[Mod][Merged] Valleys Mapgen [valleys_mapgen]

[Xanthin]

You're were right, I had the version 4.8 and after upgrading to 4.9, it compiled without an error and runs fine. And yes, it was a bit too early in the morning for me to remember it, ofc it's /duane-r/minetest.git. :)

[Ivà]

As far as I know, gcc-4.8 throw the errors above but gcc-4.9 is ok. I don't know why anyway, sorry.

The ubuntus are using 5.2.1. Even my Debian stable is up to 4.9.2. If anyone is still using 4.8, they might want to consider upgrading.

Ubuntu LTS and Linux Mint are still on 4.8.2. You must install explicitly the gcc-4.9-base package to get the 4.9.1 version.

[duane]

Ubuntu LTS and Linux Mint are still on 4.8.2. You must install explicitly the gcc-4.9-base package to get the 4.9.1 version.

Now that's conservative.

However, I just compiled it under 4.8 [on Debian and Mint] without any problems as well, so I don't think that's the only issue.

[Gael de Sailly]

I've compiled it this morning, without any problem, with your bugfix.
The terrain seems smoother, except some vertical cliffs, but I recognize the style. What have you changed precisely ? (just to know, you can merge it in the core anyway :) )

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For the new Lua version: 2.3 or 3.0?

[bobomb]

i like the concept of your biome system -- determined by environmental factors rather than a map or perlin noise. I was thinking that other factors for the biome system could include: slope, aspect, distance to rivers, distance to lakes, distance to urban disturbances, latitude (z), in addition to your use of elevation, plus a random factor. also maybe a tree should have a concept of which trees are near? realterrain mod has methods for calculating slope, aspect, curvature and distance.

i have learned a lot from your code. thanks. i might steal some trees code for realterrain. ;-)

[duane]

What have you changed precisely ? (just to know, you can merge it in the core anyway :) )

It should be pretty much the same, except that I removed as many 3D noises as I could. This is the actual terrain building code, complete with your comments:

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

float MapgenValleys::baseGroundFromNoise(s16 x, s16 z, float valley_depth, float terrain_height, float *rivers, float valley_profile, float inter_valley_slope, float *valley, float inter_valley_fill, float cliffs, float corr)
{
   // The square function changes the behaviour of this noise:
   //  very often small, and sometimes very high.
   float valley_d = pow(valley_depth, 2);

   // valley_d is here because terrain is generally higher where valleys
   //  are deep (mountains). base represents the height of the
   //  rivers, most of the surface is above.
   float base = terrain_height + valley_d;

   // "river" represents the distance from the river, in arbitrary units.
   float river = fabs(*rivers) - river_size;
   *rivers = -31000;

   // Use the curve of the function 1−exp(−(x/a)²) to model valleys.
   //  Making "a" vary (0 < a ≤ 1) changes the shape of the valleys.
   //  Try it with a geometry software !
   //   (here x = "river" and a = valley_profile).
   //  "valley" represents the height of the terrain, from the rivers.
   *valley = valley_d * (1 - exp(- pow(river / valley_profile, 2)));

   // approximate height of the terrain at this point
   float mount = base + *valley;

   float slope = *valley * inter_valley_slope;

   // Rivers are placed where "river" is negative, so where the original
   //  noise value is close to zero.
   if (river < 0) {
      // Use the the function −sqrt(1−x²) which models a circle.
      float depth = (river_depth * sqrt(1 - pow((river / river_size + 1), 2))) + 1;
      *rivers = base;

      // base - depth : height of the bottom of the river
      // water_level - 2 : don't make rivers below 2 nodes under the surface
      mount = fmin(fmax(base - depth, water_level - 2), mount);

      // Slope has no influence on rivers.
      slope = 0;
   }

   // The penultimate step builds up the heights, but we reduce it
   //  occasionally to create cliffs.
   float delta = sin(inter_valley_fill) * slope;
   if (delta != 0) {
      if ((spflags & MG_VALLEYS_CLIFFS) && cliffs < 0.2)
         mount += delta;
      else
         mount += delta * 0.66;

      // Use yet another noise to make the mountains look more rugged.
      if ((spflags & MG_VALLEYS_RUGGED) && mount > water_level && fabs(inter_valley_slope * inter_valley_fill) < 0.3)
         mount += (delta / fabs(delta)) * pow(fabs(delta), 0.5) * fabs(sin(corr));
   }

   return mount;
}

Of course, the surfaces are placed the same way v7 does, and it uses the default decorations, so it ends up looking completely different. Actually, I did double the range of the river/valley noise by default, but that can be changed in the mapgen settings.

I could make it match more closely by using another 3D noise, but that slows it down by almost half. Even as it stands, the other mapgens run noticeably faster.

Here's how it looks at the moment on my system.



Edit: And now that I check it, several of the noises are off. I'm putting them all back to default. Part of the problem is that there are two default sections, one in the settings and one in the code (in case there are no settings).

Yes, that makes a noticeable difference.

[Gael de Sailly]

Switched to branch new_biomes. I added dry dirt yesterday.
3.0 may come on Christmas.

[duane]

I haven't given up on getting Valleys C into the codebase, but it's still proving to be a challenge. Here are some screenshots of my latest attempts.

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[Fixerol]

Nice!

[paramat]

Looks good.

[kaadmy]

How are villages done for the terrain?

[duane]

How are villages done for the terrain?

I haven't really done any villages. I just put some lua in the support project to make random house schematics that get planted as decorations. They show up in ridiculous places sometimes, like hanging over a cliff.


At this point, the C++ code seems to be producing exact duplicates of terrain from the lua (including the occasional floating block), with the nofast flag set. I'll test it thoroughly over the next few weeks.

[sofar]

I haven't given up on getting Valleys C into the codebase, but it's still proving to be a challenge. Here are some screenshots of my latest attempts.

Just pulled your branch and noticed:

seed: 17472738859635311922

- spawn was quite deep under ground. I'm assuming you haven't paid attention to the spawn position yet.
- floating islands at y+=128, lots of them, clearly disjoint but related to the nearby high topography
- some cut-off trees (topside) suggesting chunks didn't properly finish generating
- lack of flat plains, could just be the seed (I travelled 4km or so +/-)
- could use some more water lilies in some of the near-water biomes, they're really quite rare as well

other than that, appears to work well and fast!

[duane]

Just pulled your branch and noticed:

seed: 17472738859635311922

- spawn was quite deep under ground. I'm assuming you haven't paid attention to the spawn position yet.
- floating islands at y+=128, lots of them, clearly disjoint but related to the nearby high topography
- some cut-off trees (topside) suggesting chunks didn't properly finish generating
- lack of flat plains, could just be the seed (I travelled 4km or so +/-)
- could use some more water lilies in some of the near-water biomes, they're really quite rare as well

other than that, appears to work well and fast!

Thanks for the comments.

Make sure you're using the valleys_c branch. I'm going to delete the merge branch, just to avoid confusion. I haven't had any spawn problems since I updated the *AtPoint functions a few hours ago, but I'll check it.

The floating islands are there in the original lua too (in the exact same places). If there's a way of getting rid of them without getting rid of the nice mountains, I don't know it. Of course that's what I did with the fast flag option, but it lacks the character of the original.

You may not find many flat plains. That's a drawback of Valleys. It's all about... well, valleys.

The cut-off trees are a known issue with the decoration manager, and the water lilies (on the sea) are part of the default game. I'm only concerned with the mapgen for the moment. I put some lilies on the rivers with the lua support code, but that's beyond the purview of a C++ mapgen.

"...hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't."

[sofar]

Make sure you're using the valleys_c branch. I'm going to delete the merge branch, just to avoid confusion. I haven't had any spawn problems since I updated the *AtPoint functions a few hours ago, but I'll check it.

The floating islands are there in the original lua too (in the exact same places). If there's a way of getting rid of them without getting rid of the nice mountains, I don't know it. Of course that's what I did with the fast flag option, but it lacks the character of the original

ok, I switched to valleys_c branch and that looks slightly different now (same seed)

The hanging islands here look fine to me, I have nothing against a few floating blocks and these are not as bad as with the old branch, so I'm fine with how it looks. Will let it generate some more terrain ;^)

[paramat]

Looks really good, great to see progress and a match to the lua mapgen.

> The cut-off trees are a known issue with the decoration manager

Correct.

Don't bother with the fast flag, if this 3D terrain noise is coded correctly it won't have much impact on mapgen speed, also the surface terrain should be faithful to the lua version and be interesting, however i agree the c++ version needs simple caves using 2 3D noises instead of 5. Am i right in thinking the current c++ cave code is your own duane? it looks fine to me.

Also, the c++ version should perhaps have a larger scale river noise than the original (noise 2 has spread 256 and 5 octaves, this creates small river systems with small river loops), however that can be tuned later when we set the default noise parameters.

[duane]

Don't bother with the fast flag, if this 3D terrain noise is coded correctly it won't have much impact on mapgen speed, also the surface terrain should be faithful to the lua version and be interesting, however i agree the c++ version needs simple caves using 2 3D noises instead of 5. Am i right in thinking the current c++ cave code is your own duane? it looks fine to me.

Also, the c++ version should perhaps have a larger scale river noise than the original (noise 2 has spread 256 and 5 octaves, this creates small river systems with small river loops), however that can be tuned later when we set the default noise parameters.

I want to keep the fast flag. I kind of like the terrain it generates, and it is about 25% faster so far. The simple caves were my take on your Intersecting mod, of course, and they're very light-weight.

I agree about the rivers. The first thing I usually do is double the spread of the river noise (n2 in the original) and the valley fill noise (n6), but then I was raised in the great plains, not the Alps. However, I hesitate to change the defaults from the lua values. People are already accustomed to them, and every time I play with them much I mess things up.

[duane]

Here are screenshots from the same location of the original valleys mapgen and the latest C++. They're not block-for-block the same, but they're very close.

The dark spots on the right in the C++ are caves. They were turned off in lua. I turned off all decorations in C++ because the area was heavily forested.

If anyone spots any problems, let me know.

[Gael de Sailly]

I've tried using the seed that produces the highest mountain I know (I call it Mount Major).

+ Screenshots

Mount Major in VMG C++:

Mount Major in Lua:
Same elevation (278).

Funny structure near the mountain, in VMG C++:

The same structure in VMG Lua:

[blert2112]

Using the C mapgen... How can I mellow out the terrain some? It's a bit too mountainous for my liking and I would like some flatter areas. Going to play with the noises a bit and see what happens in the mean time.

BTW, I still get Lua OOM crashes a plenty even with just the helper mod installed. I don't understand why more people don't have this issue... my PC is not old or too wimpy and OOM crashes when there are 4-5GB of free memory just sitting there is beginning to tick me off to the point of just giving up on this game. Yes, yes... it's LuaJit's problem, well there are ways around that but no one seems to care too much. (Sorry, ranting) Anyway, I recompiled without LuaJit so we shall see if that helps.

[duane]

Using the C mapgen... How can I mellow out the terrain some? It's a bit too mountainous for my liking and I would like some flatter areas. Going to play with the noises a bit and see what happens in the mean time.

The first thing I'd try would be doubling or tripling the spread [(n,n,n)] of the river and valley fill noises, which will spread the features over a wider area. Be careful not to change the ratio of the numbers within each spread [fill is always (1,2,1)]. You could also try reducing the scale [second integer] of the terrain height and valley depth to flatten everything.

BTW, I still get Lua OOM crashes a plenty even with just the helper mod installed. ... Yes, yes... it's LuaJit's problem, well there are ways around that but no one seems to care too much. (Sorry, ranting) Anyway, I recompiled without LuaJit so we shall see if that helps.

I run a ten-year-old lenovo T61 laptop with 4G of memory, and I constrain minetest so that only 3G are available to it. I also compile with LuaJit, but I hardly ever see out-of-memory errors. I used to get them a lot when I was using 512-pixel textures, but I scaled back to 128-pixel. I can force one by exploring as fast as possible (flying) for a half-hour or so, but if I rest any, the game usually drops enough visible chunks to keep going.

I use these mods: body_pillow caverealms datastorage delete_unknown farming_plus gemalde integral kpgmobs mapp mobs mobs_bat mobs_birds mobs_butterfly mobs_crocs mobs_fish mobs_goblins mobs_jellyfish mobs_sharks mobs_turtles polbox slimes unified_inventory valleys_c wallhammer

I'm running Debian stable, so almost everyone here has a more modern operating system than I do. The newer versions of the libraries could be an issue.

[blert2112]

Thanks, I will try fiddling with those numbers.

I have tried so many different build configurations the past two days trying to figure it out. It never fails, the game always crashes with OOM. The only thing that seems to "fix" it is compiling without LuaJit. LuaJit3 is not supposed to have this limitation but who knows when that will happen. Any idea what kind of performance hit I should expect by not using LuaJit? I would compare the two but the crashes forbid that.

[paramat]

> I want to keep the fast flag. I kind of like the terrain it generates, and it is about 25% faster so far.

That's fine to keep it.
Good work, i'm busy but will review the PR as soon as possible.

[Gael de Sailly]

Gone for some time, again :/

I've not found the time to change plants parameters. Sorry.
Is there anyone that can do it?

[duane]

>i'm busy but will review the PR as soon as possible.

No hurry. Let me know if I can help.

[duane]

I've started a project based on the Valleys Mapgen master which puts the original's soil types and vegetation into the Valleys C++ mapgen (using most of the same code and encountering all of the same problems). You can download the zip here.

It automatically selects Valleys C++ as the mapgen, so you obviously have to have compiled the C++ code here. It looks very familiar, but there are still problems with the beaches. It's fairly slow on my machine. I'd be interested to know how it works for others.

Is it lua or is it C++? [It's both!]

I've not found the time to change plants parameters. ... Is there anyone that can do it?

I'll take a look at the plant parameters as I can, but I'm really not sure what to do with them.

[blert2112]

I've started a project based on the Valleys Mapgen master which puts the original's soil types and vegetation into the Valleys C++ mapgen (using most of the same code and encountering all of the same problems). You can download the zip here.

It automatically selects Valleys C++ as the mapgen, so you obviously have to have compiled the C++ code here. It looks very familiar, but there are still problems with the beaches. It's fairly slow on my machine. I'd be interested to know how it works for others.

So, what is the difference between this one and the 'valleys_c' helper mod?
Seems no slower than the 'valleys_c' mod for me, generation feels about the same. Also get a lot of fir trees that look like this...

Is that by design?
Darkage is an optional dependency... If you use my fork of Darkage (the 'reg_ore-FIX' branch) you can speed it up a bit as I have converted it to register_ore (type 'sheet')

[duane]

So, what is the difference between this one and the 'valleys_c' helper mod?

The helper mod uses the v7 biomes and the decoration manager, and doesn't have any extra soil types at the moment. This one shares most of its code with the original and is similarly incompatible with decorations.

Darkage is an optional dependency... If you use my fork of Darkage (the 'reg_ore-FIX' branch) you can speed it up a bit as I have converted it to register_ore (type 'sheet')

I'm going to take the Darkage references out. They don't have any effect on this code. In fact, they probably aren't necessary in the original since it inserts itself at the head of the voxelmanip queue now.

I don't know what the deal with the trees might be. I'll look at it.

Edit: Yes, that's happening in the original as well. I think the top rings sometimes end up being so narrow that they don't actually produce any leaves. Although in one case, it looks like the top leaves were displaced about eight meters.

[Nathan.S]

Flowers seem to be very rare in my worlds with this mapgen, I looked at the code for the flowers and it looks like they are being placed as mgv6 decorations. I know very little about mapgen, is there a version of mgv7 decorations that I can change/add to the code so I'll get flowers back?

[sofar]

Flowers seem to be very rare in my worlds with this mapgen, I looked at the code for the flowers and it looks like they are being placed as mgv6 decorations. I know very little about mapgen, is there a version of mgv7 decorations that I can change/add to the code so I'll get flowers back?

mgv7 decorations are provided to mapgen from lua, so you can just clone e.g. mapgen.lua from the default minetest_game and get those decorations. However, you'd have to make sure you're not creating conflicting or overlapping biomes.