Has anyone questioned how the terrain generates in terms of water, and land mass?
What I have noticed, is that the terrain in Minecraft consists of mainly little islands separated by 10-20 meters worth of water. If you were to take a map, for example, you would notice that it looks almost like cobblestone, all the little (seeming big) islands. If I were to change one simple thing about Minecraft, it would be to have more landmass connected to each other, and to make oceans/lakes, not puddles.
An example of perlin noise. The equation used to generate perlin noise has a lot of variables - that islandy terrain in minecraft could easily be changed by changing the frequency. A high frequency results in a more rapid change - smaller islands. A lower frequency results in slower changes - bigger islands.
If you wanted the same landmass, but bigger oceans you'd decrease frequency, but increase the height on the image needed for ladn to exist (basically flatten it)
Perlin noise is not just the only fractual noise. Islands tend to be kind of pointy. If notch wanted to add rivers, perlin noise would not be ideal for it. Instead you may use multifractal. Or something else entirely. http://www.big-black-block.com/tools/libnoisexna
What I have noticed, is that the terrain in Minecraft consists of mainly little islands separated by 10-20 meters worth of water. If you were to take a map, for example, you would notice that it looks almost like cobblestone, all the little (seeming big) islands. If I were to change one simple thing about Minecraft, it would be to have more landmass connected to each other, and to make oceans/lakes, not puddles.
What do you think?
Yes, yes I do... but even then if you were to look at your world, and compare it to the real world.
It works via fractal noise, and more specifically perlin noise (it uses simplex I think, but concept is same).
http://www.vapor3d.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/PerlinNoise2d.png
An example of perlin noise. The equation used to generate perlin noise has a lot of variables - that islandy terrain in minecraft could easily be changed by changing the frequency. A high frequency results in a more rapid change - smaller islands. A lower frequency results in slower changes - bigger islands.
If you wanted the same landmass, but bigger oceans you'd decrease frequency, but increase the height on the image needed for ladn to exist (basically flatten it)
Perlin noise is not just the only fractual noise. Islands tend to be kind of pointy. If notch wanted to add rivers, perlin noise would not be ideal for it. Instead you may use multifractal. Or something else entirely.
http://www.big-black-block.com/tools/libnoisexna
Here's a big example list of the things you could do.
http://www.neilblevins.com/cg_education/procedural_noise/procedural_noise.html
ectect. Amazing things can be done.