I added OTHER suggestions/observations here also. Why make a million posts... The primary ones are first, and related to the topic.
My suggestion comes from being a nature lover, and a game lover, and programming. This, added to my love of exploring the real wilderness.
First, I can not help but to notice how lagged "trees" are. (Even in FAST RENDERING. Which has a side-effect of allowing mushrooms and spawn to grow/spawn on the non-transparent blocks of leaves.)
This is partly due to display issues, and partly due to the intensive "checking" that happens in forests. The massive surface-area of "spawnable block layers", the "growth of many vines", the "decay of poorly grown trees" (leaves too far from the trunk, just die/decay, though they were coded to exist where they could not possibly exist/grow.) etc...
My first suggestion is to simply lighten the burden of "thinking", by creating a list of "Things decaying", and "things growing", which only needs to be checked once. (Until a new block is placed, or something decays or grows above, below, or beside another block that has those attributes.)
This will stop the game from cycling through the millions of vines that can no longer grow, or are not prone to decay. Same with blocks of leaves, tree-trunks, grass, etc... A much shorter list.
Second suggestion, related to the first... nothing except mushrooms should grow under a tree canopy. To elaborate... There are many tall trees which should be smothering all ground-cover, including grass. Yet, unrealistically, there is massive undergrowth, directly under huge canopies of trees. If the taller trees are planted first, in code, then smaller trees and grass only grown where there is sufficient light, the result would be more like nature. This would also give a more creepy "forest" look, great for creatures to roam around the many pillars of tree-trunks in the dark forest. (Possibly a few trunkless bushes or some tumble-weed to represent dead baby trees that never saw enough light...) That will dramatically also reduce the rendering surface, if you stop spawning on top of trees.
NOTE: The edges of the "forest" would have those low-trees, and bushes, and "borders" of thicker low growth, like a real forest. If you look at a forest along a river, or road, the dense edges disappear after you get into the actual forest. Then you only see tall tree trunks leading up to a canopy of dense leaves above. possibly a few spots of undergrowth where the canopy has died, letting a circle of light into the woods. But mostly, you only see dead small trees that didn't survive, or low-light shrubs and bushes, prickers and dead vines.
Third suggestion, more related to graphics rendering, and fake-realism. Only the outer greens need to have transparent textures. All inner blocks should be solid, to simulate tree-leaf bundle thickness. When they are all transparent, it just looks fake, like a sponge. That will also help create visual "blocking" to reduce through-leaf rendering of things you can't actually see in that single-pixel hole in the leaves.
Fourth suggestion, put the correct animals in the correct places... lol...
Cats are "Desert/Field" creatures, not jungle creatures.
Pigs are "Forest" creatures, not field creatures. (Most dig for mushrooms and truffles.)
Chickens are "Field/Forest" creatures, not ducks... they hate water. (They also have short pointed beaks, not bills.)
Cows are "Field/Hills" creatures, not forest or jungle... and not mountain climbers.
Sheep are "Field/Hills/Mountain" creatures, not jungle...
Dogs are "Forest/Jungle" creatures, not field-runners...
NOTE: Spiders + Snow = WTF? Seriously, never saw any insect in the winter.
Skeletons and zombies... I imagine would be more where population is/was. (Most prominently.)
Creepers... So destructive and so abundant, yet I wouldn't imagine them any other places than the caves and forests. (Not in the deserts or snow. You would think that cold desert night air and snow would diffuse them, making them easy targets. Not sure how well zombies would do without a heat-generating pulse either... Slow as syrup I would imagine.)
Bats... Um, perfectly in caves, and hidden under a canopy in the day-time outside.
Slimes... Clearly a "forest" and "jungle" and "cave" creature... where most slime grows in the darkness. Yet, oddly they seem to be running all over the fields and hills now, anywhere there is water near-by, that they constantly get stuck in, unable to jump out of the water. (Might be a glitch. Those should be most sensitive to light, being slime and transparent.)
Second to last suggestion, pre-grow the new cells completely, before loading them, or loading others. Vines all the way until they can not grow... things above lava that "can burn", already removed, burnt away, etc... So, then you only have to focus on "decay" or "growth" whenever we actually place a block down somewhere. (Eg, removing a block under a vine, now that vine can grow down. Adding a block of grass, which can now grow grass and have other things spread to it, unless it is near lava, then it simply is not allowed to grow something since it is too hot, and would just waste time burning every other cycle.)
Last suggestion, Only remember the "changes" made to the world, and "forget" changes that are "reverted". EG, we mine a hole... then fill it back with the dirt that it was originally. Thus, that does not need to be remembered, unless it was GRASS, and grass has not grown back yet. You know what it was before, and if it is the same thing again, then that is just wasted space in memory. (Only remember the "most frequented" and "last 80 cells" we visited, if you are going to remember anything.) This would take into consideration, the original decayed undergrowth mentioned above, not "changed" decay, say, due to us building a platform above a bunch of grass or trees, which would count as "we changed" the "block", as it is no longer the original or a reversion, unless we revert it again. (This would help a LOT for multi-player. Stopping from sending redundant data for every possible block. Also, if you only count the blocks we have "seen" through exposure, not through "holes where the surface disappears by a glitch" which happens a lot now.)
Simple "unfolding" of the surface, from our present location, would simplify that "what you see", so you don't render the impossibly unseen caves below the surface. Even faster if you merge all common graphical surfaces into singular surfaces, not individual segmented blocks. (Not sure how that will alter shadows displaying, but they don't display correctly now, 10% of the time.)
Cats are "Desert/Field" creatures, not jungle creatures.
I generally don't see any cats, whether F. catus or L. pardalis, in the desert. Also, according to wikipedia, Ocelots live in the jungles of South America IRL.
My suggestion comes from being a nature lover, and a game lover, and programming. This, added to my love of exploring the real wilderness.
First, I can not help but to notice how lagged "trees" are. (Even in FAST RENDERING. Which has a side-effect of allowing mushrooms and spawn to grow/spawn on the non-transparent blocks of leaves.)
This is partly due to display issues, and partly due to the intensive "checking" that happens in forests. The massive surface-area of "spawnable block layers", the "growth of many vines", the "decay of poorly grown trees" (leaves too far from the trunk, just die/decay, though they were coded to exist where they could not possibly exist/grow.) etc...
My first suggestion is to simply lighten the burden of "thinking", by creating a list of "Things decaying", and "things growing", which only needs to be checked once. (Until a new block is placed, or something decays or grows above, below, or beside another block that has those attributes.)
This will stop the game from cycling through the millions of vines that can no longer grow, or are not prone to decay. Same with blocks of leaves, tree-trunks, grass, etc... A much shorter list.
Second suggestion, related to the first... nothing except mushrooms should grow under a tree canopy. To elaborate... There are many tall trees which should be smothering all ground-cover, including grass. Yet, unrealistically, there is massive undergrowth, directly under huge canopies of trees. If the taller trees are planted first, in code, then smaller trees and grass only grown where there is sufficient light, the result would be more like nature. This would also give a more creepy "forest" look, great for creatures to roam around the many pillars of tree-trunks in the dark forest. (Possibly a few trunkless bushes or some tumble-weed to represent dead baby trees that never saw enough light...) That will dramatically also reduce the rendering surface, if you stop spawning on top of trees.
NOTE: The edges of the "forest" would have those low-trees, and bushes, and "borders" of thicker low growth, like a real forest. If you look at a forest along a river, or road, the dense edges disappear after you get into the actual forest. Then you only see tall tree trunks leading up to a canopy of dense leaves above. possibly a few spots of undergrowth where the canopy has died, letting a circle of light into the woods. But mostly, you only see dead small trees that didn't survive, or low-light shrubs and bushes, prickers and dead vines.
Third suggestion, more related to graphics rendering, and fake-realism. Only the outer greens need to have transparent textures. All inner blocks should be solid, to simulate tree-leaf bundle thickness. When they are all transparent, it just looks fake, like a sponge. That will also help create visual "blocking" to reduce through-leaf rendering of things you can't actually see in that single-pixel hole in the leaves.
Fourth suggestion, put the correct animals in the correct places... lol...
Cats are "Desert/Field" creatures, not jungle creatures.
Pigs are "Forest" creatures, not field creatures. (Most dig for mushrooms and truffles.)
Chickens are "Field/Forest" creatures, not ducks... they hate water. (They also have short pointed beaks, not bills.)
Cows are "Field/Hills" creatures, not forest or jungle... and not mountain climbers.
Sheep are "Field/Hills/Mountain" creatures, not jungle...
Dogs are "Forest/Jungle" creatures, not field-runners...
Jungle creatures... "Tigers, Panthers, Parrots, Boars, Spiders"
Desert creatures... "Cats, Spiders, Lizards, Vultures"
Forest creatures... "Dogs, Coyotes, Raccoons, Squirrels, Pigs, Possums, Crows, Chickens, Foxes, Spiders, Bears"
Field hills creatures... "Chickens, Foxes, Cows, Horses, Sheep, Hawks, Lions, Tigers"
Field mountain creatures... "Eagles, Sheep, Goats, Llama, Lizards, Lions, Bears"
NOTE: Spiders + Snow = WTF? Seriously, never saw any insect in the winter.
Skeletons and zombies... I imagine would be more where population is/was. (Most prominently.)
Creepers... So destructive and so abundant, yet I wouldn't imagine them any other places than the caves and forests. (Not in the deserts or snow. You would think that cold desert night air and snow would diffuse them, making them easy targets. Not sure how well zombies would do without a heat-generating pulse either... Slow as syrup I would imagine.)
Bats... Um, perfectly in caves, and hidden under a canopy in the day-time outside.
Slimes... Clearly a "forest" and "jungle" and "cave" creature... where most slime grows in the darkness. Yet, oddly they seem to be running all over the fields and hills now, anywhere there is water near-by, that they constantly get stuck in, unable to jump out of the water. (Might be a glitch. Those should be most sensitive to light, being slime and transparent.)
Second to last suggestion, pre-grow the new cells completely, before loading them, or loading others. Vines all the way until they can not grow... things above lava that "can burn", already removed, burnt away, etc... So, then you only have to focus on "decay" or "growth" whenever we actually place a block down somewhere. (Eg, removing a block under a vine, now that vine can grow down. Adding a block of grass, which can now grow grass and have other things spread to it, unless it is near lava, then it simply is not allowed to grow something since it is too hot, and would just waste time burning every other cycle.)
Last suggestion, Only remember the "changes" made to the world, and "forget" changes that are "reverted". EG, we mine a hole... then fill it back with the dirt that it was originally. Thus, that does not need to be remembered, unless it was GRASS, and grass has not grown back yet. You know what it was before, and if it is the same thing again, then that is just wasted space in memory. (Only remember the "most frequented" and "last 80 cells" we visited, if you are going to remember anything.) This would take into consideration, the original decayed undergrowth mentioned above, not "changed" decay, say, due to us building a platform above a bunch of grass or trees, which would count as "we changed" the "block", as it is no longer the original or a reversion, unless we revert it again. (This would help a LOT for multi-player. Stopping from sending redundant data for every possible block. Also, if you only count the blocks we have "seen" through exposure, not through "holes where the surface disappears by a glitch" which happens a lot now.)
Simple "unfolding" of the surface, from our present location, would simplify that "what you see", so you don't render the impossibly unseen caves below the surface. Even faster if you merge all common graphical surfaces into singular surfaces, not individual segmented blocks. (Not sure how that will alter shadows displaying, but they don't display correctly now, 10% of the time.)
Oh hey Talons I havent seen you for a while!
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What does that have to do with spiders?
I generally don't see any cats, whether F. catus or L. pardalis, in the desert. Also, according to wikipedia, Ocelots live in the jungles of South America IRL.