How Minecraft Works Ep. 3 – TERRAIN GENERATION

Minecraft’s terrain generation something that has been wondered about and goddamn by almost everyone who plays it there’s a reason so many videos are about it the whole point of this series was to show people that there’s more to Minecraft than it’s terrain generation but it still deserves an episode here

Most videos focus on one aspect such as the noise values the land and sea contrast or the basic ideas of all the steps this video gives a simplified but thorough explanation of the entire process let’s learn more about these worlds the basic surface this entire section’s research is from Heinrich

Nineberg the guy who made Minecraft’s terrain generation Minecraft terrain generation in a nutshell it might seem boring but the process of making the basic air stone and water combo that is talked about so often is way more fascinating than many videos cover yes in case you don’t know Minecraft starts

Out by generating its worlds out of only Stone air and water most videos will explain to you Perla noise my favorite mathematical concept which is when Ken purlin decided to make a 2d sheet of random values that were smoothed out and could be infinitely zoomed in on using

Math if you change these black to white colors to Hype for a Terrain you’ll see it looks pretty cool like mountains and valleys anything that’s air below a certain point will be water instead forming the sea these videos will talk to you about how if you get a small

Meaning it’s Rocky and random purlin height map and add it to a big very smooth but very tall one it makes the terrain even better and more realistic they stop at just saying that lots of layers later the terrain is done but that’s old things if Minecraft’s terrain

Is only made through getting different heights how are these overhangs floating islands and caves everywhere Riddle Me That Batman first actually I’d like to add something to the basic surface we have now Heinrich nineberg actually brought up a really good point you don’t get the cool Clips fjords and hoodoos

That you see everywhere in Minecraft with this simple height map stack you revealed that whatever height value the height map gave they would actually process it through an equation to make it more realistic take an f of x equals x line just the diagonal line upwards

This is what it was using before and X was the output of the purlin sax with this new equation though we’ll do is make some spots more flat like towards the bottom middle but fun spots shoot right up like the upper middle and the tops and bottoms be more flat this makes

It so oceans have smoother bottoms at the Deep Parts beaches and planes right above sea levels are really flat parts that go up will do it more rapidly until a certain y level and once they get there it will be very flat this is how fjords that despite looking cool we all

Hate to climb in survival mode or generated remember how I said I cover overhangs and caves This Is How They Are Made Perla noise is a 2d as a sheet of whites Grays and blacks using some equation-y stuff like this one 3D purlin equals purlin noise of X Y plus purlin

Noise of y z plus prolinois XD plus Berlin noise of Y X Plus Berlin noise of z y plus Portland noise is the x divided by six you were able to make 3D perlin noise bottom half values are air and top half value Stone put this in your world maybe

Even a few layers if you want and make it more and more common the higher you get which is called squashing and boom cool overhangs floating islands and a few caves actually two values the height offset and the amounts of values are squashed are pretty much all you need

Hook this up to the height equation from earlier you get the same thing as before but with overhangs and stuff for deeper caves do the same thing but instead of taking values closer to one end or the other for error Stone do the values in the middle and it looks pretty cool

After the basic surface is made biomes are chosen biomes used to be chosen and the terrain would change to fit them but it was decided that it’d be better if the terrain was made and the biomes were chosen to fit them there are three noise Maps which I actually talked about in

The section about the basic surface I just never mentioned their names continentalness is a large varied map that controls mostly the ocean and land or the mountains erosion is a larger more zoomed in map Peaks and valleys is a small map with lots of variety controlling Hills and stuff and also

Helps a lot with rivers in addition to these three noise Maps which are used in the basic surface and in biomes biomes use two more to decide which biomes go where temperature a very large map which is just how hot or cold things are and humidity a medium-sized map used to

Control how wet or dry Things Are biomes are given different values of these ranging from negative one to one and whichever by and fits the noise Maps the best is chosen for example oceans have low confidential nests and deserts have high temperatures and low humidities after a biome is chosen dirt grass sand

And other biome-dependent surface blocks are added different blocks are chosen if they are underwater usually gravel though some parts may have deeper or more shallow surface block subtypes that’s literally it the simplest part of the terrain generation not so simple if you’re making a custom biome that’s not dirt and grass though

Structures definitely deserve an episode of their own so they’ll be on next times but structures are what’s generated next this is why Bastion remnants generated in Basalt Deltas get Basalt all over them because Basalt clumps are technically terrain features next are the terrain features everything I’ll say

About them comes from the Minecraft Wiki which is a brilliant resource if you want true confirmed facts about Minecraft it could be hard to know which parts you want to read though it could be helpful to see and hear what it’s talking about rather than reading it all

Of this is in my own words and may be less confusing that said I will skip over some information so if you want to read the full of it the link is in the description now that you know how the basic surface gets made you need to know

The details because just having the basic surface is like eating pizza without the cheese and pepperoni just eating dough it’s sad I’m sad the first Serene features are actually calculated in the basic noise step The Cliffs overhangs hudus and words I was talking about earlier are actually considered terrain features the terrain features

That do actually come after the structures though include erosions spots where the surface is scraped off randomly to create this thing I know many of us mistake these for lava pools and it could be really annoying during speed runs these are actually the only terrain features present in every

Dimension strips in some biomes instead of every surface block just being one block there are sections where other blocks can be generated these include gravel strips and Stony Shores and calcite strips and Stony Peaks icebergs ice Islands in frozen ocean biomes with noise made to be very tall and it’s not

In there is little or no 3D variation in these but there is a bottom side and occasional caves Carvers noodle-like caves canyons and water caves among others these replace old blocks with cave air or water finally the most exciting and final step Minecraft’s terrain generation the features

Everything in this section is also from a Wiki page links also in the description somehow different from the terrain features these include many different things but here are some of the most exciting examples Forest rock ever wonder what those weird mossy cobblestone rocks are called I found the official name you’re welcome

Freeze top layer when blocks generate high enough in certain biomes they get covered in snow and ice this counts as a generated feature on Java Edition for some reason Lava Lakes Minecraft speedruns would all rely on ruined Nether Portals if these didn’t exist they could be found above and

Underground I decided to go a little bit more in depth on this one as the series is meant to be pretty deep they generate above y0 and in every Overworld biome except for the deep dark they also spawn air pockets above them that’s literally all I found bonus chest chests full of

Get this bonus loot that also generate and spawn when the bonus chest option is enabled Springs those random water or lava Falls that you see on mountains sometimes in the side of a cliff water or lava source blocks are placed or just or patches sometimes they will be skipped over if

Exposed to air even though on the surface there’s not really much to talk about I can see them as being a future episode too Delta the one block deep lava patches you find in the basalt Deltas assault columns the basalt junk also found in Basalt Deltas crazy

Thank you trees somehow the wiki makes this one sound boring a feature consisting of logs and appropriate leaves sure and finally after a minute and a half of grazing over random features we get to the cool one the one that you all think of when Imagining the features besides

Trees the vegetation this includes grass of course but did you know that grass can even spawn in deep dark biomes good luck finding dirt to put it on flowers different flowers can spawn in different patches and different biomes from poppies and dandelions which are able to spawn pretty much everywhere to Blue

Orchards which can only spawn in swamps to sunflowers which can only spawn in sunflower planes and one other biome on Bedrock Edition for some strange reason some flyers can actually spawn an ice spikes biomes which is absolutely absurd and finally underwater this includes seagrass kelp and sea pickles and that’s

Actually it the Minecraft world is complete now you know enough about Minecraft’s generation that you could code a simplified version if you know how to coat that is join me next time to learn about Minecraft’s naturally generated structures make sure to catch every episode live at 3pm Central Time awesome player 98 out