FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

Hi,my english is terrible,but i love MINETEST very much,and i think MINETEST is amazing.

I try to study minetest a few days,already setup a server for my childs(they like it very much).in forum SERVER, i saw so many great map,HOW could you all create a map SO BIG,just like the whole world map just like american map?I think the map is just like"player walk,MAP producing"?

could anybody show me some advice,thank you!

The world is (pretty much) endless, it has 64000 blocks in each direction.
If you walk around the map around you generates, the map you have will expand over time when you explore more stuff.

you cannot make a map that big at the moment. The position 0,0,0 is at the center of an addressable cube roughly 64km x 64km x 64km large.

And yes the single chunks of the map are ussually only generated on demand such as when a player is in an area as well as all the adjoining chunks he can see with his view settings.

Mapgenerating may produce some lag if a player triggers the generating of new parts of the map, to avoid this in the beginning it is a good idea to generate a larger area near spawn at the beginning so that the players experience no extra lag while playing in the spawn area.

bah, writing too slow

sfan5 wrote:The world is (pretty much) endless, it has 64000 blocks in each direction.
If you walk around the map around you generates, the map you have will expand over time when you explore more stuff.

thx,sfan5：

I got it. you mean in MINETEST,area of map is a grid just like 64000x64000.In usually,player walking around the map,map expanding around.

let me guess,if I travel to the end of west,I will appear to the east?

twoelk wrote:you cannot make a map that big at the moment. The position 0,0,0 is at the center of an addressable cube roughly 64km x 64km x 64km large.

And yes the single chunks of the map are ussually only generated on demand such as when a player is in an area as well as all the adjoining chunks he can see with his view settings.

Mapgenerating may produce some lag if a player triggers the generating of new parts of the map, to avoid this in the beginning it is a good idea to generate a larger area near spawn at the beginning so that the players experience no extra lag while playing in the spawn area.

thx,twoelk：

I am interesting in your point"to avoid this in the beginning it is a good idea to generate a larger area near spawn at the beginning so that the players experience no extra lag while playing in the spawn area.".I had follow much post in minetest forum,I knew some admin mod about map like"WorldEDIT(is ingame tools)" and MAP tools.But I think you do'nt mean it?

Should I just walk or teleport toward the end corner of map region(like -64000,x,0 / 0,x,64000 ...oh god) or lift myself to x,10000,y(will seen a square) or any other tools can help me to gererate whole map in the beginning?

at last,thx you all.

The entire map would be far too big. Just generate the area around spawn before you open your server. 1-2000m in each direction ought to be enough for a start.

Sokomine wrote:The entire map would be far too big. Just generate the area around spawn before you open your server. 1-2000m in each direction ought to be enough for a start.

But I assume he, like me, has no idea how to "generate the area around spawn". By walking or is there some command/mod?

And to be honest I can't say I have ever noticed a difference in performance walking around new vs preexisting parts of a map on LAN even with crappy hardware.

Sokomine wrote:The entire map would be far too big. Just generate the area around spawn before you open your server. 1-2000m in each direction ought to be enough for a start.

*picks up IRC log from yesterday*
- A complete minetest world would have 16384000000000 MapBlocks
- It would be 1 281 738 GB big
- You would need about 43 465.19€ worth of 4TB HDDs to store it
- To use all those HDDs you would need a mainboard with 313 SATA ports
- all HDDs would consume 1877W power

I'll toss in my 2-cents; maybe even a nickel's worth. ;)-


'To the Ends of the World and Beyond!' ...well, not exactly.

linushsao wrote:let me guess,if I travel to the end of west,I will appear to the east?

Actually, you will come to the end of the world. The world does not wrap around. At the end there is a grey void. You can not walk (or dig if deeper than around y-30000 or so) any farther.



That will put you near the farthest, north-east corner of the world. (Use fly and no-clip privs before teleporting just in case teleport puts you in a solid block.) Then drop to the ground and continue walking diagonally in the positive x and z directions toward 32000,y,32000. (The F5 key will show your coords in the upper-left corner of your screen.)

Each world seems to have different 'end' coords. Usually 100-200 blocks farther than +/-30,000 so you will have to walk a bit farther to reach the corner of the world.

The ends of the world look just like the rest of the world except for the grey void. However, the screen rendering becomes glitchy. Blocks will shimmer randomly.


World Generation and Map Making

The map only generates where you have been. So if you teleport to the farthest corners, only the area around you will be created. Not everything between where you left and where you teleported too. Once generated the areas remain. If you use a minetestmapper program to produce overview maps of your world you will see what parts of the world have and have not been created.

If you are using Linux, there is a python version of minetestmapper in the .../minetest/util directory. The minetestmapper.py is very slow and takes a lot of RAM to use.

The better option is the c++ version; much faster and more efficient use of RAM; Linux and Windows. The c++ version also allows you to add 'geometry' - a ruler scale of x and z coords along the left and top sides of the map to aid navigation.

Here is the link:
http://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?id=2896

I use the c++ version to generate several different sectional-maps of our server. If you would like to see examples of what the c++ minetestmapper can do, please check-out our thread's first post (it's really long so you will have to scroll down a bit before you see the maps).

Here is the link:
https://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?id=5684


Word Generation Lag

As suggested earlier by others, when a player ventures into a new area, Minetest will lag as it generates that part of the world for the first time. After Minetest has created the area there will not be anymore map generatation lag unless another new area is being created elsewhere.

If you want to prepare a region, you will have to fly around thoroughly in that region to cause Minetest to generate it. This may take several hours depending on how large the region is. To thoroughly generate a 1000x1000 region may take up to an hour depending on what landscape-altering mods you have installed.

The 'Explore' mod will help generate areas but it will still take time. The mod causes the player to fly around in a spiral pattern without the human being at the keyboard. If you want to generate a large part of the map, let this mod run for an hour or more (maybe even over night if your computer is slow).

'Explore' mod link:
http://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?id=2950

Using the 'Explore' mod and an overview map can help you plan-out regions better.

The downside of using the 'Explore' mod is when you add landscape-altering mods later, they will not take effect in existing parts of the world (parts 'Exlpore' caused to generate or where players have already been). You will have to travel to regions that have not been generated yet for the landscape-altering mods to produce what they are supposed to.

I hope some of this helps ;)

sfan5 wrote:

Sokomine wrote:The entire map would be far too big. Just generate the area around spawn before you open your server. 1-2000m in each direction ought to be enough for a start.

*picks up IRC log from yesterday*
- A complete minetest world would have 16384000000000 MapBlocks
- It would be 1 281 738 GB big
- You would need about 43 465.19€ worth of 4TB HDDs to store it
- To use all those HDDs you would need a mainboard with 313 SATA ports
- all HDDs would consume 1877W power

4TB...Mmm，Wow...! Any cloud hosting offers this kind of size? It will be very very expensive...XD

LazyJ wrote:
...

World Generation and Map Making

The map only generates where you have been. So if you teleport to the farthest corners, only the area around you will be created. Not everything between where you left and where you teleported too. Once generated the areas remain. If you use a minetestmapper program to produce overview maps of your world you will see what parts of the world have and have not been created.

If you are using Linux, there is a python version of minetestmapper in the .../minetest/util directory. The minetestmapper.py is very slow and takes a lot of RAM to use.

The better option is the c++ version; much faster and more efficient use of RAM; Linux and Windows. The c++ version also allows you to add 'geometry' - a ruler scale of x and z coords along the left and top sides of the map to aid navigation.

Here is the link:
http://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?id=2896

I use the c++ version to generate several different sectional-maps of our server. If you would like to see examples of what the c++ minetestmapper can do, please check-out our thread's first post (it's really long so you will have to scroll down a bit before you see the maps).

...

Word Generation Lag

...

'Explore' mod link:
http://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?id=2950

Using the 'Explore' mod and an overview map can help you plan-out regions better.

The downside of using the 'Explore' mod is when you add landscape-altering mods later, they will not take effect in existing parts of the world (parts 'Exlpore' caused to generate or where players have already been). You will have to travel to regions that have not been generated yet for the landscape-altering mods to produce what they are supposed to.

I hope some of this helps ;)

YES...,thx LazyJ, you offer me great tools for map. After insert the EXPLORE mod, Immediately, I had send My ROBOT to explore My World NOW!!.

My platform(latop & server) based on ArchLinux,so I had successfully complie minetest-mapper,It runs fast,to generate a map is just a few second.Finally,I know the whole picture of my world.

Here is My world map in this moment.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1sVQsUtWsc_NFlzellSaGFfVFk/edit?usp=sharing