The science behind it is simple mathematics. The seed works the same way your wireless router, and the remote for a garage door opener. No srsly, drive around pushing your garage door opener. I'm sure you'll find someone elses garage you can control...
Your garage door remote doesn't have 281,474,976,710,656 possible codes (2^48), and Minecraft worlds are not infinite. They have eight times the surface area of Earth, but that's far smaller than infinity.
The science behind it is simple mathematics. The seed works the same way your wireless router, and the remote for a garage door opener. No srsly, drive around pushing your garage door opener. I'm sure you'll find someone elses garage you can control...
Your garage door remote doesn't have 281,474,976,710,656 possible codes (2^48), and Minecraft worlds are not infinite. They have eight times the surface area of Earth, but that's far smaller than infinity.
Correct, it doesn't, but the randomly generated seed works the same way. The algorithm used is infinite. The reason it's (roughly) eight times the surface area of earth is due to memory and file naming limitations. I'm wondering if that area has increased since the new file format came out?
Maybe you are looking at it all wrong. what if the seed was not the world but the location in one giant world, and each location is a reasonable distance away from any others.
is my point valid or do you have something to disprove what i just said.
Maybe you are looking at it all wrong. what if the seed was not the world but the location in one giant world, and each location is a reasonable distance away from any others.
is my point valid or do you have something to disprove what i just said.
That is what I'm saying, basically. However, I don't know anyone smart enough to do the math to prove it, nor disprove it.
I spawned in a cave, witch I thought was weird considering, you spawn on a beach normally.
But I then looked around in this cave and found that I spawned on Sand next to a small puddle of water XP
I went outside to see a crazy tall mountainous ditch, I was essentially inside 4 corners of an epic mountain.
The game slowed to 6fps... Then crashed unpredictably?
THEN HEROBRINE CAME OUT OF NOWHERE AND SHAT DOWN MY NECK
I must say though, Gargamel has been the absolute coolest Seed I have ever seen! I have a feeling it has been said, but I am to tired to go through reading the whole thread, I thought I would give you guys my story though.
Please see this comment I made on the Seed FAQ thread to understand how seeds work. Once you are done reading that, you'll understand why if you are going to 'delve into seed science' it's going to take more than just looking at what seeds make pretty things. You are going to have to crack how Notch's terrain generator works. Without understanding that, all the seed is going to give you is a bunch of random numbers that literally mean nothing on their own. Most importantly the seed itself has no information coded within it. You can't figure out what a world is going to look like by examining the seed. Only be using the seed to generate the associated sequence of random numbers and understanding how those numbers translate into a world.
Please see this comment I made on the Seed FAQ thread to understand how seeds work. Once you are done reading that, you'll understand why if you are going to 'delve into seed science' it's going to take more than just looking at what seeds make pretty things. You are going to have to crack how Notch's terrain generator works. Without understanding that, all the seed is going to give you is a bunch of random numbers that literally mean nothing on their own. Most importantly the seed itself has no information coded within it. You can't figure out what a world is going to look like by examining the seed. Only be using the seed to generate the associated sequence of random numbers and understanding how those numbers translate into a world.
Yeah, i figured this out too. hence why I asked:
Quote from BenJ »
What need to solve this mystery is the algorithm for how terrain is generated. Anyone good at poking code?
The game is still written in Java, with the same limitations on the number of bits in a number of a particular type, and still runs on existing computers, which have limitations on addressable memory and hard drive space. The specific number may no longer be eight times the surface area of the earth, but whatever it is, it's far short of what it would need to be for that theory to be true.
Consider this: imagine an incredibly simplified version of Minecraft in which there are only two kinds of blocks: air and cobblestone. Each chunk is randomly generated with each square containing either air or cobblestone. A chunk is 16x16x128m, so contains 32768 blocks. Given two choices for 32768 blocks, there are 2^32768, or 1.4*10^9864 possible configurations of a chunk (a tad less than a googol to the hundredth power). Now, the possible configurations for the entire world is equal to that number taken to the power of the number of chunks in the world (note, not times the number of chunks, but to the power of the number of chunks -- if there were only two chunks, the total number of world configurations would be that number squared).
This oversimplified example is flawed in a number of ways. Obviously, there are far more than two blocks in Minecraft. On the other hand, each block isn't completely random. But you get the idea. The sheer number of possible configurations for any given chunk are so large that to say it's astronomically huge would be a gross understatement: astronomy never deals with numbers anywhere close to that large. Then take that huge number, whatever it is, to the power of the number of chunks in a world to get all possible worlds.
Now, in order to get "collisions" of the type you're talking about, where a world exhausts all the possible configurations and repeats to the extent that any possible map is essentially contained somewhere on any other map -- I know Minecraft, even if in 1.3 has larger possible worlds than it did before, doesn't have actually infinite worlds, and to have them large enough to do what your theory says would require a computer that's impossible to build. It would require more ram chips than there are atoms in the universe, and the power requirements would exceed the energy generated by the Big Bang. Thus, I can fairly safely say that although a computer with infinite memory and infinite power might be able to make a world big enough to satisfy the bill, no computer that will ever actually be built will. So, whatever changes Notch has made in 1.3, the world still isn't big enough for that. No one world can possibly incorporate every possible configuration of the map. It can't even incorporate every possible configuration of a single chunk, much less the entire map.
I used the code 5555555555 (I think there was more or less 5's?)
But anyways, I found a natural Sand Cave, and what is weird about it, is that the roof is made out of floating sand! This is the first time I have seen FLOATING SAND in a world before!
Breaking one block, caused the whole roof to collapse!
Its over a lake, and I remember hearing somewhere that with Lakes this could happen, but I do not remember?
Guys, there is no relationship between the seed and what kind of world you will end up with.
The contents of seeds have about as much bearing on the world they create as the stars do on your life.
Any patterns you find are the result of just pure chance.
It would be like trying to see if different colored dice had tenancies to roll higher or lower on average.
Quoting this for truth. I was hoping that someone had brought logic to the table instead of wild tarot-card, zodiac sign, superstitious style wild speculation and unfounded hope.
A seed just tells the generator where to start its generation process. Computers suck at creating random numbers, so it instead has to have some starting point, at which point all further calculations will be based off of this starting point. Generally, this starting point is called a seed, and it's what you see here. There are absolutely NO magical numbers or combinations that will guarantee to yield a certain type of terrain. At least, no more so than breaking a mirror under a ladder while holding an umbrella and a black cat without throwing salt over your right shoulder will bring you bad luck.
As for the OP, the reason the decimal number gave you some random seed was because the input was interpreted as a string, since it had a non-numerical character in it (the period). When interpreted as a string, the generator takes the hashcode of that string and uses that as the seed.
You can do anything you want in a practically infinite amount of practically infinite worlds. You are only limited by time. And yet here we are, obsessed with questions like HOW and WHY, when the actual answers are sheer, incomprehensible randomness.
Alright I am no longer searching for any correlation between seed and landscape, but I would like to comment how funny it would be if notch allowed simple arithmetic in the seed selection. Then we could have divide by zero.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
MOD EDIT: Saying this is unnecessary and rude. If people are willing to discuss it, let them discuss it. There's a whole wide world of other topics you could explore and contribute to that you might even be interested in! How exciting!
Fav Mod Edit Eva
For one thing, you guys need to have a basic understanding of how the code works, in general, in order to understand how the terrain generator uses the seed. However, a few things are apparent, just from others' comments and outside forum topics.
1) There are 2^64 possible seeds
2) Each seeded PRNG (Pseudo-Random Number Generator) can come up with up to 2^48 different numbers before looping.
3) Each map is created in the terrain generator via a series of algorithms which account for the various attributes of the world.
4) Spawn position is not affected by the seed. This means if somebody posts a seed and a screenshot, you may end up many millions of blocks away from wherever they spawned, and thus never reach or see what is in that screenshot. However, your terrain is *likely* to exhibit similar patterns as that of the poster's screenshot.
5) Each map is massive, at the very least larger than the Earth, if 1 block = 1 cubic meter.
From this, we can deduce a few things:
1) There are far too many variables to analyze to give seed-based patterns.
2) There is still not enough combinations of seeds, pseudo-random numbers, and spawn locations, to find a collision (i.e. the same chunk) with greater than 50% chance. It might happen, but the chances are infinitesimal (far less than a hash collision in modern hashing algorithms, which are already hard to find).
3) It is possible to provide a mathematical analysis with which we can find a numerical pattern that produces "good" worlds.
4) We can define "good" worlds as those with incredibly unusual terrain patterns. Thus, irregularities that are impossible to be player-created or are highly unusual to be found naturally (i.e. floating sand islands) can be defined and looked for.
In other words, we can't find patterns in the seeds in any reasonable method in a reasonable amount of time. However, we can find a way to look for good worlds given any seed. Whether or not this is fast enough to be practical remains to be seen, but an approach might be:
1) Create an algorithm that, given a seed, creates a memory-efficient but comprehensive representation of the world. A random spawn location is picked, and several chunks in a square around the spawn location are stored in memory.
2A) Create an algorithm which takes this representation of a 3D space and looks for normally impossible or highly unusual patterns (like floating sand). Define patterns to feed into this algorithm.
2B) Create an algorithm which compares many 3D space representations and statistically computes which are the most "unusual"; that is, keep a few 3D spaces as deviance benchmarks and find the most deviant. Those that are different enough are stored as deviance benchmarks themselves, so that we don't repeat patterns, even if they are unusual, to save memory and processing time.
3) Feed 3D map into some Minecraft mapping tool to display to the world.
This may not be possible, because algorithm 1 is difficult to design. How would one go about optimizing the "building terrain" process of Minecraft to always take less than, say, a few seconds? Then, algorithm 2... A pattern-examiner in and of itself is difficult to create, and then a brute-forcer or deviance algorithm on top of that...
This entire process is next to useless if we can't generate and check a map within seconds, since there are 2^64 possible maps to check. Even if the whole process took a single second, we'd have to search for billions of centuries before we'd exhausted the space. This process also breaks every time the terrain generator is updated.
So, as you can see, to find any sort of pattern (based on seeds) which gives "good" worlds is next to impossible. To find "good" worlds in an exhaustive search would take a long time, but to find a small number of "good" worlds would be, compared to a seed-to-terrain pattern-finder, relatively easy.
On another seed thread, I posted a seed and coordinates that lead to a dungeon. Someone else responded by calling it a lie. Like the spawn location, it's possible that dungeons are placed randomly. If we looked into the code a little, it should be easy to find out how dungeons are placed, and if they do have anything to do with the seed. Or, we could ask Notch.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Quote from ThatDutchIdiot »
Your deleted worlds go straight to Notch where he can lulz at your failing attempt to play Minecraft.
The sequential 1 idea made me think of how numbers may contribute to biomes nearby. Now it might be purely coincidence, but i've done 5 maps in a row with at least 4 5's in the seed in a row (ex: 465555, ect.)
Every single time it spawned me in a desert (And i can tell it apart from a beach because there's cactus everywhere, that kinda constitutes a desert right?)
there is no point in trying to predict the outcome of a random number you just typed in. what i do suggest you do is get yourself a copy of the "epic" maps because as soon as the next update comes out minecraft will not give the same world for that seed(as in gargamel will be something completely different next update.).
On the theory that the worlds created might all be the same because at some point the RNG will loop: Look up Penrose tiles. It is quite possible that due to the nature of the generator, the worlds will never actually be identical in any given place (Or non-periodic). They may share similar chunks but at no place will the entire world match.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Tis far better to be a witty fool than a foolish wit.
Your garage door remote doesn't have 281,474,976,710,656 possible codes (2^48), and Minecraft worlds are not infinite. They have eight times the surface area of Earth, but that's far smaller than infinity.
Correct, it doesn't, but the randomly generated seed works the same way. The algorithm used is infinite. The reason it's (roughly) eight times the surface area of earth is due to memory and file naming limitations. I'm wondering if that area has increased since the new file format came out?
is my point valid or do you have something to disprove what i just said.
also: must have lava, water, coal, iron ore, and heaps of dimond
me want to go to the nether
That is what I'm saying, basically. However, I don't know anyone smart enough to do the math to prove it, nor disprove it.
It's trivially disproven. 281,474,976,710,656 is many orders of magnitude larger than eight times the number of square meters of Earth's surface.
how do you know this is still true?
now the next step would be to ask notch.
Wow...
I spawned in a cave, witch I thought was weird considering, you spawn on a beach normally.
But I then looked around in this cave and found that I spawned on Sand next to a small puddle of water XP
I went outside to see a crazy tall mountainous ditch, I was essentially inside 4 corners of an epic mountain.
The game slowed to 6fps... Then crashed unpredictably?
THEN HEROBRINE CAME OUT OF NOWHERE AND SHAT DOWN MY NECK
I must say though, Gargamel has been the absolute coolest Seed I have ever seen! I have a feeling it has been said, but I am to tired to go through reading the whole thread, I thought I would give you guys my story though.
Any other EPIC seeds you guys know about?
Yeah, i figured this out too. hence why I asked:
On the last page.
I am sad face now. :sad.gif:
The game is still written in Java, with the same limitations on the number of bits in a number of a particular type, and still runs on existing computers, which have limitations on addressable memory and hard drive space. The specific number may no longer be eight times the surface area of the earth, but whatever it is, it's far short of what it would need to be for that theory to be true.
Consider this: imagine an incredibly simplified version of Minecraft in which there are only two kinds of blocks: air and cobblestone. Each chunk is randomly generated with each square containing either air or cobblestone. A chunk is 16x16x128m, so contains 32768 blocks. Given two choices for 32768 blocks, there are 2^32768, or 1.4*10^9864 possible configurations of a chunk (a tad less than a googol to the hundredth power). Now, the possible configurations for the entire world is equal to that number taken to the power of the number of chunks in the world (note, not times the number of chunks, but to the power of the number of chunks -- if there were only two chunks, the total number of world configurations would be that number squared).
This oversimplified example is flawed in a number of ways. Obviously, there are far more than two blocks in Minecraft. On the other hand, each block isn't completely random. But you get the idea. The sheer number of possible configurations for any given chunk are so large that to say it's astronomically huge would be a gross understatement: astronomy never deals with numbers anywhere close to that large. Then take that huge number, whatever it is, to the power of the number of chunks in a world to get all possible worlds.
Now, in order to get "collisions" of the type you're talking about, where a world exhausts all the possible configurations and repeats to the extent that any possible map is essentially contained somewhere on any other map -- I know Minecraft, even if in 1.3 has larger possible worlds than it did before, doesn't have actually infinite worlds, and to have them large enough to do what your theory says would require a computer that's impossible to build. It would require more ram chips than there are atoms in the universe, and the power requirements would exceed the energy generated by the Big Bang. Thus, I can fairly safely say that although a computer with infinite memory and infinite power might be able to make a world big enough to satisfy the bill, no computer that will ever actually be built will. So, whatever changes Notch has made in 1.3, the world still isn't big enough for that. No one world can possibly incorporate every possible configuration of the map. It can't even incorporate every possible configuration of a single chunk, much less the entire map.
But anyways, I found a natural Sand Cave, and what is weird about it, is that the roof is made out of floating sand! This is the first time I have seen FLOATING SAND in a world before!
Breaking one block, caused the whole roof to collapse!
Its over a lake, and I remember hearing somewhere that with Lakes this could happen, but I do not remember?
Quoting this for truth. I was hoping that someone had brought logic to the table instead of wild tarot-card, zodiac sign, superstitious style wild speculation and unfounded hope.
A seed just tells the generator where to start its generation process. Computers suck at creating random numbers, so it instead has to have some starting point, at which point all further calculations will be based off of this starting point. Generally, this starting point is called a seed, and it's what you see here. There are absolutely NO magical numbers or combinations that will guarantee to yield a certain type of terrain. At least, no more so than breaking a mirror under a ladder while holding an umbrella and a black cat without throwing salt over your right shoulder will bring you bad luck.
As for the OP, the reason the decimal number gave you some random seed was because the input was interpreted as a string, since it had a non-numerical character in it (the period). When interpreted as a string, the generator takes the hashcode of that string and uses that as the seed.
You can do anything you want in a practically infinite amount of practically infinite worlds. You are only limited by time. And yet here we are, obsessed with questions like HOW and WHY, when the actual answers are sheer, incomprehensible randomness.
This moral also applies to Minecraft.
Fav Mod Edit Eva
For one thing, you guys need to have a basic understanding of how the code works, in general, in order to understand how the terrain generator uses the seed. However, a few things are apparent, just from others' comments and outside forum topics.
1) There are 2^64 possible seeds
2) Each seeded PRNG (Pseudo-Random Number Generator) can come up with up to 2^48 different numbers before looping.
3) Each map is created in the terrain generator via a series of algorithms which account for the various attributes of the world.
4) Spawn position is not affected by the seed. This means if somebody posts a seed and a screenshot, you may end up many millions of blocks away from wherever they spawned, and thus never reach or see what is in that screenshot. However, your terrain is *likely* to exhibit similar patterns as that of the poster's screenshot.
5) Each map is massive, at the very least larger than the Earth, if 1 block = 1 cubic meter.
From this, we can deduce a few things:
1) There are far too many variables to analyze to give seed-based patterns.
2) There is still not enough combinations of seeds, pseudo-random numbers, and spawn locations, to find a collision (i.e. the same chunk) with greater than 50% chance. It might happen, but the chances are infinitesimal (far less than a hash collision in modern hashing algorithms, which are already hard to find).
3) It is possible to provide a mathematical analysis with which we can find a numerical pattern that produces "good" worlds.
4) We can define "good" worlds as those with incredibly unusual terrain patterns. Thus, irregularities that are impossible to be player-created or are highly unusual to be found naturally (i.e. floating sand islands) can be defined and looked for.
In other words, we can't find patterns in the seeds in any reasonable method in a reasonable amount of time. However, we can find a way to look for good worlds given any seed. Whether or not this is fast enough to be practical remains to be seen, but an approach might be:
1) Create an algorithm that, given a seed, creates a memory-efficient but comprehensive representation of the world. A random spawn location is picked, and several chunks in a square around the spawn location are stored in memory.
2A) Create an algorithm which takes this representation of a 3D space and looks for normally impossible or highly unusual patterns (like floating sand). Define patterns to feed into this algorithm.
2B) Create an algorithm which compares many 3D space representations and statistically computes which are the most "unusual"; that is, keep a few 3D spaces as deviance benchmarks and find the most deviant. Those that are different enough are stored as deviance benchmarks themselves, so that we don't repeat patterns, even if they are unusual, to save memory and processing time.
3) Feed 3D map into some Minecraft mapping tool to display to the world.
This may not be possible, because algorithm 1 is difficult to design. How would one go about optimizing the "building terrain" process of Minecraft to always take less than, say, a few seconds? Then, algorithm 2... A pattern-examiner in and of itself is difficult to create, and then a brute-forcer or deviance algorithm on top of that...
This entire process is next to useless if we can't generate and check a map within seconds, since there are 2^64 possible maps to check. Even if the whole process took a single second, we'd have to search for billions of centuries before we'd exhausted the space. This process also breaks every time the terrain generator is updated.
So, as you can see, to find any sort of pattern (based on seeds) which gives "good" worlds is next to impossible. To find "good" worlds in an exhaustive search would take a long time, but to find a small number of "good" worlds would be, compared to a seed-to-terrain pattern-finder, relatively easy.
Every single time it spawned me in a desert (And i can tell it apart from a beach because there's cactus everywhere, that kinda constitutes a desert right?)