I like it, but there should be biomes for every single possible combination if this ever gets implemented.
I did the math and that would mean 108 biomes (counting the 1/4 of them that are ocean biomes).
Ocean/[any]/[any]/[not flat]'s islands would be similar to the corresponding last three's biome. Also, Ocean/Flat/[any]/[any] should never have any islands and Ocean/[any]/[any]/Hilly should have very rare islands, but tons of sea mounts (islands in the ocean that almost make it to the surface, but not quite). Also, [any]/Hot/Wet/[flat/hilly] should be a swamp, and Coastal/[not cold]/Wet/Flat should make big deltas when rivers reach the ocean. Coastal/[not cold]/Temperate/Flat should make deltas, but not as big as Coastal/[not cold]/Wet/Flat's deltas. Desert should be Inland/[not cold]/Dry[any], Tundra should be Inland/Cold/Dry/[any]. Jungles should be Inland/Hot/Wet/[not flat]. Plains should be Inland/[not cold]/[not dry]/Flat
From any 1 biome to the next, the computer will randomly choose 2 values to change. The values will either go up or down 1. That applies to all values. If you generated a computer image of boxes in them, then put numbers according to how the algorithm changes them, you might get
.
There would be a chance of nothing changing or only one thing changing.
EDIT: I made an image with more transitions, 3 things changing is rare, 4 is even rarer. 5 or more would be too rare to appear on the image. The image would be of a particularly lucky area, where a lot of spots where 3 or more things change. In reality, it would all be much rarer.
Just so you know, the images are 5" by 5" and 10" by 20".
I wholeheartedly support this. Sadly, my search for mods of this nature was lacking. Of course, I'd be happy if even the old temp/rain scale was implemented. Current biome "transitions" are repulsive, and I hate having a desert right next to a snowy pine forest...
This sounds like a great idea. If you took this and added seasons it could be even more epic. One reason i like the idea of this suggestions and seasons is because it can have a huge impact on game mechanics like when and where you can grow crops or see certain mobs. imagine having to grow enough food during the warm months to support yourself through the winter, Or even a hunting season.
This sounds like a great idea. If you took this and added seasons it could be even more epic. One reason i like the idea of this suggestions and seasons is because it can have a huge impact on game mechanics like when and where you can grow crops or see certain mobs. imagine having to grow enough food during the warm months to support yourself through the winter, Or even a hunting season.
Seasons is an awesome idea. I used to live in a tropical climate, where the winters were mostly dry, but it poured every afternoon in the summers. Now I live in a Mediterranean climate, and it's the opposite: winters are wet, and summers are dry. An in-game cycle of seasons could affect both precipitation and temperature on a per-"biome" basis! I love it.
So how long do you all think a season (~3 months IRL) should last in MC? It makes sense to me that since we have an 8-day cycle of lunar phases (which would approximate one month), seasons should last 24 days (8x3). This would make the Minecraft year 96 in-game days long, or 32 RL hours.
That may seem rather long initially, but considering that it's supposed to represent an entire year, I think it's quite reasonable. It also means that those people who can only play the game at certain times of their day would get to see all the seasons on SMP servers.
I support this. I also have another thing to add on to precipitation. What if rain and snow were determined by the clouds? Storm clouds would constantly move around the map, and theyd be easily recognizable by their massive size and dark colour. This would also require some effort put into the cloud system.
I really like the attention of detail you have given to this! Even better: If one were to use a map like this to define biomes rather than preset kinds, biome updates might not screw up generation! And that, that would be EPIC
This is what I see the biome combinations would be (WARNING: Huge wall of text!) :
Hot
_________
Dry-Hot-Flat: Desert (same as now but no water springs).
Dry-Hot-Hills: Hilly Desert (just rolling dunes)
Dry-Hot-Mountains: Badlands (Like mountainous deserts. Extra sandstone and more ravines.)
Average-Hot-Flat: Marsh (plains with tons of one-block-deep pools of water and lots of sugarcane. Possibly clay at the bottom of these pools.)
Average-Hot-Hills: Eroded Hills (1-3 block deep depressions with a river-like appearance, but no actual water here. The terrain is too hilly for marshes, and there are more ravines.)
Average-Hot-Mountains: Eroded Mountains (Valleys are formed by the river-like depressions, but is otherwise no different from normal mountains.)
Wet-Hot-Flat: Swamp (possibly without the overlay, but no different from what it is now.)
Wet-Hot-Hills: Jungle (not the current jungle, though! The same jungle we have now, but with less mountains. Flora is the same and ocelots exist)
Wet-Hot-Mountains: Mountainous Jungle (current jungle biome, ocelots exist)
Temperate
____________
Dry-Temperate-Flat: Savannah (Like plains, but with the occasional small tree.)
Dry-Temperate-Hills: Dry Hills (Hills with the occasional small tree.)
Dry-Temperate-Mountain: Mountains (the normal mountains we have now.)
Average-Temperate-Flat: Grassland (the grass is about as green as a forest and there are some trees, about one every 64x64, but is otherwise the same as the current plains).
Average-Temperate-Hills: Grassy Hills (grassland with hills.)
Average-Temperate-Mountains: Grassy Mountain (yaaaaaay, another flat biome slapped on a mountain!)
Wet-Temperate-Flat: Forest (what we have now, but with more large trees. Wolves exist.)
Wet-Temperate-Hills: Hilly Forest (forest with rolling hills. Wolves exist.)
Wet-Temperate-Mountains: Mountainous Forest (forest on a mountain. Wolves exist.)
Cold
_________
Dry-Cold-Flat: Tundra (same as now except there are no trees)
Dry-Cold-Hills: Tundra Hills (snowy hills)
Dry-Cold-Mountains: Tundra Mountains (mountainous hills)
Average-Cold-Flat: Tagia (the tagia that we have now, but flattened... although I would prefer that snow can fall through leaves as well as on them to get rid of the ugly circles that don't have snow. Wolves exist.)
Average-Cold-Hills: Hilly Tagia (what we have now, since tagias are hillier than most biomes. Wolves exist.)
Average-Cold-Mountains: Mountainous Tagia (a tagia slapped on a mountain. Wolves exist.)
Wet-Cold-Flat: Snowy Tagia (did you know that in the code, it is possible to have a snow covering that is 3 times the normal size? yeah, this biome has that snow covering. look up "snow" on the wiki. when it snows here, the snow falls to the normal height, then as more snow falls it goes up to 2x the normal height, then 3x.
Wet-Cold-Hills: Snowy Hilly Tagia (a hilly tagia with the extra snow covering.)
Wet-Cold-Mountains: Snowy Mountainous Tagia (a mountainous tagia with the extra snow covering).
Oceans
__________
[Dry/Average]-Cold-Ocean: Frozen Ocean (the ocean can contain icebergs... more on those later)
Wet-Cold-Ocean: Snowy Frozen Ocean (the ocean can contain snowy icebergs... more on those later).
[Any]-[Temperate/Hot]-Ocean: Ocean (Oceans with the old underwater geology... aka no circular splotches of sand/clay)
Islands
_________
Yes, I know you did not include islands in the OP. Islands are of my make, and would just be stuck anywhere in certain areas of the ocean. When I say something like Wet-Temperate-Ocean, I mean that it can spawn in Wet-Temperate-Oceans, not that the island replaces oceans in those areas.
[Dry/Average]-Cold-Ocean: Iceberg (a mass of ice in the ocean-- it is thickest about 10 blocks deep and it ends in a peak at about Y=75. It may or may not contain a dungeon in the center, but the dungeon will not contain mossy stone. It does not touch the seabed.)
Wet-Cold-Ocean: Snowy Iceberg (an iceberg covered in snow).
[Any]-Cold-Ocean: Ice Cap (around 256 blocks or so in diameter and roughly circular--there is ice about three deep and it is covered in snow.
[Any]-Temperate-Ocean: Island (similar to what we have now, but larger and with more trees.
[Average/Wet]-Hot-Ocean: Tropical Island (a normal island with jungle trees instead)
Dry-Hot-Ocean: Desert Island (a normal island that happens to be a desert)
Yes, I ignored anything outside the realm of oceans in terms of height. Nothing would change in the biomes based on your inland-ocean scale, except for beaches spawning where you say they would. In that case, I would think that they should always spawn there except in Dry-Cold-[Anything] areas. The Flat/Hills/Mountains thing should only change ruggedness, not ground level.
This is a fairly interesting idea. So random generation like earlier but still with biomes. (Bad explanation sorry.)
I think this would be a great implementation, surely no more getting boring worlds. Just a few things,
-It should not affect old worlds at all
-And instead of it being forced it can be a option in "more options" in the create a world screen, just like SuperFlat. it shall be called "Dynamic" or something.
Whoa, seems like people have been thinking along the same lines as me. I started to putting together some stuff weeks ago, but never got around to making a fancy post about it. I think this is a good place to start though since people are already here talking about world generation. I think the OP has the right idea, but his focus isn't on the implementation. I've thought about the implementation and here's my idea: Overlays.
Overlays are "dimensions" just like the OP talked about. I think there's only 3 overlays needed though - Elevation, Temperature and Humdity. The three overlays would be merged to create all possible combinations of climates I can think of like this:
To see how that would look in "real life" I created a simple example in excel using pseudo randomly generated values. H, M and L refer to High, Medium and Low respectively. It's simple, but the point is to show the concept, not to actually write a new world generator In the real game, there would be more values and randomized difference clouds would create the overlays.
As you can see, I just created some pretty simple combinations for what makes a jungle, desert, etc. That was because it's easier to create a proof of concept that way. And, as you can see by looking at the above example, I think the results are pretty good. Jungles next to swamps or forest. Deserts next to badlands, etc. It all smooths out nicely.
With more degrees of difference in the overlays (more "depth") it can create smoother gradients. Also, it means the the code for generating "biomes" will be more like the OPs suggestions. Meaning you have conditional statements like Jungles must have temp > 75 & humidity > 75. In that case, elevation doesn't matter so you can have hilly - even mountainous - jungles.
Anyway, that's my rant. I've thought about this way more than I should since I know no one will ever care
basically this idea is suggesting that no matter where you are, your zone is going to be permanently locked in that type of scenario. thus a swamp could never be transformed into a desert, a desert could never be transformed into a forest, and so on.
I know that zones are already locked as is, but denying blocks to grow in these locations because of a new weather system robs the player of all creative freedom when he wants to build a sand castle desert in the middle of a frozen river.
besides, we already have somewhat of a "heat" variable with the terrain as far as block colors go. trees and grass near deserts are naturally lighter colored, whereas the same blocks near taigas are naturally deeper in color. The system isn't perfect, granted, as I've seen snowy jungles, but I would still like to be able to see snowy jungles =p
When I first saw the name 4D Biomes I though NOPE.AVI. But after reading through your idea I think it's quite good :). Personally I'd change the name though
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I did the math and that would mean 108 biomes (counting the 1/4 of them that are ocean biomes).
Ocean/[any]/[any]/[not flat]'s islands would be similar to the corresponding last three's biome. Also, Ocean/Flat/[any]/[any] should never have any islands and Ocean/[any]/[any]/Hilly should have very rare islands, but tons of sea mounts (islands in the ocean that almost make it to the surface, but not quite). Also, [any]/Hot/Wet/[flat/hilly] should be a swamp, and Coastal/[not cold]/Wet/Flat should make big deltas when rivers reach the ocean. Coastal/[not cold]/Temperate/Flat should make deltas, but not as big as Coastal/[not cold]/Wet/Flat's deltas. Desert should be Inland/[not cold]/Dry[any], Tundra should be Inland/Cold/Dry/[any]. Jungles should be Inland/Hot/Wet/[not flat]. Plains should be Inland/[not cold]/[not dry]/Flat
From any 1 biome to the next, the computer will randomly choose 2 values to change. The values will either go up or down 1. That applies to all values. If you generated a computer image of boxes in them, then put numbers according to how the algorithm changes them, you might get
.
There would be a chance of nothing changing or only one thing changing.
EDIT: I made an image with more transitions, 3 things changing is rare, 4 is even rarer. 5 or more would be too rare to appear on the image. The image would be of a particularly lucky area, where a lot of spots where 3 or more things change. In reality, it would all be much rarer.
Just so you know, the images are 5" by 5" and 10" by 20".
Why does everyone think I don't have an avatar? Is there anyone who can see the one black pixel.
Please click the dragons, they need to grow. Also, my fully grown dragons can be found in my bio.
I MISS A TIME WHEN PEOPLE THOUGHT RAIN FOREST WAS PAIN FOREST BECAUSE OF A TYPO. ;-;
Seasons is an awesome idea. I used to live in a tropical climate, where the winters were mostly dry, but it poured every afternoon in the summers. Now I live in a Mediterranean climate, and it's the opposite: winters are wet, and summers are dry. An in-game cycle of seasons could affect both precipitation and temperature on a per-"biome" basis! I love it.
So how long do you all think a season (~3 months IRL) should last in MC? It makes sense to me that since we have an 8-day cycle of lunar phases (which would approximate one month), seasons should last 24 days (8x3). This would make the Minecraft year 96 in-game days long, or 32 RL hours.
That may seem rather long initially, but considering that it's supposed to represent an entire year, I think it's quite reasonable. It also means that those people who can only play the game at certain times of their day would get to see all the seasons on SMP servers.
Hot
_________
Dry-Hot-Flat: Desert (same as now but no water springs).
Dry-Hot-Hills: Hilly Desert (just rolling dunes)
Dry-Hot-Mountains: Badlands (Like mountainous deserts. Extra sandstone and more ravines.)
Average-Hot-Flat: Marsh (plains with tons of one-block-deep pools of water and lots of sugarcane. Possibly clay at the bottom of these pools.)
Average-Hot-Hills: Eroded Hills (1-3 block deep depressions with a river-like appearance, but no actual water here. The terrain is too hilly for marshes, and there are more ravines.)
Average-Hot-Mountains: Eroded Mountains (Valleys are formed by the river-like depressions, but is otherwise no different from normal mountains.)
Wet-Hot-Flat: Swamp (possibly without the overlay, but no different from what it is now.)
Wet-Hot-Hills: Jungle (not the current jungle, though! The same jungle we have now, but with less mountains. Flora is the same and ocelots exist)
Wet-Hot-Mountains: Mountainous Jungle (current jungle biome, ocelots exist)
Temperate
____________
Dry-Temperate-Flat: Savannah (Like plains, but with the occasional small tree.)
Dry-Temperate-Hills: Dry Hills (Hills with the occasional small tree.)
Dry-Temperate-Mountain: Mountains (the normal mountains we have now.)
Average-Temperate-Flat: Grassland (the grass is about as green as a forest and there are some trees, about one every 64x64, but is otherwise the same as the current plains).
Average-Temperate-Hills: Grassy Hills (grassland with hills.)
Average-Temperate-Mountains: Grassy Mountain (yaaaaaay, another flat biome slapped on a mountain!)
Wet-Temperate-Flat: Forest (what we have now, but with more large trees. Wolves exist.)
Wet-Temperate-Hills: Hilly Forest (forest with rolling hills. Wolves exist.)
Wet-Temperate-Mountains: Mountainous Forest (forest on a mountain. Wolves exist.)
Cold
_________
Dry-Cold-Flat: Tundra (same as now except there are no trees)
Dry-Cold-Hills: Tundra Hills (snowy hills)
Dry-Cold-Mountains: Tundra Mountains (mountainous hills)
Average-Cold-Flat: Tagia (the tagia that we have now, but flattened... although I would prefer that snow can fall through leaves as well as on them to get rid of the ugly circles that don't have snow. Wolves exist.)
Average-Cold-Hills: Hilly Tagia (what we have now, since tagias are hillier than most biomes. Wolves exist.)
Average-Cold-Mountains: Mountainous Tagia (a tagia slapped on a mountain. Wolves exist.)
Wet-Cold-Flat: Snowy Tagia (did you know that in the code, it is possible to have a snow covering that is 3 times the normal size? yeah, this biome has that snow covering. look up "snow" on the wiki. when it snows here, the snow falls to the normal height, then as more snow falls it goes up to 2x the normal height, then 3x.
Wet-Cold-Hills: Snowy Hilly Tagia (a hilly tagia with the extra snow covering.)
Wet-Cold-Mountains: Snowy Mountainous Tagia (a mountainous tagia with the extra snow covering).
Oceans
__________
[Dry/Average]-Cold-Ocean: Frozen Ocean (the ocean can contain icebergs... more on those later)
Wet-Cold-Ocean: Snowy Frozen Ocean (the ocean can contain snowy icebergs... more on those later).
[Any]-[Temperate/Hot]-Ocean: Ocean (Oceans with the old underwater geology... aka no circular splotches of sand/clay)
Islands
_________
Yes, I know you did not include islands in the OP. Islands are of my make, and would just be stuck anywhere in certain areas of the ocean. When I say something like Wet-Temperate-Ocean, I mean that it can spawn in Wet-Temperate-Oceans, not that the island replaces oceans in those areas.
[Dry/Average]-Cold-Ocean: Iceberg (a mass of ice in the ocean-- it is thickest about 10 blocks deep and it ends in a peak at about Y=75. It may or may not contain a dungeon in the center, but the dungeon will not contain mossy stone. It does not touch the seabed.)
Wet-Cold-Ocean: Snowy Iceberg (an iceberg covered in snow).
[Any]-Cold-Ocean: Ice Cap (around 256 blocks or so in diameter and roughly circular--there is ice about three deep and it is covered in snow.
[Any]-Temperate-Ocean: Island (similar to what we have now, but larger and with more trees.
[Average/Wet]-Hot-Ocean: Tropical Island (a normal island with jungle trees instead)
Dry-Hot-Ocean: Desert Island (a normal island that happens to be a desert)
Yes, I ignored anything outside the realm of oceans in terms of height. Nothing would change in the biomes based on your inland-ocean scale, except for beaches spawning where you say they would. In that case, I would think that they should always spawn there except in Dry-Cold-[Anything] areas. The Flat/Hills/Mountains thing should only change ruggedness, not ground level.
I think this would be a great implementation, surely no more getting boring worlds. Just a few things,
-It should not affect old worlds at all
-And instead of it being forced it can be a option in "more options" in the create a world screen, just like SuperFlat. it shall be called "Dynamic" or something.
Please make a mod atleast. ;D
Overlays are "dimensions" just like the OP talked about. I think there's only 3 overlays needed though - Elevation, Temperature and Humdity. The three overlays would be merged to create all possible combinations of climates I can think of like this:
To see how that would look in "real life" I created a simple example in excel using pseudo randomly generated values. H, M and L refer to High, Medium and Low respectively. It's simple, but the point is to show the concept, not to actually write a new world generator In the real game, there would be more values and randomized difference clouds would create the overlays.
As you can see, I just created some pretty simple combinations for what makes a jungle, desert, etc. That was because it's easier to create a proof of concept that way. And, as you can see by looking at the above example, I think the results are pretty good. Jungles next to swamps or forest. Deserts next to badlands, etc. It all smooths out nicely.
With more degrees of difference in the overlays (more "depth") it can create smoother gradients. Also, it means the the code for generating "biomes" will be more like the OPs suggestions. Meaning you have conditional statements like Jungles must have temp > 75 & humidity > 75. In that case, elevation doesn't matter so you can have hilly - even mountainous - jungles.
Anyway, that's my rant. I've thought about this way more than I should since I know no one will ever care
'locked zones'
basically this idea is suggesting that no matter where you are, your zone is going to be permanently locked in that type of scenario. thus a swamp could never be transformed into a desert, a desert could never be transformed into a forest, and so on.
I know that zones are already locked as is, but denying blocks to grow in these locations because of a new weather system robs the player of all creative freedom when he wants to build a sand castle desert in the middle of a frozen river.
besides, we already have somewhat of a "heat" variable with the terrain as far as block colors go. trees and grass near deserts are naturally lighter colored, whereas the same blocks near taigas are naturally deeper in color. The system isn't perfect, granted, as I've seen snowy jungles, but I would still like to be able to see snowy jungles =p
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