Defaulting to Mapgen V7

[kilbith]

Cc: @paramat

Mapgen V6 has had its day. Feature-wise it is stuck in the past while Mapgen V7 is stable, more interesting and polished since more than a year.

I suggest to make Mapgen V7 the new default mapgen.

[tenplus1]

+1

[paramat]

Mgv7 terrain is fairly stable, the biome system is still being improved and i don't like the idea of freezing it and calling it 'stable'. So if mgv7 is made default it will be officially 'unstable' but with fairly stable terrain, the biomes may change slightly with time but the worst result would be some straight-edged biomes.

I'm not sure if mgv7 is suitable for young children or newbies as it's large scale and searching for certain resources or biomes can require long journeys. But then we could make clear mgv6 is the option for an easier smaller world.

Having mgv7 default would improve people's first reactions and game reviews for those people who jump straight into the default mapgen.

Some things to consider, it will be a while before the next release.

[MoNTE48]

I would like to see the option to increase or decrease the size of biomes.
for example
mgv7_biomes_size = 2
1 - small, 2 - default, 3 - big, 0 - 1 biome only

[C1ffisme]

@MoNTE48 I would also like to see that, since in my subgame, I can't seem to tweak biomes to make them a bit smaller.

I would also like the same feature, but to apply to caves, since in V6 caves appear very commonly, but in V7 they are infrequent. Big, but infrequent.

For example :
v6 mapgen:

v7 mapgen:

@paramat The idea of travelling far is not a problem for MC, but they have portals and minecarts. Maybe if we get a decent mode of transport in the game, this could be fixed?

[paramat]

Size of biomes can be reduced by reducing the noise 'spread' values (750, 750, 750) in heat and humidity noises, make sure all 3 numbers are equal.
Caves can be tuned by adjusting cave noise 'scale', 'offset' and 'spread'. Everything in mgv7 is bigger and more spread out, including the caves.

[C1ffisme]

Note that I also found no lava in V7. Maybe add small springs on the sides of cave walls?

@paramat Hmm... My biomes don't seem to use the normal perlin noise arguments that decorations, etc. do. Lemme look into that a bit more...

[paramat]

Lava caves in mgv5/v7/flat/fractal start at y = -256.

[C1ffisme]

Okay, I found one, though I do notice that the lava cave looks exactly like a v6 lava cave.

I'm all for it! 👍

[paramat]

Yes the same large pseudorandom caves are used for most mapgens.

[C1ffisme]

@paramat Hmm... Maybe make the v7 lava caves be a bit bigger, just to fit the massiveness of everything else in v7 mapgen?

Also, I might add some little springs in the normal caves, just for a bit of variety. But just a suggestion ;).

[0-afflatus]

👍

[celeron55]

http://irc.minetest.ru/minetest-dev/2016-03-22#i_4563823

In my opinion v7 is currently not a good general-purpose mapgen. It leaves out all small-scale detail and only focuses on large-scale terrain, and fails to be very interesting in that also. Defaulting to it would disappoint more players than sticking to v6 for now would.

Mapgens tend to be quite one trick ponies; v6 is the best that we currently have in the "jack of all trades" category. I hope it can be replaced some day with something that truly does its role better though. Maybe something that extends v5 to have more large-scale variation?

[paramat]

Watching some let's play videos in mgv7, players often are a little intimidated by the size of the biomes, especially if they are in a grassland biome 1000 nodes across with no trees to punch. Mgv6 is friendlier for newbies but not as epic as mgv7.
As we're still fiddling with mgv7 and the biome system, and because we have shadows at y = 63 in all mapgens other than mgv6, i'm happy to stay with mgv6 for now.

[Fixer-007]

Yeah, shadow problems are annoying in those mapgens (moretrees and other).

[paramat]

I'm not concerned with moretrees shadows, that's a problem with l-system generation which is not used in core mapgen.

celeron55 i somewhat disagree with your opinion of mgv7, what you write is very similar to your opinion 3 years ago, it has changed since then, mountains are higher and i've added mgv6-type cliff terrain. Although certainly it is larger scale, but i don't see that as a problem apart from grassland scaring a few newbies used to Minecraft, the size adds a sense of adventure and exploration

Mgv6 is not so good, it has no rivers, no savanna or glacier, no acacia or aspen trees, and no hills above y = 47, it repeats every 256 nodes. Mgv7 is much more epic, beautiful and varied.
For 0.4.14 i'm okay with staying with mgv6 for the reasons given, but soon (0.4.15) i feel we can switch to mgv7 or something else if i come up with a new mapgen.

So removing milestone.

[ObaniGemini]

I think I would prefer to default to valleys.

[paramat]

Adding milestone just for consideration.

I'm fed up with seeing almost all 'let's try' videos of Minetest using mgv6, it doesn't make the best impression.

Mgv7 will, for release, have bushes that provide wood in grasslands, so there is more chance of spawning near a wood supply enough for a few tools.
It will still be possible to spawn in the deserts or tundras and need to walk hundreds of nodes to find wood, but that's the fun challenge of Minetest which avoids everyone settling within 250 nodes of spawn, which is what mgv6 allows.

Mgvalleys is popular but the terrain is unstable and is still being tuned. I'm not happy with the tiny river systems, bumpy terrain and the overall lack of cohesion.

[RHRhino]

@paramat will there be a further development of mgv6? Like mgv6.5 keeping the mgv6 terrain and caves, but with the mgv7 biome system?

[paramat]

I have thought of that, it would have to be an option instead of a new mapgen, it would be easier as a new mapgen but hmmmm opposes doing it that way, it would be a lot of work and i'm not much inspired to work on mgv6.

[RHRhino]

yeah maybe someone else has some time and inspiration to work on that. 😃

[paramat]

I'm probably the only person who could do it. Hmmmm could but is too busy.

[C1ffisme]

What about being able to define the size of your world as a parameter? Putting a small value would result in tiny hills and biomes, while putting in a larger value would mean colossal mountains and world-covering biomes.

[paramat]

Those can be done by editing the noise parameters.

[paramat]

#4829 merged.