_1 = 0, 1, (32, 32, 32), 82329, 4, 0.5, 2.0
mgdjr_np_water_2 = 0, 1, (32, 32, 32), -59107, 4, 0.5, 2.0

Edit: I've moved the Valleys C++ code to a branch of the fork I'm using, to make coordinating pulls easier. In the process, I changed all occurrences of "djr" to "valleys", so the "mgdjr" entries above will be "mg_valleys" the next time you pull from github. Sorry for any confusion.

[kaadmy]

All right, because terrain looked much more spread out with djr mapgen.
Just wanted to see why :)

Edit: Maybe it would be a good idea to put the parameters and the defaults in the minetest.conf.example?

[duane]

All right, because terrain looked much more spread out with djr mapgen.
Just wanted to see why :)

Edit: Maybe it would be a good idea to put the parameters and the defaults in the minetest.conf.example?

Yep, that's on my todo list.

I should note that if you're using the "fast" flag, the terrain is going to be flatter, since the mapgen is skipping the last step of generation. There are a lot more sharp peaks without it. (Too many for my taste. I'd like to find a setting somewhere between the two, at some point.)

Edit: I've pushed the changes to minetest.conf.example and a better-commented version in doc/valleys_c_minetest.conf.example.

[duane]

I think I've eliminated the nerd poles spawning in the mountains. Here's two shots of the same spot in the same game, before...

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and after.

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I can do the same with the lua mapgen, if anyone's interested. Does the broken terrain bother anyone?

Edit: It turns out that this isn't a problem with the lua after all.

[Don]

Is there still cliffs?

[mahmutelmas06]

I can do the same with the lua mapgen, if anyone's interested. Does the broken terrain bother anyone?

What do u do for c make it for main version too please :)

And where is thoose updated versions ? I see that it was updated 5 days ago

[duane]

Is there still cliffs?

There are no sharp edges, though there are some nasty drops. I haven't been able to find a way to put in sharp edges without artifacts showing up, so I'd rather do without.

Maybe something like the cave intersection, but with a square waveform... Although that still doesn't match the look of a rugged mountain face. I haven't seen anything yet that does that.

[Don]

I agree that the lack of sharp edges is better then the floating things. I was wondering if you actually fixed the problem. I am glad that the nerd poles are gone. Keep up the great work!

[duane]

Is there still cliffs?

I can do this.

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They don't show up very often, and only in the heights. No weird artifacts yet though.

[Don]

I was just asking. I didn't expect you to change it. I do like cliff though. They make it more of a challenge.