This is my second mapgen. It aims to create various but realistic landscapes.
It's now also developed by duane and vlapsley.
This mapgen is now added in MT's core since January 14th 2016. It has been slightly modified, to be adapted to the core API and Minetest Game. Here this is the original Lua version.

Some features :
- Rivers : placed by a 2D noise (it may change), they have around 5 blocks width and 3 blocks depth. By default you can find rivers from height 0 to 120.
- Mountains : modeled by 5 2D noises and a 3D noise. They are sometimes smooth and sometimes sharp and they can go up to y=200. My personal record : 278 with seed 9053682054377397076, at (239 ; 0).
- Biomes : there are not formerly defined. That one of the principles of this mod. In fact, the terrain has various proportions of clay, silt and sand, various dirt thickness, humidity and heat. Every plant/tree has its own biome definition, resulting in very various biomes. So that's the plants themselves that define the biomes.
- Vegetation : Valleys Mapgen generates 27 different plants:
- 7 trees:
- Default apple tree
- Jungle tree
- Pine tree
- Fir tree
- Banana tree
- Birch tree
- Cherry blossom tree
- 12 flowers:
- The 6 flowers from default
- Gerbera
- Arrow Arum
- Bird of Paradise
- Hibiscus
- Orchid
- Calla Lily
- 2 mushrooms from default
- Giant mushrooms (with setting "cave_stuff = true" in vmg.conf or "vmg_cave_stuff = true" in minetest.conf)
- Cactus
- Papyrus
- Grass
- Jungle grass
- Dry Shrub
- 7 trees:
- Trees generation : Valleys Mapgen has a somewhat strange way to generate trees, but it seems to work pretty well and results in very various shapes of trees. I use 3D Perlin Noises, with a spread parameter around 8, to place a sphere of leaves, distorted by the noise. I call it "leavesblobs". Trees are not all perfect, that the wanted effect. Some trees have very few leaves, that's why happen in the real world.
- Altitude effects : the temperature parameter is decreased by climbing up. Snow begins to appear at 100 blocks height in average (you can change it in settings). The dirt thickness is also decreased by the altitude : no more dirt at 150 blocks in average, by default.
- Ores : Valleys Mapgen supports all ores defined by minetest.register_ores, thanks to the new function minetest.generate_ores(vm, minp, maxp), and all of the ores from darkage.
- Mapgen versions compatibility : if you download the mod and then I make a new version, and you update the mod, the mapgen will not change in old worlds, to avoid mapchunks gaps. It only supports the released versions.
- Player spawner : You appear ON the ground, not IN, and not on an ocean either.
- Settings : noises and many other features can be set in minetest.conf. See vmg.conf.example.
Spoiler



VMG 2.1 : River water …




VMG 2.0 : TREES ! SNOW !


Worldmap with 2.0 (seed 14280207678376675280) ; 2000×2000 nodes

VMG 1.3 : More dirts


Worldmap with 1.3 (seed 9441853412759883959) ; 2000×2000 nodes. I'm in this world in the video. Try to locate my track on the map !

VMG 1.2 : Lava

VMG 1.1 : Caves


Worldmap with 1.1 (seed 5164276258932290250) ; 1000×1000 nodes

VMG 1.0




These screenshots have been taken in completely natural worlds (I haven't placed or dug any block), with all default settings. So, by creating a world with default settings and the same seed, you will get the same world.
Video with 2.0 (French)
Mod review in English by NathanS
Download (rename to "valleys_mapgen") :
Latest (Code on Github)
Version 2.2 (Code on Github)
Spoiler
Depends : default, minetest 0.4.12+ (or 0.4.11-dev after January 5). Prefer Minetest 0.4.12-dev after March 11th.
License : GNU General Public License
High-resolution textures added in HDX
Feel free to propose improvements :-)