[Mod] Ethereal [1.16] [ethereal]

[TenPlus1]

TenPlus1 just shrugged when I asked for rollback, and the server owner seems not to be able to do that either due to lack of knowledge.

I've mentioned a few times already that rollback has been disabled on the server to keep the speed up and lag at a minimum... Also, any buildings built on server relies on you to protect so griefers dont have a chance of breaking or stealing anything...

[Sokomine]

I'm not certain which mobs belong to which mod,

On Xanandu, it's a variant of PilzAdams simple mobs (or at least based on that concept). In general, you can tell by locating a sheep and trying to get its wool: If right-clicking works, it's simple mobs or a mod based on that. If punching lets the sheep drop wool, protest loudly and run away: BlockMens mobs. If you need sheers to get the wool, it's Sapiers mobf/animals modpack, and you can start breeding them.

I haven't tested it, but I thought TenPlus1 told me that furnaces in Xanadu are protected by the protection mod and can only be used by people on the list when they are in a protected area.

Ah, that's good. Minetest_next also introduced that. Good to have it in Ethereal!

I started with the advantage of building far enough away from the crowd that I didn't have to worry about overlapping regions to begin with.

The trouble is that curious visitors (like myshelf :-)) may not be aware of buildings so far out or shy away from walking long distances to a promised good building if the builder is not known in advance to be so good that the sight will warrant the long walk.

Anyway, protectors aren't perfect, but they are relatively easy to use and are working for me right now.

That's right. They're very easy to use. It just gets complicated once you want to protect more than a 10x10 area far enough away from everybody else.

I've mentioned a few times already that rollback has been disabled on the server to keep the speed up and lag at a minimum... Also, any buildings built on server relies on you to protect so griefers dont have a chance of breaking or stealing anything...

Yes, you mentioned that. Still, my requirements are other ones...rollback and backups are extremly important to me.

Now a bit back to topic: Last time I tried Ethereal, I ended up in an extremly dense forrest of reddish trees (against which moretrees would seem tiny). That biome wasn't the optimal one to get started in.

Perhaps...with all these new biomes added...it would be better to spread the biomes out a bit so that there's more space for each one? The original biomes (fire, ice, mushrooms, ..) now seem to have gotten a bit rare. The mapgen now got so extensive it might fill two maps :-) Perhaps biomes might show up depending on the area of map they're in...i.e. a larger placeholder biome might become a cold one in the "north" (where x gets larger), while the same biome might become a firey one in the south, and one with rich plants in the east or west.

[TenPlus1]

The new Ethereal 1.07 mod has a new mapgen added with a setting in init.lua to switch to it for use... It lets you test the new layered mapgen which is a little more spread out and retains the same biomes...

[Kilarin]

It just gets complicated once you want to protect more than a 10x10 area far enough away from everybody else.

The areas mod, especially with your gui addon, looks really useful.

The trouble is that curious visitors (like myshelf :-)) may not be aware of buildings so far out or shy away from walking long distances to a promised good building if the builder is not known in advance to be so good that the sight will warrant the long walk.

True. But since some folks have built further out, it means that when you go exploring you keep being surprised by amazing things! :)

The shared bookmarks in compassgps were supposed to help people on multi-player share interesting locations with each other. But that didn't end up attracting any attention from any server admins. Perhaps we need more people who have been exploring xanadu posting the coords of interesting locations on this thread.

The original biomes (fire, ice, mushrooms, ..) now seem to have gotten a bit rare.

I don't have any trouble finding them. But then, I don't mind exploring. Crystal boots are wonderful for wandering around. And it seems like you see something new and amazing over every hill and around each corner in Xanadu!

[Sokomine]

True. But since some folks have built further out, it means that when you go exploring you keep being surprised by amazing things! :)

I'd be glad if you could point me to some of those good buildings!

The shared bookmarks in compassgps were supposed to help people on multi-player share interesting locations with each other. But that didn't end up attracting any attention from any server admins. Perhaps we need more people who have been exploring xanadu posting the coords of interesting locations on this thread.

It's at least installed on the Mineguild server. Other teleporter mods (i.e. my travelnet) serve the same purpose.

I don't have any trouble finding them. But then, I don't mind exploring. Crystal boots are wonderful for wandering around. And it seems like you see something new and amazing over every hill and around each corner in Xanadu!

Well, if that isn't praise for a mod, I don't know what else might be :-) And yes, I think Ethereal deserves the praise.

[4aiman]

So, I was asked for chests...
Help yourselves:
More Chests
Keyset Chest
Closed by key
The three had I mentioned - the three there are ^_^

Also, updated @github! (finally...)

[TenPlus1]

Thanks for the udpate 4aiman... also, the sharedand wifi chest in more_chests looks very handy, will add those to Xanadu server...

[TenPlus1]

I've just finished creating and putting together Ethereal textures for the John Smith texture pack... Hope you like 'em... also, a big thanks to all at https://www.johnsmithlegacy.co.uk/ for the pack itself...

https://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=5383&p=152389#p152389

[Inocudom]

Is there a way that you could add support for the following mods:
moretrees
plantlife_modpack
sea_modpack
The end result could be very pleasing to look at.

[TenPlus1]

Add support to Ethereal for those mods ? or add JohnSmith textures for those mods ?

[Inocudom]

Ethereal is what I meant.

[TenPlus1]

Sealife should work already since it only uses sand/dirt under the water to work, although Ethereal already had underwater sealife which is similar... As for moretrees and plantlife, those require default:dirt_with_grass to work properly and Ethereal uses it's own dirt nodes so they would have to add compatibility for Ethereal... General sand plants and tree/leaf plantlife should still work though...

[Wuzzy]

Someone please fix the title. It is Ethereal 1.07, not 0.1.0 …
People may think that Ethereal is far from finished, which is not true.

IMO the maintainer of the mod should be allowed to edit the opening post now.
In case this is not possible, I suggest to open a new thread so that the title can be properly edited. It is confusing as hell otherwise.

[Kilarin]

post removed, didn't belong in this thread.

[Sokomine]

Important point: It's necessary to ensure that the mod/game is run with mapgen v7 in action. I started a new world, didn't remember that fact, and got a v6 world which was very strange (the redwood trees took over the world :-)) and didn't show any of the biomes that are usually found in Ethereal.

[philipbenr]

Didn't know that... I experienced the very same thing.

[4aiman]

Dudes, Ethereal uses mgv7. Why do you expect it to work properly with mgv6 or mgv5 or indev anyway?

[Sokomine]

Dudes, Ethereal uses mgv7. Why do you expect it to work properly with mgv6 or mgv5 or indev anyway?

I'm aware of that. Yet when I created a new world, I didn't remember selecting v7. And what I got was part of Ethereal - namely the big red trees and some fir(?) trees, but no other biomes. So it's quite important to remember to choose v7, because if you don't, it's not immediately obvious that something went wrong.

[4aiman]

I'm aware of that.

I know you knew it.
It was rather for those who will (or just want to) be asking "why isn't it working with other mapgens?".
Inocudom asked questions like this @FM several times, so I told him to go ask Ten to do something (although he probably can't w/o having to abandon mgv7 at all).
And when I got here, he was silent on the matter, but you, guys, were talking about "remembering to select the right mapgen"...

So, I just wanted to underline what you have told.
I mean, it's not an important point but a must.

[TenPlus1]

DELETE ME

[4aiman]

Updated!
Thanks for all your hard work, Ten! :)

I've a question: what's up with 2 different mapgens within ethereal?

[TenPlus1]

Ethereal currently uses a spead-like mapgen which works well for biomes and I am currently testing a level-like mapgen that is more realistic... You can edit the init.lua file and change the map style to check it out :)

[Inocudom]

http://forum.freeminer.org/threads/game-magichet-wip-the-villages-update.133/
This sub-game makes good use of the ethereal mapgen (it is owned and maintained by 4aiman.) Give it a try sometime.

[4aiman]

Updated!
Thanks for telling me about the updates all the time, Ten!

Also, ignore my subgame for now. Ethereal there, though being changed a lot, is outdated (it's of version 0.9.something) and updating to the current dev is not planned until this year's November (at least I think that one more month is enough to complete my current work).

[Sokomine]

http://forum.freeminer.org/threads/game ... pdate.133/
This sub-game makes good use of the ethereal mapgen (it is owned and maintained by 4aiman.) Give it a try sometime.

It seems to include a pretty old version of the villages from Nore's mg mod. The new mg_villages mod already supports ethereal to a degree - biome borders are preserved, and some materials from ethereal (mushroom, trees) may be used for the actual houses.

Sample village:

[paramat]

^ Looks good.

[4aiman]

Not "seems", Sokomine, but does include heavily modified piece of an old version of "mg" mod by Nore.
But the thing is, preserving biomes is not smth that's too difficult to do.
I'm not flattening the area of a village, thus the landscape stays pretty much the same. Can this new villages follow the map there is instead of changing it and creating a new one? I'm looking up to the better (more easily read) implementation.
I wanna see how new villages look when spawned above water or in the sky also.

As for buildings themselves - those were slightly altered and are subject to change in the future.
Also, I've some random loot available in every chest in the village with globally available weighted system of "rareness" (it's so much easier to develop a game than just mods :)

Thanks for paying attention to my stuff!
Regards!

[Sokomine]

Not "seems", Sokomine, but does include heavily modified piece of an old version of "mg" mod by Nore.

Once mg_villages is finished, you ought to have a look at it. What did you modify in your branch?

But the thing is, preserving biomes is not smth that's too difficult to do.

It might be managable as long as the villages are written for one mapgen only. Even then, having mixed materials for the buildings might look less good.

I'm not flattening the area of a village, thus the landscape stays pretty much the same. Can this new villages follow the map there is instead of changing it and creating a new one? I'm looking up to the better (more easily read) implementation.

The flattening of the village area is essential. And it cannot be avoided entirely with pre-built buildings. Those pre-built houses are built for a flat ground, and it would look stupid if there's no space in front of the front door to enter or leave the house. It takes very capable human builders to build something into the landscape without too much flattening. To do so is beyound the scope of any current algorithm I'm aware of. Having a flat village area also makes life a lot easier for the mobs that are to come and live there.

What mg_villages does is take the landscape as provided by whatever mapgen there is at work, flatten it and put the buildings on the flattened ground. Identifying ground is far from beeing trivial and sometimes requires adaption.

I wanna see how new villages look when spawned above water or in the sky also.

Set your mapgen to singlenode. Then all you'll get are the villages plus part of the flattened terrain around them.

As for buildings themselves - those were slightly altered and are subject to change in the future.

There seem to be some changes in Nores original version as well which I havn't copied yet. Changing the buildings ought to be easy anyway.

Also, I've some random loot available in every chest in the village with globally available weighted system of "rareness" (it's so much easier to develop a game than just mods :)

Stuff in chests is something that's coming soon. AdventureTest already has such a system, and I've one in my random_buildings code which I'm most likely going to take. It doesn't really take rareness into account. I think the method of filling chests will be something everyone who's going to use the mg_village mod will have to adjust to the needs of the game/mod collection.

[4aiman]

I won't quote, just answer :)

Flattening:
In my "fork" of Nore's mg mod I'm making flat area for each building. I copy the nodes there were and copy them up to 10 times. If there were no nodes below for 11 or more meters, then I use default:cobble as a basement material.
This way I always have the same nodes that were there before my "manipulations". Look at the picture:
As you can see, all the buildings are on their own altitude.
The right one didn't get the water and used cobble for it's "basement"... can't do anything to mapgen ATM.

Changes:
altered structures
structures try to preserve topology
structures try to adapt to biomes, thus using desert stone in desert instead of cobble
no flattening
memorizing villages positions
loot in chests
flying villages
water-villages (those right above the water with channels instead of roads)
basesments for every building (so those do not hang in the air)
potentially, underground villages
some LVM workarounds

The thing is, LVM is too buggy, does not consider decorations, fail to save structures from mapgen's caves, collides with other LVM usages (one may want to use only ONE LVM if he/she wants consistence, since LVM copies a part of a map and then writes it back, no one can really tell which LVM would be the one to "win" and preserve it's changes), does not set is_generated flag (so mapgen may not know there's something already generated!), takes more memory than minetest.set_node() etc etc...

I'm now in a middle of trying to combine all my LVM usages into single BIG one.

So....
I'll definitely look into new villages when the time will come :)
But the only thing I really want to figure out is how one can use perlin noises to get a number of positions to spawn vilages that are not connected.

PS: It's true, that there is this kind of a code within Nore's mg and therefore my villages, but I don't understand it. Anyone care to explain?

[Inocudom]

One thing to remember is that LVM is more buggy in Freeminer (entire chunks may end up not being generated) than in Minetest. I am speaking this to those that have never tried Freeminer, of course.

I really wish that people here would try it, for it really needs a community of its own (and it does keep up-to-date with Minetest.) Just make sure that you use and compile the latest GitHub version of it, for the stable version on the home page of Freeminer's website is ancient. Remember, Freeminer is open source and is maintained by proller and xyz.