Is it possible to add new biomes and change how biomes is generated?

[xxx73]

Hi

 

Different biomes

Back in earlier alphas we had more types of biomes than we have now. I miss the water edge biome with different sounds and taller grass. Would also be great to have biomes like jungle, swamp/march and plains.
So I wonder if it possible to add more new biomes, and if it possible to change how biomes

 

Map generation, biome colors and biome layout

I liked how biomes was generated in earlier alphas, there was many small to medium large ares intertwined and spread all over, so you could find burned land several places. There was also one alpha that had only snow in higher areas, that was great.

So is it possible to change how biomes is created, and instead of a few larger areas make many small->large biomes spread randomly around?

 

I can make new blocks, set up biomes in biomes.xml and things like that. But how biomes is generated, and how biomes is implemented in rwg and things like that I have no clue about.

Have fun

 

 

[doughphunghus]

From what I’ve heard, making anything “super custom/cool” or “larger/smaller biome areas” like you are taking about, with customized snow on mountains, etc, you want to start with the “Nitrogen”map generating tool found in the “mods -> tools” section of the forums. For the snow on mountains, you may have to hand edit a few files (maybe, just my beliefs as I’ve read a little about it but not actually messed with it) to make things with high elevation just have snow on them.

 

For “new biomes”....

I’m not sure , but I think a small

part of your question is “no, you cannot make more biomes than already exist”.  i don’t know this 100% though, but I believe I’ve seen it discussed on the forums, and others have lamented about being back other biomes and I feel if it were possible they would just have modded them back in already. 
 

having said that, there is a mod I’m “maintaining” that someone else wrote.  What he did was take an existing biome (say “snow” ) and then he just removed all the XML in the snow biome and replaced it with whatever he wanted (which was pine forest, but some tweaks).  You might get some of what you want doing this, but of course you lose the “snow” biome and you also are not making any new biome “blocks/behavior/weather” that doesn’t already exist, just customizing an existing biome with existing stuff.  

[convergent]

The terrain shader currently is hard-coded for the ground types of the existing biomes. You can change anything on or under the ground but you will be stuck with the existing ground textures. Any new biomes added will have a broken texture that does not blend with the rest.

[Guppycur]

15 hours ago, convergent said:

The terrain shader currently is hard-coded for the ground types of the existing biomes. You can change anything on or under the ground but you will be stuck with the existing ground textures. Any new biomes added will have a broken texture that does not blend with the rest.

Exactly this; microsplat breaks stuff, BUT if you're deadset, Sphereii has made a dmt patch called "Legacy Distant Terrain" which disables microsplat, thus allowing custom biomes.

[xxx73]

On 9/17/2020 at 8:17 PM, doughphunghus said:

having said that, there is a mod I’m “maintaining” that someone else wrote.  What he did was take an existing biome (say “snow” ) and then he just removed all the XML in the snow biome and replaced it with whatever he wanted (which was pine forest, but some tweaks).  You might get some of what you want doing this, but of course you lose the “snow” biome and you also are not making any new biome “blocks/behavior/weather” that doesn’t already exist, just customizing an existing biome with existing stuff.  

Ok, I was thinking the simplest way to do it as you say, is to just copy one biome, rename it and then make changes to vegetation, prefabs, weather, water, zombies, animals and stuff like that right. I can keep it simple like that and still make cool biomes, the question is then:
1. How will will new "simple" biomes be generated, can I give it new color so I can see it on the biome map, will it work like any other biome?
2. Is it possible to change biome layout, Im not a fan of the big biomes I see in many maps, having just one of each biome covering many kilometer, i like many biomes of same type spread out?

 

On 9/18/2020 at 6:28 PM, Guppycur said:

Exactly this; microsplat breaks stuff, BUT if you're deadset, Sphereii has made a dmt patch called "Legacy Distant Terrain" which disables microsplat, thus allowing custom biomes.

hmm does this have to do with how terrain and building look the same at distant even if they are changed/removed, then when getting close you see how it really is?

 

On 9/18/2020 at 3:06 AM, convergent said:

The terrain shader currently is hard-coded for the ground types of the existing biomes. You can change anything on or under the ground but you will be stuck with the existing ground textures. Any new biomes added will have a broken texture that does not blend with the rest.

But if I use the same block types, just change vegetation and change it to e.g. a jungle, will that work?
And if it does, how will that biome be generated?

 

[doughphunghus]

If you’re only going to mess with the XML (and not to the route guppycur mentions above) I don’t think what you’re wanting to do will work as you can’t rename a biome and make a new one (with a new name) in XML. You can only make changes to existing biomes with the existing biome names.  I believe the games biome “names” are hard coded internally, and the xml that shows the names has to match what is hard coded.  I could be wrong about this, but I believe this is why people aren’t making a bunch of custom biomes in mods, they just seem to make changes to existing ones. 
 

I’m not too sure about biome generation/coloring, but the only way I’ve heard of controlling biome “diversity” is through the nitrogen tool, and some tutorials I’ve seen about manually editing some map/level files to control the biome layout, like using MS Paint (or similar) to edit them (I think it was a YouTube video tutorial by @Guppycur)

[xxx73]

ohh so its hard coded, thats bad news, would be awesome with more biomes.
Guess I only can play around with general biome decoration and maybe make more diversity in sub biomes, but yeah...

Only real option is to take closer look at Legacy Distant Terrain and see what I can do with that, im using Darkness Falls as base for my tweaking and Sphereii core is in use, so maybe Legacy Distant Terrain is in there or easy to add. But I have no idea what Sphereii is or how to use it, I was hoping this would be possible with some simple xml configuration.

[doughphunghus]

Spherii is a person on these forums.  His main DMT modlet page is here Spheriis-dmt-mods

 

you might be able to find more documentation/examples/etc. starting at that link. I’ve never messed with them as I’m not on windows and haven’t had luck getting DMT to work on Ubuntu:).  I don’t know if legacy distant terrain is in there or his mod page, etc.

[xxx73]

ok thanks.

On 9/18/2020 at 6:28 PM, Guppycur said:

Exactly this; microsplat breaks stuff, BUT if you're deadset, Sphereii has made a dmt patch called "Legacy Distant Terrain" which disables microsplat, thus allowing custom biomes.

Hi, do you know how to gets started on making custom biomes with "Legacy Distant Terrain"?

[convergent]

honestly, I would not. The game has moved beyond that and new patches will continue to break stuff. Both RussianDood and i have tried to make it work but we are just stuck with it for now.

In my mod, though, the biomes really only share ground textures with their vanilla counterparts. My burntforest is a dense pine forest, desert is an arid subtropical island, and pine forest is rocky highland hills. 

[xxx73]

ok I just leave it for now, thanks for replying.