Weather : we need normalizations !

[Gael de Sailly]

Hello everyone !

Major issue of weather mods :
Every mod defines it's own weather system. For example, params used by Plantlife aren't the same than mapgen's weather noiseparams. We should make a system to normalize weather. A system that mods would be able to configure, but after loading time they will all use the same, including mapgen. It could be 2 functions for temperature and idem for humidity : a function which returns the average temperature (or humidity) forexample for mapgen, and another one returning the instant temperature (or humidity), defined by day/night cycle, and, if defined, by winter/summer cycle, with a bit of randomness (could be modelized by a 3D noise used in a 2-dimensions map, and gametime used as a 3rd dimension).

And we also need to control and detect clouds. It implies to send informations to the client.

[paramat]

Temperature and humidity are consistent in mgv5/mgv7 and have one set of values.

Mgv6 has a biome noise for locating deserts that can be considered temperature, and a humidity noise for locating jungles.
The reason plantlife varies is because it uses the snow mod's noise for temperature, which unfortunately was not matched to mgv6 biome noise, and plantlife uses mgv6 biome noise for humidity.

So for mgv6 ignore plantlife's definitions, go with:

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np_biome = NoiseParams(0, 1.0, v3f(250.0, 250.0, 250.0), 9130, 3, 0.50, 2.0);
np_humidity = NoiseParams(0.5, 0.5, v3f(500.0, 500.0, 500.0), 72384, 4, 0.66, 2.0);

Biome noise > 0.45 defines desert (1/3rd of the map).
Humidity noise is limited to 0 to 1, then if > 0.75 defines jungle in non-desert areas.

If optional cold biomes are added to mgv6 they will be defined by biome noise < -0.45 (1/3rd of the map). Then divided into taiga and tundra using humidity noise.
However this will result in jungles in cold biomes, so i will have to relocate jungles.

In all mapgens you can set the biome/temperature and humidity noises in .conf.

Dynamic variation of temperature and humidity, with freezing and melting water, was worked on by proller but was a mess and was removed. The idea is too complex and problematic for core Minetest and isn't really needed, it should remain a mod thing.

Seasons will not be added to core Minetest because there is no axial tilt (which also won't be added), again that's for mods.