There is a certain feature in Minecraft I think has very little representation and interest on the forum... Custom World Generation! We have whole forums--hundreds of topics--dedicated to the discovery and sharing of seeds. But what are seeds, compared to the beauty of a world with well-customized terrain?
Unfortunately, most of us lack the time and the effort it takes to learn the tools of the trade. Since their introduction in snapshot 14w17a, we maybe play around with the settings a little bit, and generate some ugly land, and then we are through. The best we can do is check out the presets. Discouraged with our impassable, ugly mountains, or an ugly, lumpy world completely underwater, or a world that just crashes the instant you try to open the game, we give up.
That is not the way to do it!
It's up to the community to learn how to really master this unique tool. I can't do it myself. I won't do it myself. But I DO want to spike the interest of those of you on the forum today--I want you to try to learn, post what you know, share what you can! And don't just post screenshots, let us know what you changed!
Key Tip
Before generating your custom generated world, you can click "Presets" and find a text box with all of your settings presented in simple text. Sharing this text will probably be the most effective way to tell others what you did if you changed multiple settings. (hint: click inside the box and hit home, shift+end, ctrl+c to copy its contents)
Later, to revise the world and modify the settings, remember you can always re-generate a world anew from the main menu, if you'd like to adjust one of the settings without starting completely over with a new seed and settings.
Example screenshots
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9
10
Resources
- Excellent resource for beginners, but lacking updates Minecraft Wiki Customized World Type (wiki) - The go-to official reference with descriptions of each function
The "1:1 Comparison Project"
I'm hoping to collect a few side-by-side comparisons of what these options change. My plan is to use "Seed 0" and the 0,0 coordinate to take a few screenshots of the default world generation, and have right next to each screenshot a picture of the same feature, but after a certain value was changed.
At this point I don't have any screenshots, but I would love if some of you could help. This is certainly a very tedious task... I attempted it myself but was having some issues--it seemed like just being in the same coordinate, same seed, didn't produce the same area even when only the slightest values were changed. Maybe I was doing something wrong, though. Does anyone care to submit?
That's all for now guys, I know it's hardly the "Ultimate" guide it claims to be, but as far as I can tell, it's the best we've got on this forum!
I've been playing around trying to make a "more balanced" world in terms of world height. A long time ago, Minecraft doubled the maximum world height, from 128 to 256. "Ground Level" used to be at 1/2 the world height--now, it is more like 1/4! So I have been aiming to correct this with my own world setup, by pulling the world up a good 64 blocks or so, adding that much underground content. I'm also trying to make a world with bigger mountains without interfering with the flatter regions for building in Survival. One last thing--I want bigger caves, ideally huge, gaping underground caverns hidden away from the light of day. It's essentially making EVERYTHING bigger, what ought to have happened when they moved to Anvil.
Without much difficulty, I was able to bring the "ground level" (I count this as both Sea Level and the general level of the shore/villages) up to about 128. This was done entirely with "Base Size" and "Sea Level". If you notice, I haven't made any attempt to bother with ore generation at this point--it's all screwed up for this world height. (the ores are all way too far underground!)
(see attachments)
The mountains were fairly successful. The highest mountains (even in extreme hills) did not rise over 210 or so, leaving enough room to build a reasonable-sized structure on top of them if I felt like. There were a few floating islands which I found to be quite satisfactory--to me, floating islands should not be too frequent, or too small.
There was an unusual effect on the birch forest. It seemed to stretch the trees really tall, some as high as 14 blocks! This was baffling.
The only failure was in the increased cave size. It seems that the caves were having trouble emerging dramatically from the surface as we know they ought to in Minecraft. There were plenty of dramatic cliffs, but no eerie caverns. I had to dig to find them, and when I did, most tunnels were of ordinary size. Some of the chambers were larger, but I would say 70% of the cave was unaffected. (I did not bother to take any screens)
The only failure was in the increased cave size. It seems that the caves were having trouble emerging dramatically from the surface as we know they ought to in Minecraft. There were plenty of dramatic cliffs, but no eerie caverns. I had to dig to find them, and when I did, most tunnels were of ordinary size. Some of the chambers were larger, but I would say 70% of the cave was unaffected. (I did not bother to take any screens)
Unfortunately, it is impossible to change cave generation, other than no caves/normal 1.7+ cave generation, without mods (lucky for me it is so easy to mod them I modded 1.8 the day it came out so I can have the epic cave systems in 1.6.4 and earlier), hence suggestions like this that they add in sliders to do so (I myself made a suggestion before even 1.7 came out that caves should be customizable, due to the changes in cave generation in the 1.7 snapshots).
Also, increasing the world height is particularly problematic if you want the same cave distribution relative to the surface because caves only generate up to y=126 (some may extend higher, this is the starting point), with a nonlinear distribution towards 0, with half of caves below y=34, which is not adjustable (hard-coded, as is the size and density of caves).
Note also that the Wiki isn't always accurate; the claim that "upper limit scale" affects cave generation, which is blatantly false, no idea why they thought so (a very easy way to verify claims of customizable cave generation is to use a utility like Unmined - the only thing that currently affects cave generation is the world seed, not even the world type has any effect, unless you count caves that are cut off by oceans or generate in a mountain). Possibly, it may cause more overhangs and pockets caused by terrain folding into itself but those aren't true caves.
Of interest this part of the 1.8 cave generator class, showing that there are no variables used for anything that affects cave generation, including the parameters, which are unchanged from deobfuscated MCP source for older versions:
Line 213 determines how many caves generate per cave system; in this case, from 0-14 caves (random returns a range from 0 to one less than its parameter) with a distribution that averages 1/8 of the maximum due to three successive random calls, each returning an average that is half the previous (1.75 caves per system; prior to 1.7 this was 40, or 4.875 caves per system).
Line 214 determines how often they attempt to generate, once every 7 chunks in this case for an average of 0.25 caves per chunk (prior to 1.7 this was 15, or an average of 0.325 caves per chunk; combined with the above this resulted in caves with a less uniform, more concentrated, distribution with considerably larger cave systems).
Line 220 is one that you are interested in; it controls the height range at which caves generate; in this case, a random value from 0-119 (averaging 59.5) has 8 added to it, then is again randomized for a average of 33-34, with caves most common at bedrock level. To adjust distribution for double the terrain height you'd want to change the 120 to 255 (average 67-68). Note also that you would want to double the number of caves as well to maintain the same density over double the height range (see line 213), although the nonlinear distribution causes problems with excessive cave density near bedrock, as I saw myself in a "double height terrain" mod I made, changing the vertical distribution to a more linear approach to offset it.
Another line of interest is line 234, which multiplies a base size by 1-4 (for one out of every 10 caves); since the base size (set on line 232) ranges from 0-3 (average 1.5) this means the largest caves have a size of 12, which is the radius for a maximum diameter of 24 (actually 27 since a minumum of 1.5 is added later on, so the smallest caves are 3 blocks in diameter).
Of course, saying that "you'd want to change..." currently means modding the game (which is possible without waiting for MCP by using Java Bytecode Editor as I explained here).
Of interest also, another claim that the Wiki makes which is incorrect is how the "spawn size" slider affects ore generation - they say it is the maximum number of blocks in a vein. which isn't true; it isn't the average either with the size nonlinearly increasing (increasing faster) as it gets higher.
Ah, thanks for the tutorial! Easy peasy. I'm hoping they continue to fine-tune the tools for custom worldgen. There's a lot of potential for some really fun results.
There are no dangerous weapons. There are only dangerous people. R.A. Heinlein
If you aren't part of the solution, then you obviously weren't properly dissolved.
Personally I consider the zero world pretty boring.
Wow. Well now I learned another new thing. That is pretty interesting.
I suppose... you have something that tells you how to get something to "hash" to 0, huh?
I use AMIDST too, and until now I had no idea why my "0" worlds never matched the "0" map. Do you happen to know, does AMIDST properly read custom generated worlds, since they could potentially have shrunken/enlarged biomes?
Right. I'll stick to Seed 1 next time since really there isn't anything special about Seed 0, it was just an unfortunate choice on my part. Well, there goes a whole folder of images and about an hour of head-scratching.
Unfortunately, most of us lack the time and the effort it takes to learn the tools of the trade. Since their introduction in snapshot 14w17a, we maybe play around with the settings a little bit, and generate some ugly land, and then we are through. The best we can do is check out the presets. Discouraged with our impassable, ugly mountains, or an ugly, lumpy world completely underwater, or a world that just crashes the instant you try to open the game, we give up.
That is not the way to do it!
It's up to the community to learn how to really master this unique tool. I can't do it myself. I won't do it myself. But I DO want to spike the interest of those of you on the forum today--I want you to try to learn, post what you know, share what you can! And don't just post screenshots, let us know what you changed!
Key Tip
Before generating your custom generated world, you can click "Presets" and find a text box with all of your settings presented in simple text. Sharing this text will probably be the most effective way to tell others what you did if you changed multiple settings. (hint: click inside the box and hit home, shift+end, ctrl+c to copy its contents)
Later, to revise the world and modify the settings, remember you can always re-generate a world anew from the main menu, if you'd like to adjust one of the settings without starting completely over with a new seed and settings.
Example screenshots
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Resources
- Excellent resource for beginners, but lacking updates
Minecraft Wiki Customized World Type (wiki) - The go-to official reference with descriptions of each function
Other Notable Threads
http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-discussion/recent-updates-and-snapshots/383280-14w17a-custom-world-generation-presets-post-your
http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-discussion/seeds/2085003-custom-world-type-great-hills
The "1:1 Comparison Project"
I'm hoping to collect a few side-by-side comparisons of what these options change. My plan is to use "Seed 0" and the 0,0 coordinate to take a few screenshots of the default world generation, and have right next to each screenshot a picture of the same feature, but after a certain value was changed.
That's all for now guys, I know it's hardly the "Ultimate" guide it claims to be, but as far as I can tell, it's the best we've got on this forum!
ThanatosMace
Well, I've been partially successful.
Without much difficulty, I was able to bring the "ground level" (I count this as both Sea Level and the general level of the shore/villages) up to about 128. This was done entirely with "Base Size" and "Sea Level". If you notice, I haven't made any attempt to bother with ore generation at this point--it's all screwed up for this world height. (the ores are all way too far underground!)
(see attachments)
The mountains were fairly successful. The highest mountains (even in extreme hills) did not rise over 210 or so, leaving enough room to build a reasonable-sized structure on top of them if I felt like. There were a few floating islands which I found to be quite satisfactory--to me, floating islands should not be too frequent, or too small.
There was an unusual effect on the birch forest. It seemed to stretch the trees really tall, some as high as 14 blocks! This was baffling.
The only failure was in the increased cave size. It seems that the caves were having trouble emerging dramatically from the surface as we know they ought to in Minecraft. There were plenty of dramatic cliffs, but no eerie caverns. I had to dig to find them, and when I did, most tunnels were of ordinary size. Some of the chambers were larger, but I would say 70% of the cave was unaffected. (I did not bother to take any screens)
ThanatosMace
Unfortunately, it is impossible to change cave generation, other than no caves/normal 1.7+ cave generation, without mods (lucky for me it is so easy to mod them I modded 1.8 the day it came out so I can have the epic cave systems in 1.6.4 and earlier), hence suggestions like this that they add in sliders to do so (I myself made a suggestion before even 1.7 came out that caves should be customizable, due to the changes in cave generation in the 1.7 snapshots).
Also, increasing the world height is particularly problematic if you want the same cave distribution relative to the surface because caves only generate up to y=126 (some may extend higher, this is the starting point), with a nonlinear distribution towards 0, with half of caves below y=34, which is not adjustable (hard-coded, as is the size and density of caves).
Note also that the Wiki isn't always accurate; the claim that "upper limit scale" affects cave generation, which is blatantly false, no idea why they thought so (a very easy way to verify claims of customizable cave generation is to use a utility like Unmined - the only thing that currently affects cave generation is the world seed, not even the world type has any effect, unless you count caves that are cut off by oceans or generate in a mountain). Possibly, it may cause more overhangs and pockets caused by terrain folding into itself but those aren't true caves.
Of interest this part of the 1.8 cave generator class, showing that there are no variables used for anything that affects cave generation, including the parameters, which are unchanged from deobfuscated MCP source for older versions:
Line 213 determines how many caves generate per cave system; in this case, from 0-14 caves (random returns a range from 0 to one less than its parameter) with a distribution that averages 1/8 of the maximum due to three successive random calls, each returning an average that is half the previous (1.75 caves per system; prior to 1.7 this was 40, or 4.875 caves per system).
Line 214 determines how often they attempt to generate, once every 7 chunks in this case for an average of 0.25 caves per chunk (prior to 1.7 this was 15, or an average of 0.325 caves per chunk; combined with the above this resulted in caves with a less uniform, more concentrated, distribution with considerably larger cave systems).
Line 220 is one that you are interested in; it controls the height range at which caves generate; in this case, a random value from 0-119 (averaging 59.5) has 8 added to it, then is again randomized for a average of 33-34, with caves most common at bedrock level. To adjust distribution for double the terrain height you'd want to change the 120 to 255 (average 67-68). Note also that you would want to double the number of caves as well to maintain the same density over double the height range (see line 213), although the nonlinear distribution causes problems with excessive cave density near bedrock, as I saw myself in a "double height terrain" mod I made, changing the vertical distribution to a more linear approach to offset it.
Another line of interest is line 234, which multiplies a base size by 1-4 (for one out of every 10 caves); since the base size (set on line 232) ranges from 0-3 (average 1.5) this means the largest caves have a size of 12, which is the radius for a maximum diameter of 24 (actually 27 since a minumum of 1.5 is added later on, so the smallest caves are 3 blocks in diameter).
Of course, saying that "you'd want to change..." currently means modding the game (which is possible without waiting for MCP by using Java Bytecode Editor as I explained here).
Of interest also, another claim that the Wiki makes which is incorrect is how the "spawn size" slider affects ore generation - they say it is the maximum number of blocks in a vein. which isn't true; it isn't the average either with the size nonlinearly increasing (increasing faster) as it gets higher.
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
Wow, I just noticed that a forum was created special for Customized Worlds!
http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-discussion/seeds/customised-worlds
Since when did this exist, and how do I move my topic there?
ThanatosMace
this will change minecraft a lot
Seed 0 cannot be inputted as a number (the default value for the seed field is 0, which generates a random world). Use seed 1 instead.
Putting the CENDENT back in transcendent!
That explains so much, man. I had no idea why everything was changing so much every time I regenerated terrain. LOL.
ThanatosMace
Actually the world produced by seed = 0 (zero) can be produced.
The seed input routine senses a blank input or an input of 0 as a request for a random seed.
BUT, you CAN enter a text string that will "hash" to zero thus bypassing that sensing.
Entering any of the following strings (without the quotes) will result in generating the zero seed world.
"pollinating sandboxes"
"amusement & hemophilias"
"schoolworks = perversive"
"electrolysissweeteners.net"
"constitutionalunstableness.net"
"grinnerslaphappier.org"
"BLEACHINGFEMININELY.NET"
"WWW.BUMRACEGOERS.ORG"
"WWW.RACCOONPRUDENTIALS.NET"
"bequirtle zorillo"
"chronogrammic schtoff"
"contusive cloisterlike"
"creashaks organzine"
"drumwood boulderhead"
"electroanalytic exercisable"
Personally I consider the zero world pretty boring.
There are no dangerous weapons. There are only dangerous people. R.A. Heinlein
If you aren't part of the solution, then you obviously weren't properly dissolved.
The latest release of Amidst, version 4.6 can be found here:
https://github.com/toolbox4minecraft/amidst/releases
You should probably also read this:
https://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/mapping-and-modding-java-edition/minecraft-tools/2970854-amidst-map-explorer-for-minecraft-1-14
You can find me on the Minecraft Forums Discord server.
https://discord.gg/wGrQNKX
As a number. Cannot be entered as a number.
Putting the CENDENT back in transcendent!
Wow. Well now I learned another new thing. That is pretty interesting.
I suppose... you have something that tells you how to get something to "hash" to 0, huh?
I use AMIDST too, and until now I had no idea why my "0" worlds never matched the "0" map. Do you happen to know, does AMIDST properly read custom generated worlds, since they could potentially have shrunken/enlarged biomes?
Right. I'll stick to Seed 1 next time since really there isn't anything special about Seed 0, it was just an unfortunate choice on my part. Well, there goes a whole folder of images and about an hour of head-scratching.
ThanatosMace