Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

One decade later, Minecraft world generation is interesting again

dither8.xyz

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 226 posts

Re: One decade later, Minecraft world generation is interesting again

#201

Post by Alphaeus »

Matrix89 wrote: post #111
seanwilson wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you deal with e.g. a chunk saved from the old generator with a low mountain transitioning into a chunk generated by the new generator with a huge mountain? It blends between them somehow so all the old chunks are surrounded by old/new blended chunks until all of those are surrounded by new chunks from then on?

Yup, starting with 1.18 the started blending old chunks with the new ones. Earlier there was a hard transition, personally I prefered the hard cut, there was something to it, something mysterious about it, but I get why they wated it removed

1.7 was actually the first version to support blending (for the new generator in that update). 1.18 is a new iteration of that.

Re: One decade later, Minecraft world generation is interesting again

#202

Post by Dylan16807 »

pests wrote: post #65
herghost wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh wow. I did not realise this was the case. Thank you!

I think this actually might be a slight negative tbh - since everything is split into chunks and generated on demand, you lose the ability to do larger passes over multiple chucks at gen time. No real way to do tectonics or weather patterns as you don't necessarily know what's in your chunk neighborhood.

> No real way to do tectonics or weather patterns as you don't necessarily know what's in your chunk neighborhood.

Sure you do. When you want to apply tectonics to a chunk, it's easy to calculate (and cache) the pre-tectonics version of all the neighbors.

The problem isn't effects that need to know about their neighborhood, it's effects that need detailed info from 50 chunks away.

Re: One decade later, Minecraft world generation is interesting again

#203

Post by mr_cyborg »

radicalbyte wrote: post #45
morsch wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't underestimate the role of the human observer focusing and exploring the most interesting parts.

Didn't we all do that as kids with the Mandelbrot set viewers? Just explore it to find some cool visualizations.. then zoom in and repeat %)

I can’t say I’m familiar with those myself! Sounds cool though.

Re: One decade later, Minecraft world generation is interesting again

#204

Post by mppowers »

kuschku wrote: post #56
rland wrote: post #13

It's been a while since I've played Minecraft, so I can't speak to the newer terrain. But I always thought they could significantly improve the world gen. Perlin noise is cool, but why not try to fully simulate plate tectonics, weather patterns, drainage? It would go a long way if deserts were in the rainshadow of mountain ranges, islands corresponded to real volcanic activity, etc. I guess there is a limit to what y…

Doesn't the ultra-realistic mod terrafirmcraft already do exactly that?

To my knowledge, no. Terrafirmacraft does have strata of different stone types that stretch for large areas, but these aren't tectonic plates. It does generate biomes based on "lattitude" however.

As another comment mentions, dwarf fortress does do all of this though. I don't think this would work in minecraft though, I think minecraft needs a mix of terrain types near each other to be most interesting, and tectonic plates would spread it out.

Re: One decade later, Minecraft world generation is interesting again

#205

Post by esyir »

honkdaddy wrote: post #72
ninth_ant wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no Microsoft apologist, but I believe you've misunderstood the intention and the effect of the changes. Previously, the time-optimal strategy to acquire iron and diamonds was to dig a hole deep into the earth and then bore straight paths. This was exceptionally grindy (fans would say zen, detractors would say tedious), but effective. With 1.18, the optimal strategy is now to enter a cave and find the resources th…

Is the strategy you're talking about (digging straight down upon spawn, as I've seen people do) just applicable to speedrunning, or does your average player learn to do that eventually as well?

Speedrunners don't do that, for one. They don't generally go searching for diamonds, only grabbing them if it's in an easy location like a chest.

Re: One decade later, Minecraft world generation is interesting again

#206

Post by poser-boy »

eesmith wrote: post #154
poser-boy wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The article suggests that "more realistic" is correlated with "boring". I wouldn't say so. With the increased mountain height I'd argue the terrain is more realistic than ever, and not boring.

I'm referring to this part of the article: > In the b1.8 update [September 2011], the terrain generator was subject to a rewrite aimed to make the code simpler, and make the terrain more realistic. ... at the time it caused quite a controversy, a thread on the Minecraft Forums decried the new terrain as "boring". What does "realistic" mean to you? Are you looking at it like a geologist? If we follow rland's idea to c…

Perhaps I should've re-thought that part. Realism was widely interpreted to be the goal at the time. But the changelog only mentions code simplification.

I'd say if you compare the first two set of screenshots. It is more realistic since you don't get as crazy land formations. But falls short of creating significant mountain ranges to compensate, making it less realistic in a way.

Re: One decade later, Minecraft world generation is interesting again

#207

Post by poser-boy »

CyborgCabbage wrote: post #96

Here's a video by one of the developers talking about some technical aspects of the new terrain: https://youtu.be/TycBrFKEteU

Thank you for sharing! About 7 minutes in, the developer shares that biome and terrain shaping has been decoupled.

Re: One decade later, Minecraft world generation is interesting again

#208

Post by Tepix »

nathanaldensr wrote: post #126
Tepix wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. You can still play with a Mojang account. I do.

You can, but you have to use the old launcher, which is buried on the Minecraft site and avoid the dark pattern prompts to upgrade.

No, I'm using the latest launcher with my Mojang account.

Re: One decade later, Minecraft world generation is interesting again

#209

Post by eesmith »

poser-boy wrote: post #206
eesmith wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm referring to this part of the article: > In the b1.8 update [September 2011], the terrain generator was subject to a rewrite aimed to make the code simpler, and make the terrain more realistic. ... at the time it caused quite a controversy, a thread on the Minecraft Forums decried the new terrain as "boring". What does "realistic" mean to you? Are you looking at it like a geologist? If we follow rland's idea to c…

Perhaps I should've re-thought that part. Realism was widely interpreted to be the goal at the time. But the changelog only mentions code simplification. I'd say if you compare the first two set of screenshots. It is more realistic since you don't get as crazy land formations. But falls short of creating significant mountain ranges to compensate, making it less realistic in a way.

That "in a way" is what I refer to. rland proposed a more physics based model. So I'll look at things through that lens.

The first image, 2011, makes me think of tower carst formations, like Ao Phang Nga National Park or the Li River. It's indeed a "crazy land formation" in that most of the planet is not like that. But well within what a more physics based model might generate.

The second image, 2021, makes me wonder what's going on. How did that concavity appear in the bottom left? Was it limestone? Sandstone, like NM's Natural Amphitheater or CO's Cliff Palace? How is the top of the concavity supported, given that it appears to carry a lot of earth?

What is the geological connection to the ridge above it? How is the ridge supported? It appears highly eroded. Where did the scree go? (Shouldn't some have filled in the exposed concavity?) Why is the transition from light-colored to green so clearly delineated?

In the real-world, large cave systems are rare, and walkable ones even less common. But they are also part of what make Minecraft fun.

So yes, I think a more realistic (in the physics sense) would be less fun than what Minecraft does. (Excepting, perhaps, a small number of more geophysically inclined players.)

Re: One decade later, Minecraft world generation is interesting again

#210

Post by tormeh »

sorenjan wrote: post #61
littlestymaar wrote: post #14

If you like voxel world generation, I strongly advise you to check out Veloren[1], it has a much much deeper worldgen that what Minecraft offers. [1]: https://veloren.net/ the game is still under development but it has been playable for more than a year now.

> Veloren is a multiplayer voxel RPG written in Rust. This is such a meme by now, I have to assume it's an inside joke. Even games mention that they're "written in Rust" in the first sentence in their official presentation, what other programming language communities does this? Why would anyone except other Rust programmers care?

Do you know what's also become a meme by now?
Post reply on HN