Some semi-random thoughts on terrain generation

[xoft]

Dunno. But it's 3D data, and lots of it, so it would be difficult to type that in. Precalculation might help. But I don't think vanilla uses spheres at all. If you look at the overall shape of the (smaller) caves, they seem to be almost rectangular, with just the top and bottom parts of the walls rounded.

[NiLSPACE]

this makes me curious how a cube and a pyramid would look like instead of a sphere.

[xoft]

A cube might look okay, just too square at tunnel ends. Pyramid would probably look weird

[NiLSPACE]

something to note, the presimulator finisher generates gravel and sand ontop of lava.

[xoft]

Yeah, it's been already mentioned, I guess I'm just too lazy to fix that. The presimulator only drops falling blocks through the air, not through fluids. Should be easy enough to fix.

[xoft]

Should be fixed in rev 1097, but I couldn't find a single place where to test it, so it's up to you to do the actual testing.

[NiLSPACE]

i'm on it
EDIT:
It works

[NiLSPACE]

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I've been trying to figure out how to fit overhangs / cliffs into the scheme I'm proposing. Because I LOVE overhangs And I think it's still possible - I'd put it into the "terrain composition" category. In certain biomes, after it receives the terrain height, it can actually add up to the value, creating the slopes up and the overhangs under them, eventually. So despite the terrain height generator generating a normal terrain, it will eventually contain overhangs above the height initially generated.

Do you still want to implent overhangs? i gues it is quite allot of work becouse you propably need to implent a 3D height generator.

[xoft]

I've had a few ideas for overhangs, they're just in my head, I let them grow them a bit more, until they're ripe enough for implementing
The most likely scenario is that there will be a layer of terrain between "air" and "ground" layers that will use a 3D noise to give it some overhangs / holes / whatnot, and the height of this "hole layer" will be biome-dependent - it will range from thick in the extreme mountains, to non-existent in swamps.

[NiLSPACE]

I'm afraid we can't force the clouds to be below the terrain - haven't seen that in the protocol - but at least we can try reproducing the cool terrain - islands floating in the sky

there maybe is a way..... if you generate the terrain above the clouds