Biomes & Nature Newer Terrain

CDR_Xavier

Skeletron Prime
Note: Do not mix up "terrain" with "biome". They are two different things.
My general thought of it was to have less caves and make the hills flatter.
Moving from Mobile (which was long updated), the jagged terrain of 1.2.4 had been updated to smooth hills with the intro of 1.3.
As much as I admit that I might being perfectionist here, I feel like the current terrain generation is not ... very ...
I figured from looking at the world (map view) that the terrain is most flat at the center perhaps because of the increased filtering of the generation noise. Moving outwards the amplitude of the movements increases so the terrain is more irregular.
That's so un-cool. A cool terrain should be a somewhat irregular one from one side to the other, agreeing to global constants (e.g. the water level of the oceans, boundary of surface and underground layer, etc.)
Imagine, that instead of spawning in the middle of a large, flat "Wide Park" with flowers and trees all around, you are standing on a low mountain top with a small lake on one side and a forest on the other.
Or, perhaps you spawn next to living trees (of which you now can)? a valley between two mountains?
Although, as much as I like to see the new terrain generation come into place, I believe that I might not have the time to play through another one.
 
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In the-other-famous-block-game, the difficulty doesn't really depend on the area, because the enemies are relative similar in difficulty. In Terraria, you can't compare a Green Slime to a Face Monster, and if you could spawn in either area, that would really throw off balance.
 
I personally think that forests should be longer(I play on console)
I think the amount (and size) of biomes are OK.
That said, if you feel that the world is small, get a "medium world".
I had not had tried "small" since they updated mobile.
That said, large maps can get too big ...
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spawning in the desert isn't any harder than anywhere else. Plus you can start in peaceful so locations doesn't matter as much.
you can't compare a Green Slime to a Face Monster, and if you could spawn in either area, that would really throw off balance.
True. But I had have maps where you spawn next to a corruption (one or two screens away) and it's at best a mild inconvenience.
You can still dig four blocks down and cover your top with two(and why had not anybody thought of this as a safer way to get ebonwood?) but you can still chop down trees?
Anyhow, at best we can not spawn in evil biomes. Or maybe if we must spawn in forest we can have the terrain be a bit ... natural.
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As much as I want to complain about it, I feel like I should come up with some sort of a mod to alter this if I really wanted to. Unfortunately I don't have time for that.
 
True. But I had have maps where you spawn next to a corruption (one or two screens away) and it's at best a mild inconvenience.
You can still dig four blocks down and cover your top with two(and why had not anybody thought of this as a safer way to get ebonwood?) but you can still chop down trees?
Here's the thing with that idea: If you try doing that, it works in the Crimson, but if you stay under too long, a Devourer will rush you and easily kill you early-game.
 
I really wish this game had a seed for really crazy generation that was more vertical tbh. If it were a secret seed it wouldn't be a bad thing to make every biome possibly show up at spawn too.
 
@CDR_Xavier
Having the/an evil biome nearby is not bad, but if it is an evil biome at the spawn, that makes the start a lot more crazy. I did this "Crimson Challange", and you have only a few seconds before monsters show up, and they're not green/blue slimes. It is actually a pretty fun - though tough - challange, if you know what you're doing. but if a newbie would get a world like that, they probably would just rage-quit.

that being said, that shows it too though, that unusual maps can be fun for challanges, and so, options to create such worlds would be pretty cool.
 
you can't hide in a hole
You still can. You just can't escape devourers. You can prevent them from spawning by placing some background walls behind you.


technically, the sequence for terrain generation would be in the following order:
generate the stone and dirt
then generate ore patch
then trees
parse caves
The reason caves is after trees is because this is the only way to have trees (e.g. sitting on a single block of dirt). The rest of it is removed by cave generation.
generate structures (e.g. underground cabin, gold chests, dead man's chest)
Although this behavior is weird (as you can see dead man's chest with missing charges replaced by caves). That means that there might be more cave generation after this.
Then it generate the biomes (jungle, snow, desert)
You can see how the corruption and dungeon is generated after the first "wave" of terrain generation by seeing how most of the blocks is imposed directly, which means no caves intersecting it. that caves are generated only after terrain gen means that the terrain is generated before corruption)
Then it generate the "evil biomes"
You can see the structure is generated before biome by seeing how corruption can corrupt enchanted sword shrines)
THEN it generates the dungeon, and perhaps the jungle ... uugh. yes. temple.
The reason dungeon goes after evil biome is by how dungeon walls are never breached by terrain, and how you can have demon altars in the pathways of the dungeon supported by dirt blocks). Apparently dungeon generation don't override pre-generated structures
* the order of generating underworld and underground desert is unclear.


So it wouldn't matter if the first layer of stone and dirt is made more natural-looking or not. The evil biomes follow after.


That said, I haven't been able to look at the code nor figure out how to alter terrain generation yet. Those are just "educated guesses".
If you feel ironic that I would make such a lengthy argument over why terrains should be more irregular instead of manually brushing it out in a map editor (like, say, TEdit) or just dump some dirt in-game, that's because I believe a "random" generation is superior than most hand-crafted ones.
If you feel this idea is weird, just ... go do something else. Look at some other people's posts.

(smacking BB code...)


really wish this game had a seed for really crazy generation that was more vertical tbh.
Agree, except for the "jagged terrain" that look like ... ugh. I don't know. Hell-like. I'm not against smooth mountains.
 
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@CDR_Xavier
I don't remember the exact order, and what you say sounds generally correct, but if you say there are some unclear part,
there's a mod called "worldgen previewer" which shows the whole worldgen process very clearly. it's pretty interesting, as well as very useful.

ugh... wanna play modded again... but I wanna have all these cool 1.4 stuff too...


by the way, looking at how "not the bees" generates, (according to the wiki, since we can't(?) see it with worldgen previewer yet. the wiki says that it generates a "normal" map first, and then replaces this with that, and whatnot.
so, I suppose, similar secret seeds could exist, or made with mods somehow (no idea how) where the worldgen generates a "normal" map, and then replaces certain stuff with other stuff.
be it a mostly snow map, mostly desert, mostly corrup, or crimson, or whatever.
(at the cost, that the worldgen process will take about 2 times as long as it would normally)
 
by the way, looking at how "not the bees" generates, (according to the wiki, since we can't(?) see it with worldgen previewer yet. the wiki says that it generates a "normal" map first, and then replaces this with that, and whatnot.
I said that. Or wrote. Or typed.
That will be the single logic reason behind why the world take 2x as long to generate (and meanwhile feature regular terrain).
Test it with the same seed and see if the terrain is the same. I hadn't had the time to do that yet.
 
I said that. Or wrote. Or typed.
That will be the single logic reason behind why the world take 2x as long to generate (and meanwhile feature regular terrain).
Test it with the same seed and see if the terrain is the same. I hadn't had the time to do that yet.
You mean, you written that part of the wiki article?

edit: I mean, that's what's logical, yes.
but how can you test it with the "same seed", when the seed is "not the bees"? so, how could we force it to generate the same random seed, a "not the bees" map used as base?

I'm quite baffled too, by what sort of map I got there, because, I started a "not the bees" map the other time (but then didn't played much lately, so at the moment, in late pre-hardmode - actually, I'm also intrigued by what an unique way the V behaves there, according to the wiki article.

but, what I mean, when started the map, after set up a base, and tried to explore, I found a desert to the left. I thought it's "the" desert, but when explored to the right, found another desert there, which has the underground part. that's normal, there are multiple deserts, nothing strage with that, but the desert to the right (so, the une with underground part) is encased in a bunch of hive blocks on both sides. isn't that what snow blocks turned into? and, if that's so, this map initially had the desert generate in the middle of the snow biome, which is to the right, and that is the dungeon side, because if you travel further to the right, you eventually find the dungeon. and the "jungle" (the natural one) is to the left. it actually quite noticeable, because that's pretty much the only are that is jungle too, but not so full of hive blocks.
so, the desert is on the dungeon-side, and in the middle of (what likely used to be) the snow...?
so, worldgen chosen a rather unusual map to begin with, and turned it even more unusual XD

that's a bit off-topic, but might be interesting.
 
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You mean, you wrote that part of the wiki article?
Yes. Not surprising if you remember that "wiki" is player-contributed.
Although I can only say that I started it. I can't guarantee that someone else didn't edit it.
There were a trivia on Night's edge relating the particle effect to the four swords that I contributed too. Wording needs fix but I don't think anybody touched that yet.
How can you test it with the "same seed"
You can test it pre-1.4. The terrain isn't THAT altered.
Also, I wrote that part forgetting that it had the block replacement.
Also, I think there is a mention that there is a mod (or tool) that visualize worldgen. You can use that too.
so, worldgen chosen a rather unusual map to begin with, and turned it even more unusual XD
Well, there can be multiple deserts.
In my world "Midland of the Apple" there is a desert with the underground desert (normal desert) on the left of spawn, which have a "antlion pit" and no oasis, and on the right side of my base (on the right of spawn) there is another desert, which have oasis but no underground desert. I replaced about 30% of it with dirt block to get sand for terrariums. (since you can "regen" dirt block via dirt bomb)
I think there can be a few reasons:
1. Ensure there is a natural oasis biome
2. Broken Worldgen
Anyhow, the desert with the underground desert is the real desert. The other one is "fake".
The real desert is opposite of the side of the dungeon (normal). The snow is on the side of the dungeon (also normal).
Although, certain bizzard behavior related to "snow block replaced by sand block" in the snow biome isn't new and can be found in 1.2 (and perhaps earlier too)
It's technically on-topic as (hopefully) this new terrain gen will generate one larger desert with oasis and smaller "antlion pit"
 
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@CDR_Xavier
I know that wiki is edited by players and, well, basically anyone who wants to contribute. I written some articles on wikis too, just for some other game.
Anyway, nicely writter article!

As for the "same seed", I'm still not sure how can you test the seed, when the seed name is replaced with "not the bees!" ...isn't it?
And I know about worldgen previewer, but T-modloader didn't caught up to 1.4 yet.


As for deserts, it was common pre-1.4 too (and the oasis didn't existed yet) that a world generates with multiple deserts, but only one desert has underground part. the others are just made out of surface part. (as of 1.4) either of them can have, even multiple oasises, but they're not guaranted.

and normally, the desert that has underground part, is on the jungle's side (usually closer to spawn and the jungle is behind it. though I have some worlds where the jungle is closer and the desert is behinf the jungle.
the snow is on the opposite side, the same side as the dungeon. normally.
however, this map has the desert (which has underground part) on the dungeon side. and, it likely generated in the middle of what used to be the snow biome, before it turned into a bunch of hive blocks.
this isn't the first time I see a desert generating in the middle of snow, but it's certainly an unusual sight.
 
Yes. Not surprising if you remember that "wiki" is player-contributed.
Although I can only say that I started it. I can't guarantee that someone else didn't edit it.
There were a trivia on Night's edge relating the particle effect to the four swords that I contributed too. Wording needs fix but I don't think anybody touched that yet.

You can test it pre-1.4. The terrain isn't THAT altered.
Also, I wrote that part forgetting that it had the block replacement.
Also, I think there is a mention that there is a mod (or tool) that visualize worldgen. You can use that too.

Well, there can be multiple deserts.
In my world "Midland of the Apple" there is a desert with the underground desert (normal desert) on the left of spawn, which have a "antlion pit" and no oasis, and on the right side of my base (on the right of spawn) there is another desert, which have oasis but no underground desert. I replaced about 30% of it with dirt block to get sand for terrariums. (since you can "regen" dirt block via dirt bomb)
I think there can be a few reasons:
1. Ensure there is a natural oasis biome
2. Broken Worldgen
Anyhow, the desert with the underground desert is the real desert. The other one is "fake".
The real desert is opposite of the side of the dungeon (normal). The snow is on the side of the dungeon (also normal).
Although, certain bizzard behavior related to "snow block replaced by sand block" in the snow biome isn't new and can be found in 1.2 (and perhaps earlier too)
It's technically on-topic as (hopefully) this new terrain gen will generate one larger desert with oasis and smaller "antlion pit"
No, I'm pretty sure deserts are used as "transitions" between biomes, like, the forest and the jungle.
 
No, I'm pretty sure deserts are used as "transitions" between biomes, like, the forest and the jungle.
The desert (at least the main one that’s known to be incredibly difficult) is actually a counterpart to the Ice biome as it always generates on the opposite side of the world to it.
 
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