New map generator “math” generates awesome surreal fractal worlds

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Wuzzy
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New map generator “math” generates awesome surreal fractal worlds

by Wuzzy » Post

In the changelog, I stumpled upon a feature about a new map generator called “math” which was described as “fractals-based map generator” (or something like that).

I think the generated world looks awesome. It looks like a giant underground-structure with lots of “spheres” and “ellipsoids” and stuff. It looks totaly different than the worlds generated by v6.
I can think of many possibilities to play around with such worlds. Worlds like this almost demand a different gameplay, which in turn may be a good basis for mods, etc. I see great possibilities here. :-)

If you want to try this mapgen, you have to use the development version. It looks like it is going into the next release.
For some reason, I can only make this map generator work with the minimal game , not with minetest_game, but I don’t care that much.

But even with just minimal, I think the generated world looks awesome. If this world looks awesome only with the normal stone, I wonder how it would look like if there are different kinds of nodes.

This map generator also causes Minetest to make some bugs visible:
  • Sometimes the lighting on some nodes seem to fail. Sometimes, theres a light node and a pitch black node right next to it. Sometimes entire areas are affected by this.
  • As this is more like a giant underground structure, I still see daylight deep underground (even I think the term “ground level” does not really apply to fractal worlds).

(I post more infos about these bugs if you’re interested or if this is news to you)

Now for some questions to the devs:
  • Is / how it possible to change some parameters of the map generator so it generates different worlds/fractals? (because atm the mapgen generates basicly the same world every time)
  • What sort of fractal is generated by default?

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by PilzAdam » Post

Wuzzy wrote:This map generator also causes Minetest to make some bugs visible:
  • Sometimes the lighting on some nodes seem to fail. Sometimes, theres a light node and a pitch black node right next to it. Sometimes entire areas are affected by this.
  • As this is more like a giant underground structure, I still see daylight deep underground (even I think the term “ground level” does not really apply to fractal worlds).
These are bugs in the mapgenerator.
Wuzzy wrote:Now for some questions to the devs:
  • Is / how it possible to change some parameters of the map generator so it generates different worlds/fractals? (because atm the mapgen generates basicly the same world every time)
  • What sort of fractal is generated by default?
Let me quote minetest.conf.example:

Code: Select all

# Math mapgen generator: sphere, mandelbox, mengersponge dont forget to lower water_level = -30000
#mgmath_generator = mandelbox
Last edited by PilzAdam on Fri Sep 20, 2013 19:58, edited 1 time in total.

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by Wuzzy » Post

Thanks for the answer.
I don’t think the value “-30000” for water_level makes sense everywhere. For sphere I would recommend -200 to -100, so the sphere “swims” in the water. :-) For the other fractals, the water is not really important. However, in mandelbox, a low water level means you will spawn and fall to death if you spawn at X=0,Y=0 and Z=0. :D
If you spawn at X=0, Y=0 and Z=0 in the Menger sponge, you fall into an deep deep hole. So the spawnpoints for mandelbox and Menger sponge clearly needs to be tweaked if you use low water.

Can more stuff be tweaked?
For example, the number of iterations, size (when using the sphere), or the scale value (for the Mandelbox), etc.

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by hoodedice » Post

Try PilzAdam's PilzTest. You won't be disappointed.
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by proller » Post

PilzAdam wrote:These are bugs in the mapgenerator.
no. current minetest lighting make all underground totally dark (and unplayable). to avoid this all generated nodes have light_sun.

now math based on v7, and you can use biome definition to get dirt and trees on top surface.

if you want more:
here https://github.com/proller/minetest/tree/math or here viewtopic.php?id=7033
next version of math with:
10+ various fractals from http://www.mandelbulber.com/
all fractals params adjustable from config

now need to find good defaults params and spawn points to most fractals

but devs against json params in config and it maybe will never merged.

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by Wuzzy » Post

Awesome! :D

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by roku » Post

Sounds a lot like the bug where sometimes lighting just isn't calculated for certain nodes. Like where a portion above ground will be completely black and unseeable with the tiles right beside it perfectly light. To fix it you put up and take down a torch :P. That forces the tiles to recalculate lighting. Happens more often underground but it's the same thing -- without the torch there's plenty of light it was just never calculated properly.

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Re: New map generator “math” generates awesome surreal fract

by Wuzzy » Post

Proller just nuked the math mapgen. :(
https://github.com/minetest/minetest/pull/1390

Reason was like “Nobody uses it (not true) and could be implemented with Lua” but there is no Lua replacement for now which does this. I wonder if they may be performance issues with Lua mapgens; would it be even possible to write a Lua replacement for the math mapgen with no serious performance differences?

Is this where Minetest is heading to? Removing core functionality, delegating more and more to Lua mods?
What comes next? Nuking v7 because “it could be implemented in Lua”, but without offering any actual Lua replacement to it? Or how about rejecting just any experimental mapgen because “nobody uses it”? Duh! That’s why they are in experimental stage … It’s not that Minetest is about to go to super-polished version 1.0. Unless you can show me that any C++ mapgen (especially one which involves fractals) can be reasonable implemented in Lua as well without serious performance drops, the “You can do it in Lua” argument is bogus.
So the “arguments” were not really convincing and the counterarguments were ignored.

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Re: New map generator “math” generates awesome surreal fract

by Krock » Post

I've seen a Lua (!) map generator which used an external source (was it google..?) to generate the terrain surface. So, it's possible to re-produce this in Lua.
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Re: New map generator “math” generates awesome surreal fract

by rubenwardy » Post

I created a Lua map generator that read heights from google maps, but I had trouble with connecting, and it was slow.
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Re: New map generator “math” generates awesome surreal fract

by Wuzzy » Post

Ugh. Using an external data source for generating maps? I don’t like this idea at all. Even with a low network latency, you still have a latency which you could avoid if you just properly implement the algorithm. You also can forget the mapgen completely if you are not connected to the Internet or if you have a bad Internet connection. If your computer acts as a server, that’s bad, too, because your server has first to wait for the mapgen server to respond, just to pipe that data to the clients.

And this is in no way near a reproduction of the C++ mapgen, because it works 100% locally. Using Google is cheating.

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Re: New map generator “math” generates awesome surreal fract

by proller » Post

somebody deletes my answers 8(

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Re: New map generator “math” generates awesome surreal fract

by roku » Post

Funny because I was just thinking about starting a server that used this mapgen. There's a server called "just test" that spawns only stone, but bones can be crafted into dirt. It's a neat concept but fails in its implimentation. Mainly, you need way too many bones to get any dirt (I think it should be the opposite: 1 bone gives you several dirt, and then several bones give you one sappling). Anyway, I think having a server with that kind of concept using the fractal or math mapgen would be really cool.

I'm not about to make such a server just to "prove" that people use this mapgen, but math has always been one of my favorite mapgens, just because fractals are really cool. Maybe proller here just really hates fractals, and that's his reasoning for removing it :P

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Re: New map generator “math” generates awesome surreal fract

by Calinou » Post

roku wrote:Funny because I was just thinking about starting a server that used this mapgen. There's a server called "just test" that spawns only stone, but bones can be crafted into dirt. It's a neat concept but fails in its implimentation. Mainly, you need way too many bones to get any dirt (I think it should be the opposite: 1 bone gives you several dirt, and then several bones give you one sappling). Anyway, I think having a server with that kind of concept using the fractal or math mapgen would be really cool.

I'm not about to make such a server just to "prove" that people use this mapgen, but math has always been one of my favorite mapgens, just because fractals are really cool. Maybe proller here just really hates fractals, and that's his reasoning for removing it :P
While it makes for a peculiar survival PvP experience, it's mostly because the admin uses mgv7 without defining any biomes, it seems.

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Re: New map generator “math” generates awesome surreal fract

by paramat » Post

Wuzzy, math mapgen was removed because it's not up to Minetest's standard of quality, it was merged by accident and without proper testing under our previous management system where the approval of any 2 devs was enough for a merge (whether or not those 2 devs knew anything about mapgen). proller has moved on and is doing far better fractal mapgens complete with biomes in Freeminer, so i'm guessing he doesn't want to work on improving the Minetest math mapgen. The mandelbox was not a good choice as it is so enclosed and therefore dark, because of this uniform fullbright lighting was used which looks bad.
Personally i love 3D fractals but found the mandelbox interesting for only 1-2 hours, even when i added my paragen biomes to it. The sphere can now be done super fast by voxelmanip, and the menger sponge really was embarrassingly bad.
Indev mapgen was removed for similar reasons.

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Re: New map generator “math” generates awesome surreal fract

by rubenwardy » Post

Wuzzy wrote:Ugh. Using an external data source for generating maps? I don’t like this idea at all. Even with a low network latency, you still have a latency which you could avoid if you just properly implement the algorithm. You also can forget the mapgen completely if you are not connected to the Internet or if you have a bad Internet connection. If your computer acts as a server, that’s bad, too, because your server has first to wait for the mapgen server to respond, just to pipe that data to the clients.

And this is in no way near a reproduction of the C++ mapgen, because it works 100% locally. Using Google is cheating.
You can't generate the earth's height map from an algorithm. You need a data source.
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