villages [WIP]

[paramat]

This is my suggestion for separating villages from houses.
In 'villages at point' change the 'noise1' threshold for villages to > 0.4, then place houses when noise1 < -0.4.
Increase 'VILLAGE_CHANCE' to compensate for the smaller area defined by the new noise threshold of > 0.4.
For a good separation noise1 should have 2 octaves, and persistence should be 0.4 for smooth variation.
If houses and villages are still too close increase the spread of noise1 (currently 256), but this will increase the average distance between villages.

[Sokomine]

The villages are progressing. Even though I think that I've eliminated the error that lead to strange overlapping of single houses and villages, there's still a lot to do, especially code cleanup and oter issues.

Btw, this is how it looks if you use mg_villages with a singlenode mapgen:

[Don]

That looks cool!

[blert2112]

Sokomine!... Outstanding mod! Much props to you, Paramat, and anyone else whose fingers have been part of this. I am currently using the mg mapgen on my kid's server but this is going to replace it as mg is so slow and this mod is ultra fast. I have a couple of questions though...

INVERSE_HOUSE_DENSITY: according to the comments, 0 (zero) disables lone buildings outside of villages, default is 4 (four)... Increase or decrease the value to make less lone buildings? (INVERSE_ has confused me)

VILLAGE_CHANCE: is commented out. Is this option not functional? I am looking for a way to increase the rarity of villiages as there are too many being spawned for my taste. If it is functional what is the meaning of the value? (percentage out of 100?

I will play with these two values to see what happens but confirmation on what I find would be great.
Thanks for your time.

[Sokomine]

Sokomine!... Outstanding mod! Much props to you, Paramat, and anyone else whose fingers have been part of this. I am currently using the mg mapgen on my kid's server but this is going to replace it as mg is so slow and this mod is ultra fast. I have a couple of questions though...

In theory, mg ought to be as fast as mg_villages. I've done some optimizations and do more complicated landscape changes at other ends, but in general mg_villages is based on mg. It ought to work with almost any mapgen.

INVERSE_HOUSE_DENSITY: according to the comments, 0 (zero) disables lone buildings outside of villages, default is 4 (four)... Increase or decrease the value to make less lone buildings? (INVERSE_ has confused me)

Increase the value in order to decrease the amount of lone houses (thus, inverse). Every 1/INVERSE_HOUSE_DENSITY th mapchunk (area of 80x80 nodes) receives a lone house, provided there's nothing that keeps it from spawning (like i.e. a village that is too close by).

Don't forget to add the other mods so that you'll get all possible village types. I really need to make a modpack so that it's easier to grab them all in one go...

VILLAGE_CHANCE: is commented out. Is this option not functional? I am looking for a way to increase the rarity of villiages as there are too many being spawned for my taste. If it is functional what is the meaning of the value? (percentage out of 100?

It is set to 28 at another place in the config file. That was an experiment with diffrent values. Decrease the value in order to get less villages. A value between 1 and 400 ought to do. It may not boil down to percentages exactly as there's noise involved. In general, that part of the code is more or less still the same as the one in mg written by Nore.

I will play with these two values to see what happens but confirmation on what I find would be great.

Playing with these values might be best. It's very difficult to decide how many villages and/or houses are enough. It also depends on factors such as walking speed (run or slow walk?) and amount of area you intend to explore.

[blert2112]

In theory, mg ought to be as fast as mg_villages. I've done some optimizations and do more complicated landscape changes at other ends, but in general mg_villages is based on mg. It ought to work with almost any mapgen.

In theory, I don't doubt that at all. In practice, things are a bit different under certain conditions... for instance: Using mg on my server, if you log in and immediately run to a door and open it, it will literally take many many seconds for the door to open. Using mg_villages plus mgv6, do the same and the door opens right away. Since mgv6 is my preferred mapgen (I just don't need a dozen different multi-colored biomes) I see this as a huge performance improvement. Granted, though I just upgraded my server hardware, it is still relatively very old hardware.

Increase the value in order to decrease the amount of lone houses (thus, inverse). Every 1/INVERSE_HOUSE_DENSITY th mapchunk (area of 80x80 nodes) receives a lone house, provided there's nothing that keeps it from spawning (like i.e. a village that is too close by).

Don't forget to add the other mods so that you'll get all possible village types. I really need to make a modpack so that it's easier to grab them all in one go...

It is set to 28 at another place in the config file. That was an experiment with diffrent values. Decrease the value in order to get less villages. A value between 1 and 400 ought to do. It may not boil down to percentages exactly as there's noise involved. In general, that part of the code is more or less still the same as the one in mg written by Nore.

Playing with these values might be best. It's very difficult to decide how many villages and/or houses are enough. It also depends on factors such as walking speed (run or slow walk?) and amount of area you intend to explore.

Pretty much what I found while messing with the values. I think I found some settings I like (8 and 20).
I have had the additional (extra materials and "blueprints") since the beginning. Again... Loving this mod.

[Rochambeau]

Is there an option to decrease the number of villages and/or random buildings or increase the space between them?

I found mg_villages.VILLAGE_CHANCE in config.lua and it seems, increasing the value helped with the villages. But for my taste, there are still too many single houses on the map.

Can't walk 50 blocks without seeing another building. There is no more real wilderness without civilization. :-)

Anyway, i really love this mod!!

[Sokomine]

Is there an option to decrease the number of villages and/or random buildings or increase the space between them?

I found mg_villages.VILLAGE_CHANCE in config.lua and it seems, increasing the value helped with the villages. But for my taste, there are still too many single houses on the map.

Just set mg_villages.INVERSE_HOUSE_DENSITY = 40 in order to decrease the amount of single houses by factor 10. The normal value is 4 - meaning on average one house per four mapchunks (80x80 blocks). The higher you set it, the less single houses there will be.

Can't walk 50 blocks without seeing another building. There is no more real wilderness without civilization. :-)

They're conquering the wilderness and bringing civilization :-) But you're right. Balancing the values so that the amount of houses feels right is not easy. For my testworlds, I tend to use values of 1 (maximum amount of single houses) so that they are more common and bugs become more obvious.

[Hybrid Dog]

l tried the mod (Aug. 2013) and didn't find a house.

[Sokomine]

l tried the mod (Aug. 2013) and didn't find a house.

The date suggests that you actually took my old villages mod - which is a pretty old version by now. In that old mod, villages had to be spawned using a special chat command.The thread has moved to cover mg_villages instead, which does spawn villages and single houses and is based on Nores villages code for Nores mg mapgen. I really ought to start a new thread for it...it's just that there's always a lot more that can be done and a lot of documentation to do, which frightens me a bit...

[Hybrid Dog]

mg_villages works for me, l used it some time ago. The topic description lead me to the villages mod.
When l think about the mg_villages l remember how l spawned a volcano and the whole village was covered entirely with stone, the buildings could be found by digging through the stone.
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=10805#p165415
btw: l wonder what happens if l use this viewtopic.php?f=9&t=12616 in a volcano, there's lots of air between the stone…

Edit: 3633 Torches placed in a small part of it.

[Sokomine]

mg_villages works for me, l used it some time ago. The topic description lead me to the villages mod.

Yes, villages was my first attempt to write something like that. It never had any true integration into the landscape and depended on the landscape beeing flat and welcoming (no volcanoes! :-)). On the plus side, villages have more structure than mg_villages and come with a central place with a tree and some buildings (inn, forge) arranged around it.

When l think about the mg_villages l remember how l spawned a volcano and the whole village was covered entirely with stone, the buildings could be found by digging through the stone.
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=10805#p165415

Sounds pretty much like what happens if a volcano hits a real village...hope you made sure the inhabitants had time to escape :-)

btw: l wonder what happens if l use this viewtopic.php?f=9&t=12616 in a volcano, there's lots of air between the stone…

That's just joking around/advertising your own mods :-) That lighting mod of yours is very nice for exploring caves, but won't really fit to a "natural" volcano. If you're thinking alongside volcanoes, how about growing some grapes? Mauvebic had a nice mod for that.

[Hybrid Dog]

When l think about the mg_villages l remember how l spawned a volcano and the whole village was covered entirely with stone, the buildings could be found by digging through the stone.
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=10805#p165415

Sounds pretty much like what happens if a volcano hits a real village...hope you made sure the inhabitants had time to escape :-)

l disabled fire in minetest, so lava didn't flow into the houses and the inhabitants were protected. But the roads weren't longer walkable and there's many darkness under a mountain.

btw: l wonder what happens if l use this viewtopic.php?f=9&t=12616 in a volcano, there's lots of air between the stone…

That's just joking around/advertising your own mods :-) That lighting mod of yours is very nice for exploring caves, but won't really fit to a "natural" volcano. If you're thinking alongside volcanoes, how about growing some grapes? Mauvebic had a nice mod for that.

This mod is actually not made for only exploring caves, l just needed a name for it, it can automatically light every dark place, e.g. this worldedited testing hole https://d.maxfile.ro/vnfgpvnusx.png
l can't grow grapes around volcanoes because minetest lavacooling volcanoes consist of bare stone, but growing could be done after the mountain spawning.
Can you make houses become stuck half in mountains that it looks like villagers used the mountain to build stable houses?

[Rochambeau]

FYI:
A lot of houses and some villages spawn in holes in the ground.
Sometimes it looks cool, like a village in a hidden valley. Sometimes it's just disturbing ;-) (see attachment)

[Hybrid Dog]

mg_villages is compatible with gen




how would this tower look like with more sorts of nodes…

[Rochambeau]

Update:
So, I guess it is no mod problem but something I added to minetest.conf to get higher mountains.

Your phone or window isn't wide enough to display the code box. If it's a phone, try rotating it to landscape mode.

Code: Select all

mgv6_np_terrain_base = -4, 30, (750, 750, 750), 82341, 6, 0.65
mgv6_np_terrain_higher = 10, 64, (750, 750, 750), 85039, 8, 0.6


Since I removed those two lines, no more buildings in holes appeared. Back to normal, flat mgv6... :-(

[Sokomine]

Since I removed those two lines, no more buildings in holes appeared. Back to normal, flat mgv6... :-(

There might still be buildings in holes. The area is checked for height, and there are sometimes holes from caves there. In such a case buildings may be placed at the bottom. It's hard to tell such holes and larger shores apart.

You may also run into trouble if the hills get too heigh. This is mostly due to the villages not taking care of anything that happens above the mapblock that contains ground level. Maybe I ought to change that in the future...there have been some pretty hilly mods out there.

[blert2112]

There is an error in, or connected to, the build_chest_check_all_directories() function of handle_schematics. It does not cause an error in the console. It completely freezes (unresponsive) my game when loading. I traced it to that function but am too tired to continue deeper into it right now. If I set secure.enable_security = true in minetest.conf I can bypass the issue and the game completes loading.

[Sokomine]

There is an error in, or connected to, the build_chest_check_all_directories() function of handle_schematics. It does not cause an error in the console. It completely freezes (unresponsive) my game when loading. I traced it to that function but am too tired to continue deeper into it right now. If I set secure.enable_security = true in minetest.conf I can bypass the issue and the game completes loading.

That is odd. I'd love to hear more from you about this bug - especially if you can truely reproduce it. I do get random crashes sometimes, but that may be caused by my MT version almost always beeing the most recent version. Loading the world again after such a crash works fine for me.

You need to add secure.trusted_mods = handle_schematics if you want to get schematics outside your current world listed in the chest's menu. The minetest.get_dir_list function is also pretty recent.

[blert2112]

That is odd. I'd love to hear more from you about this bug - especially if you can truely reproduce it. I do get random crashes sometimes, but that may be caused by my MT version almost always beeing the most recent version. Loading the world again after such a crash works fine for me.

You need to add secure.trusted_mods = handle_schematics if you want to get schematics outside your current world listed in the chest's menu. The minetest.get_dir_list function is also pretty recent.

Unfortunately I have to use a Windows build so I can't use the very latest MT without jumping through many hoops to build for Windows, I am using stfan5's latest build. I would, of course, prefer to use Linux on my server but that machine is also my kid's homeschool rig and some of the software we use is Windows only.
Reproducing is not a problem, it happens every time. The game goes totally unresponsive at "Creating server" and will just sit there forever. I added secure.trusted_mods = handle_schematics and commented out secure.enable_security = true but that did not fix it. It only completes loading the game with secure.enable_security = true. I will continue to trace the down the source this morning. Will let you know what I find.

[blert2112]

Found it!
It gets stuck in an infinite loop at line 82...

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Code: Select all

   while( not( string.find( worldpath, '/', -1*p ))) do
      p = p+1;
   end


The problem is it is checking for the "/" character but windows uses the "\" character. If I change it to...

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Code: Select all

   while( not( string.find( worldpath, '\\', -1*p ))) do
      p = p+1;
   end


...it works.

Here is one way to determine what character you need to check for...

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Code: Select all

   while( not( string.find( worldpath, package.config:sub(1,1), -1*p ))) do
      p = p+1;
   end


package.config:sub(1,1) returns '/' (*nix) or '\\' (windows).

Hmmmm.... It's odd. LUA doesn't seem to care, in some instances, if you use a '/' or '\' in a filename regardless of OS. For example: DoFile() seems to work fine either way. I suppose it is safe to assume that it only matters if you are performing a string search?

[BrandonReese]

Have you come across floating buildings before?




Mapgen v7 with these parameters. Or just pull the latest Adventuretest.

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Code: Select all

mgv7_np_terrain_base = 4, 70, (600, 600, 600), 82341, 5, 0.6, 2.0
mgv7_np_terrain_alt = 4, 25, (600, 600, 600), 5934, 5, 0.6, 2.0
mgv7_np_terrain_persist = 0.6, 0.12, (2000, 2000, 2000), 539, 3, 0.5, 2.0
mgv7_np_height_select = -12, 24, (500, 500, 500), 4213, 6, 0.69, 2.0
mgv7_np_filler_depth = 0, 1.2, (150, 150, 150), 261, 4, 0.7, 2.0
mgv7_np_mount_height = 675, 350, (3000, 2000, 3000), 72449, 3, 0.5, 2.0
mgv7_np_ridge_uwater = 0, 1, (1000, 1000, 1000), 85039, 5, 0.6, 2.0
mgv7_np_mountain = -0.6, 1, (850, 1450, 850), 5333, 5, 0.68, 2.0
mgv7_np_ridge = 0, 1, (100, 100, 100), 6467, 4, 0.75, 2.0
mgv7_np_cave1 = 0, 12, (100, 100, 100), 52534, 4, 0.5, 2.0
mgv7_np_cave2 = 0, 12, (100, 100, 100), 10325, 4, 0.5, 2.0


[BrandonReese]

And split buildings

[Sokomine]

Wrong time to spawn mobs:

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Code: Select all

 -- spawn our NPCs
        mobs.spawn_npc_and_spawner(pos,barbarians)


Shedule that for later on. At the moment you're doing it, we're in the middle of working on a voxelmanip area received from mapgen. I assume it gets confused if entities are added to the map at that time. The very data the villages are working on gets changed beneth its feet :-)

Maybe you can override the mob_basics namespace and spawn your mobs using mob_basics.spawn_mob, like I do with my traders. Another way would be to place nodes in the voxelmanip datastructure and act in their on_construct call - which gets executed after the map data has been written back. Or would a mg_villages.village_spawned( village_data ) call be more helpful?

[Sokomine]

mg_villages now contains a function that is called when a part of a village is spawned. This function is called at a time when the voxelmanip data has been written back already. At that time it's safe to spawn mobs. Hope that helps! As a side-effect, spawning of mobf_trader-traders now works a lot better as well and is implemented cleaner than before.

[BrandonReese]

I updated mg_villages and handle_schematics and everything was working fine. I copied and pasted my spawning code in the part_of_village_spawned function I wrote over and it was working great, then I remembered I put that spawning code in a function in my mobs mod, and then everything broke again. So I spent some time looking over the code, making sure I wasn't accidentally modifying global variables, then I figured out what the problem was... I forgot about luas weird passing by reference. So I was passing a position to the spawn function, and even though I was doing something like npos = pos... npos was referencing pos so changing npos was modifying pos which was screwing up the rest of the village generating. Even though it was my bug your changes do make it easier to keep mg_villages up to date and makes implementation cleaner.

I am really liking the variety of buildings and village types in this mod.

[Sokomine]

Hmmmm.... It's odd. LUA doesn't seem to care, in some instances, if you use a '/' or '\' in a filename regardless of OS. For example: DoFile() seems to work fine either way. I suppose it is safe to assume that it only matters if you are performing a string search?

Yes, that confused me as well. Slashes are apparently fine - even under Windows - else hardly any mod would function at all. I wonder how I'll have to compose paths in such a situation. Will a mixture of backslahes and slashes work?

I've disabled the search for schematics in world folders for now if the path cannot be analyzed (i.e. Windows OS). That's a limited loss for now as minetest.get_dir_list is also still very limited in a secure environment. I hope that useful feature gets extended in the future.

Please check if the mod works again for you now!

I forgot about luas weird passing by reference

Oh yes. That's pretty annoying most of the time. In some desperate situations, I resort to minetest.deserialize( minetest.serialize( value_to_be_copied)) just to be on the safe side. At least in other mods.

I am really liking the variety of buildings and village types in this mod.

Thanks! And I like your mobs a lot. At least those friendly, helpful villagers :-) Without them the place would feel very empty. And it's nice to see villagers guarding their home village from hostile mobs.

[BrandonReese]

Is it possible to have the villages not generate at y=1, but be able to generate them at y=3+? The way I have my biomes setup to create beaches and gravel bars when a village generates it's often times sitting all on gravel, sand, or sometimes stone.

[blert2112]

I wonder how I'll have to compose paths in such a situation. Will a mixture of backslahes and slashes work?

Your phone or window isn't wide enough to display the code box. If it's a phone, try rotating it to landscape mode.

Code: Select all

   -- returns '/' (*nix) or '\\' (windows)
   os_path_sep = package.config:sub(1,1)


Now build your string search using the variable instead of explicitly stating "/" or "\".

[Tedypig]

Don't forget to add the other mods so that you'll get all possible village types. I really need to make a modpack so that it's easier to grab them all in one go...

Please do. Or at least link to them in the first post. I can't find some of them. You can, of course, skip the ones in the default game, since we have those. Lol.

EDIT: Adding this part.

ALL of the ones in depends.txt, not just the required ones.