Some semi-random thoughts on terrain generation

[xoft]

The server calculates lighting and sends it to the client as the initial chunk lighting. From that moment on, the client calculates the lighting for itself. But the server still must be calculating lighting, both for new clients and for mobs, plants etc.

Actually this exact thought brought me to the current implementation - lighting is to be calculated only when explicitly asked for - either due to a chunk being sent to a client, or a mob spawn operation. So the server doesn't keep re-calculating lighting all the time, but only on request