Let's talk about world gen again

[Petramoss]

So my last post about world gen was me shooting poop, trying to figure out how world gen will work in Hytale. And looking over the landscape postcards we've seen recently, namely the goblins, I was really impressed by the idea that Hytale will be able to generate underground structures, that live integrated with the cave system.

After staring at the handle of my coffee cup, spiralling down a rabbit hole of ideas that stemmed from one picture, I concluded that I want to make a world gen mod.

The first thing on the list I'd like to integrate, is new larger towns for each biome. I am working on the assumption that we will have the ability to make detailed prefabs, give them spawn conditions, and let them loose to break the game a million times before it actually works.

So what things would you like to see in a world gen bundle?

Maybe we could make a mod that allows one to simply plug any prefab into it, configure it with a custom ui to determine spawn conditions and factors, and THEN break the game!

Seriously though, would love to get some ideas for my inevitable build frenzy when I get my hands on Hytale.

 

[Antnest8]

Maybe we could make a mod that allows one to simply plug any prefab into it, configure it with a custom ui to determine spawn conditions and factors, and THEN break the game!

This part is already done for you! In this blog post https://hytale.com/news/2020/6/a-closer-look-at-landscape-generation-in-hytale The dev team mentions we will be able to use their custom worldgen system to create prefabs that fit into the environment.

On the other question, I would really love to see some cool fortifications that spawn around towns!

 

[Gregory S]

World Gen is definitely going to be interesting.

 

[Petramoss]

Oh boy I just know it will! @Gregory S

Thanks @Antnest8 For the link to the blog post. I was considering Gathering All the blog posts into an ebook and reading through it.

Interesting idea. Various levels of walls and towers based on town and location. That could be quite nice. I'm very curious about the automation, namely, can we build draw bridges?

 

[Reyrey]

Its going to be better than minecraft world gen i bet XD

 

[Olearius]

Its going to be better than minecraft world gen i bet XD

Shouldn't be difficult xD

 

[Petramoss]

Yea Minecraft's world gen is sorely lacking in features. Aside from some basics like the appearance of water and bodies thereof, hills caves and foliage, it doesn't offer much in the way of material variation, distinct biome-related terrain features, RIVERS, and need I mention that the trees are ALL the same?

Hytale's base WG is gonna be miles ahead of Minecraft, but they still need to release the game, and despite - I'm sure - the devs wildest dreams, they won't get everything they wanted in their first release. But at least we'll be able to tweek all these things ourselves and make our own WG configs with custom prefabs (thank you @Antnest8 for linking me to the blog post. I'm currently working on a PDF file containing all the blog posts and concept art... Any thoughts on how "legal" t'would be to redistribute this?)

I would like to keep this talk going. Any ideas we can add to the World Gen Mod Ideas?

 

[Olearius]

Yea Minecraft's world gen is sorely lacking in features. Aside from some basics like the appearance of water and bodies thereof, hills caves and foliage, it doesn't offer much in the way of material variation, distinct biome-related terrain features, RIVERS, and need I mention that the trees are ALL the same?

Hytale's base WG is gonna be miles ahead of Minecraft, but they still need to release the game, and despite - I'm sure - the devs wildest dreams, they won't get everything they wanted in their first release. But at least we'll be able to tweek all these things ourselves and make our own WG configs with custom prefabs (thank you @Antnest8 for linking me to the blog post. I'm currently working on a PDF file containing all the blog posts and concept art... Any thoughts on how "legal" t'would be to redistribute this?)

I would like to keep this talk going. Any ideas we can add to the World Gen Mod Ideas?

Don't know if this can still be categorized under World Gen, but I'd love to be able to implement good-looking custom structures into the game via mods. Minecraft already allows this, but as far as I know it's relatively complicated and there isn't much variability in how the structures generate and adapt themselves according to their environment, which can lead to some very weird results (mountain villages, I'm looking at you). If Hytale improves the generation of their naturally spawning structures in that point and gives players the power to do the same using mods at some point in the future, I think that'd be great.

 

[Petramoss]

@Olearius If we look back over the the blog posts released in 2019 here and here, we can see in their basic world gen demo we can see towers, arenas, dungeons, and so on.

In their earliest post about WG, we can see a dungeon that was bisected by a ravine at ground level. I wouldn't be surprised if they were already aware of the stupid structure spawns in minecraft and have set up ways to prevent this. Such as: a building may not spawn above a certain height withing it's designated biome. If the surrounding 3 blocks at the base of the structure are not perpendicular then it cannot spawn. The centre block may have some tolerances to allow for some fancy spawn spots, such as on cliff edges so long as a there is xyz other condintions met that prevent ir from being rediculous.

@Olearius we also won't need mods for this, in the second World Gen Blog Post of 2019, they talk more about how world gen is managed and that we will have access to very customizable config files.

Quote:
"All of the systems that we've described in this post will be accessible to modders through extensively customizable configuration files. By combining asset creation in Hytale Model Maker, our block building tools, and the underlying world generation system, you'll be able to generate unique environments of your own."

@Antnest8 had the idea of fortifications around towns, so perhaps use the prefabs from in-game towns and make larger towns that would warrant fortifications.

 

[Anim]

Look really cool!

 

[Antnest8]

(thank you @Antnest8 for linking me to the blog post. I'm currently working on a PDF file containing all the blog posts and concept art... Any thoughts on how "legal" t'would be to redistribute this?)

I would like to keep this talk going. Any ideas we can add to the World Gen Mod Ideas?

I'm not a legal expert, but I am pretty sure that as long as you don't pass it off as your own, and that you use the PDF for purposes soley on commentary/comparison stuff then you should be fine.

If you really are worried about it, I would just tweet the devs at Noxy's or the official account

 

[Olearius]

@Olearius If we look back over the the blog posts released in 2019 here and here, we can see in their basic world gen demo we can see towers, arenas, dungeons, and so on.

In their earliest post about WG, we can see a dungeon that was bisected by a ravine at ground level. I wouldn't be surprised if they were already aware of the stupid structure spawns in minecraft and have set up ways to prevent this. Such as: a building may not spawn above a certain height withing it's designated biome. If the surrounding 3 blocks at the base of the structure are not perpendicular then it cannot spawn. The centre block may have some tolerances to allow for some fancy spawn spots, such as on cliff edges so long as a there is xyz other condintions met that prevent ir from being rediculous.

@Olearius we also won't need mods for this, in the second World Gen Blog Post of 2019, they talk more about how world gen is managed and that we will have access to very customizable config files.

Quote:
"All of the systems that we've described in this post will be accessible to modders through extensively customizable configuration files. By combining asset creation in Hytale Model Maker, our block building tools, and the underlying world generation system, you'll be able to generate unique environments of your own."

@Antnest8 had the idea of fortifications around towns, so perhaps use the prefabs from in-game towns and make larger towns that would warrant fortifications.

The fact that the devs at Hytale recognized the problems Minecraft has with world gen and try to improve on it is already a good sign. I think we'll have to see how world gen and structure spawning will turn out in the game, and probably there'll be some bugs here and there, but based on what we've already seen in terms of world gen they should be off to a good start.