Why is the map height limited to 256 blocks? is it a chunk generator issue? a save file size issue (makes it "too big" with dynamic chunk heights)? some other reason? i am asking because i would love to see something like in Dwarf Fortress where the height scaled as needed for a given location, that way you could go as high as you wanted, just like you can now go as far as you want along the ground. i am tired of finding a really cool spot on the top of a mountain that is only 10 to 15 block below the ceiling. i want an epic tower on top of an epic mountain. . .
ore perhaps just taking on another 256 block in just air would work, as the underground seem deep enough for me, buy perhaps with dynamic height then dynamic depth would not be an issue. . .
anyway, i would really love to know the reason we cannot have dynamic height for chunks, or at least a significantly higher map. i would be willing to suffer a huge increase in save file size in order to accomplish this, since the current saves are insignificant. . .
one more thing (and at the risk of derailing my own thread before it even begins), imagine a mountain with a peak that is literally a thousand blocks above sea level, with a giant cavern 100 to 200 blocks in diameter jutting diagonally into the ground, into a deep netherworld of procedurally generated hell. you and your crew build a giant wizzard tower above, jutting into the rarefied air, a spire from the peak, with a deep shaft down to the fiery underworld, only stopping to create a labyrinthine Moria in the giant caverns at the heart of the mountain. . .
Notch mentioned that he may look into increasing the map height, but not until after SMP. Apparently it requires a lot of work, which I can understand. Maybe he'll do it at the same time he finalizes the terrain generator.
But I agree that it's something that's needed. It isn't tall enough by far right now.
My biggest gripe is that the clouds are too low. I would like to see a 1024 tall map, in infdev this wouldn't be a problem really, since each 16x16xh (h is current 256) are stored as individual files. So, yeah. It wouldn't really be a problem.
Glad to see I'm not the only one that thinks it's not tall enough. At the moment, it feels like there's more underground than there is on the surface. Anyone else get that kind of vibe?
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Glad to see I'm not the only one that thinks it's not tall enough. At the moment, it feels like there's more underground than there is on the surface. Anyone else get that kind of vibe?
The underground is filled, which is why it seems like there's more. Minecraft has always been half above sea level and half below. You also have to consider that the mountains make the underground larger. But it's still half and half.
I would actually love to see a 2048 height map, so 1024 above sea level and 1024 below. Those would be some epic maps. But I'm dreaming. I could satisfy myself with 1024 total. Heck, Shadowmarch is only a 512 map. But I'd love castles on top of mountains, which means there needs to be plenty of room above the terrain that can be built on.
I think one of the problems Notch said he was facing with it was draw/fog from a vertical aspect, but that was before infinite maps were completed and before the speed optimizations, so who knows.
i think that half above/half below is part of the problem, for the reason you mentioned. if we get massively taller maps i would like to see the line about the 1/3rd to 1/4th mark, or just skip it entirely and go with dynamic height/depth. still, does anyone have links to where notch talked about the height issue? i tried searching this forum and the blog but no dice for me.
The problem is that the entire vertical chunk has to be loaded in order to calculate daylight. Doubling map height will double lag, no matter what you do, unless the way the game calculates sunlight is changed.
It actually was changed not too long ago. When a map is generated, the game precalculates the amount of light from the sky hitting each block. When day or night comes, it's a lot faster to change the light levels having that information.
Now really, this huge map business was what I originally had in mind with Minecraft from the day I heard the map height was larger in the full game. Ideally I'd sooner want to feel like I could dig or build forever into the earth or sky.
Features I want from Minecraft through final revisions or Extensive modding:
1. Infinite or close to infinite depth/height
2. Being able to interact with near everything using a series of triggers in objects and constructing things with many uses.
3. An optional rounded sort of cartoony style to make everything less blocky but still dated looking, Or simply a higher block limit and upscaling. (Larger Players/Objects)+Smaller Block unit placement giving you more freedom to create your own objects within buildings etc and giving them properties.
I really hope we can mod these features if Notch isn't up to it.
Ive been playing since just after Halloween and I have still never built up to the top.. What happens when you get there? You just cant place another block?
The problem is not in the size of save files or render distances. The main reason is because the player would fall faster than the game can generate the chunks. If we fell into an unremunerated chunk we would just fall through blocks.
One way to get round this would be making players fall at a slower speed at high altitudes (decreased gravity maybe) i don't think people would question the physics behind it along with all the other crazy stuff in mine craft. Slower skydiving or not i am sure it will be allot of work to change and they will abandon the whole idea if they find they cannot do it without corrupting files because of the possible rage from players.
People use mods all the time too move faster than the fall distance. Plus theres terminal velocity. I hear people quoting that this is the reason that Notch doesn't increase it (along with a few others) but, never seen the proof. I just hope its that he just hasn't gotten around to it yet.
higher ceiling would be awesome, but some considerations...the game only maintains chunks in a 9x9 grid of chunks centered on your current chunk, that's 144x144. I think the max view distance is 256 or something (it seemed about that when I was using MCEdit to move back the walls in the pit where my observatory was, so I would have unobstructed horizon in all directions.
So beyond a certain point, you wouldn't be able to see the top from the ground or the ground from the top. Granted, that would be much nicer than 64 above sea level, but there are limits. +/- 256 might be nice, but then you got that much farther to mine to bedrock. Very large sky caps might be pointless.
Having more height/depth would be pretty cool since it could also mean more layers for other kinds of ores underground. The fact you can also reach the bottom in only just a day or so just digging also kinda makes it seem not as deep as it really is.
As for above ground more height would mean more dynamic landscapes. Mountains could then be ridiculously huge (and more realistic) and so on.
Problem is though if Notch ever was to increase it, it would suck for existing maps >:. Also it'd make the game lag a whole lot more rendering that stuff in
Having more height/depth would be pretty cool since it could also mean more layers for other kinds of ores underground. The fact you can also reach the bottom in only just a day or so just digging also kinda makes it seem not as deep as it really is.
As for above ground more height would mean more dynamic landscapes. Mountains could then be ridiculously huge (and more realistic) and so on.
Problem is though if Notch ever was to increase it, it would suck for existing maps >:. Also it'd make the game lag a whole lot more rendering that stuff in
well, just like now it lags when it creates new chunks, like a new map. After that it would be just a bit more processing power to load them back in and out as you travel. (I surmise.)
I do wish Notch would increase the limit, then we would have epic maps, and I mean EPIC.
If he added temperature with height, I'm not talking like biome temperature, I'm talking like the higher you go the colder it gets, the lower you go it gets warmer, if he added that, we could have mount everest, but I have never coded in java, and have a VERY basic understanding with coding, so I can see how both map height, and temperature could be a problem.
Though, there is a mod that makes the height bigger.
ore perhaps just taking on another 256 block in just air would work, as the underground seem deep enough for me, buy perhaps with dynamic height then dynamic depth would not be an issue. . .
anyway, i would really love to know the reason we cannot have dynamic height for chunks, or at least a significantly higher map. i would be willing to suffer a huge increase in save file size in order to accomplish this, since the current saves are insignificant. . .
one more thing (and at the risk of derailing my own thread before it even begins), imagine a mountain with a peak that is literally a thousand blocks above sea level, with a giant cavern 100 to 200 blocks in diameter jutting diagonally into the ground, into a deep netherworld of procedurally generated hell. you and your crew build a giant wizzard tower above, jutting into the rarefied air, a spire from the peak, with a deep shaft down to the fiery underworld, only stopping to create a labyrinthine Moria in the giant caverns at the heart of the mountain. . .
But I agree that it's something that's needed. It isn't tall enough by far right now.
Voyager of the Seas WIP ~~~~~ Big Book of Alchemy ~ Crafting Tech Tree
The underground is filled, which is why it seems like there's more. Minecraft has always been half above sea level and half below. You also have to consider that the mountains make the underground larger. But it's still half and half.
I would actually love to see a 2048 height map, so 1024 above sea level and 1024 below. Those would be some epic maps. But I'm dreaming. I could satisfy myself with 1024 total. Heck, Shadowmarch is only a 512 map. But I'd love castles on top of mountains, which means there needs to be plenty of room above the terrain that can be built on.
I think one of the problems Notch said he was facing with it was draw/fog from a vertical aspect, but that was before infinite maps were completed and before the speed optimizations, so who knows.
Voyager of the Seas WIP ~~~~~ Big Book of Alchemy ~ Crafting Tech Tree
Actually, h is 128 for Alpha maps. I know this because Shadowmarch Castle, which is 256 high, doesn't fit vertically into an Alpha map.
"We will absolutely not keep in mind what external mapeditors will have to do to read data from the disk, that makes no sense whatsoever." - Grum
It actually was changed not too long ago. When a map is generated, the game precalculates the amount of light from the sky hitting each block. When day or night comes, it's a lot faster to change the light levels having that information.
"We will absolutely not keep in mind what external mapeditors will have to do to read data from the disk, that makes no sense whatsoever." - Grum
Now really, this huge map business was what I originally had in mind with Minecraft from the day I heard the map height was larger in the full game. Ideally I'd sooner want to feel like I could dig or build forever into the earth or sky.
Features I want from Minecraft through final revisions or Extensive modding:
1. Infinite or close to infinite depth/height
2. Being able to interact with near everything using a series of triggers in objects and constructing things with many uses.
3. An optional rounded sort of cartoony style to make everything less blocky but still dated looking, Or simply a higher block limit and upscaling. (Larger Players/Objects)+Smaller Block unit placement giving you more freedom to create your own objects within buildings etc and giving them properties.
I really hope we can mod these features if Notch isn't up to it.
gif by quadkillz
Then you could have mountain sized mountains, and clouds could be at cloud hight.
People use mods all the time too move faster than the fall distance. Plus theres terminal velocity. I hear people quoting that this is the reason that Notch doesn't increase it (along with a few others) but, never seen the proof. I just hope its that he just hasn't gotten around to it yet.
So beyond a certain point, you wouldn't be able to see the top from the ground or the ground from the top. Granted, that would be much nicer than 64 above sea level, but there are limits. +/- 256 might be nice, but then you got that much farther to mine to bedrock. Very large sky caps might be pointless.
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As for above ground more height would mean more dynamic landscapes. Mountains could then be ridiculously huge (and more realistic) and so on.
Problem is though if Notch ever was to increase it, it would suck for existing maps >:. Also it'd make the game lag a whole lot more rendering that stuff in
well, just like now it lags when it creates new chunks, like a new map. After that it would be just a bit more processing power to load them back in and out as you travel. (I surmise.)
Demographics: Age poll!
Nether poll!
Tamed wolf health as indicated by tail position
Gravity?
Herobrine is Real. #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement
I do wish Notch would increase the limit, then we would have epic maps, and I mean EPIC.
If he added temperature with height, I'm not talking like biome temperature, I'm talking like the higher you go the colder it gets, the lower you go it gets warmer, if he added that, we could have mount everest, but I have never coded in java, and have a VERY basic understanding with coding, so I can see how both map height, and temperature could be a problem.
Though, there is a mod that makes the height bigger.
And will be saddened by the fact 99% of servers will now be 80x taller and made of nothing but cobble-stone in a 3x3 area :sad.gif: