Map Generator with Rivers

mapgen_rivers v0.0 by Gaël de Sailly.

Procedural map generator for Minetest 5.x. It aims to create realistic and nice-looking landscapes for the game, focused on river networks. It is based on algorithms modelling water flow and river erosion at a broad scale, similar to some used by researchers in Earth Sciences. It is taking some inspiration from Fastscape.

Its main particularity compared to conventional Minetest mapgens is that rivers that flow strictly downhill, and combine together to form wider rivers, until they reach the sea. Another notable feature is the possibility of large lakes above sea level.

Important to know: Unlike most other Minetest mods, it does not contain standalone Lua code, but does part of its processing with a separate Python program (included).

• The Python part does pre-processing: it creates large-scale terrain data and applies landscape evolution algorithms, then outputs a grid of data in the mod's or world's folder. The grid is typically an array of 1000x1000 points of data, each of them representing a cell (by default 12x12 nodes). This pre-processing is long and should be run in advance.
• The Lua part does actual map generation on Minetest. It reads grid data, upscales it (by a factor 12 by default), and adds small-scale features.

Requirements

Mod dependencies: default required, and biomegen optional.

Map pre-generation requires Python 3 with the following libraries installed:

• numpy, widely used library for numerical calculations
• scipy, a library for advanced data treatments, that is used here for Gaussian filtering
• noise, implementing Perlin/Simplex noises

Also, the following are optional (for map preview)

• matplotlib, a famous library for graphical plotting
• colorcet if you absolutely need better colormaps for preview :-)

They are all commonly found on pip or conda Python distributions.

Installation

This mod should be placed in the mods/ directory of Minetest like any other mod.

Usage

By default, the mod contains a demo 400x400 grid (so you can start the game directly), but it is recommended to run the pre-processing script to generate a new grid before world creation, if you can.

1. Run the script generate.py to generate a grid, preferentially from inside the mod's directory, but you can also run it directly in a Minetest world. See next paragraph for details about parameters.

./generate.py

2. Start Minetest, create a world with singlenode mapgen, enable mapgen_rivers mod, and launch the game. If you generated a grid in the world directory, it will copy it. If not, it will use the demo grid.

Parameters for generate.py

For a basic use you do not need to append any argument:

./generate.py

By default this will produce a 1000x1000 grid and save it in river_data/. Expect a computing time of about 30 minutes.

Parameters and config files

This pre-processing takes many parameters. Instead of asking all these parameters to the end user, they are grouped in .conf files for usability, but the script still allows to override individual settings.

Generic usage:

./generate.py conf_file output_dir

• conf_file: Path to configuration file from which parameters should be read. If omitted, attempts to read in terrain.conf.
• output_dir: Directory in which to save the grid data, defaults to river_data/. If it does not exist, it is created. If it already contains previous grid data, they are overwritten.

Config files

The mod currently includes 3 config files, providing different terrain styles:

• terrain_default.conf generates the standard terrain, with highest elevations around 250 with sharp peaks, and otherwise hilly terrain.
• terrain_higher.conf generates higher mountains (up to 400 nodes), and wider valleys.
• terrain_original.conf provides a terrain similar to what was generated with the first release of mapgen_rivers.

More work is needed to find better and more varied terrain styles.

Complete list of parameters

Other parameters can be specified by --parameter value. Syntax --parameter=value is also supported.

Parameter	Description	Example
	Generic parameters
mapsize	Size of the grid, in number of cells per edge. Usually 1000, so to have 1000x1000 cells, the grid will have 1001x1001 nodes. Note that the grid is upscaled 12x in the game (this ratio can be changed), so that a mapsize of 1000 will result in a 12000x12000 map by default.	--mapsize 1000
sea_level	Height of the sea; height below which a point is considered under water even if it is not in a closed depression.	--sea_level 1
	Noise parameters
scale	Horizontal variation wavlength of the largest noise octave, in grid cells (equivalent to the spread of a PerlinNoise).	--scale 400
vscale	Elevation coefficient, determines the approximate height difference between deepest seas and highest mountains.	--vscale 300
offset	Offset of the noise, will determine mean elevation.	--offset 0
persistence	Relative height of smaller noise octaves compared to bigger ones.	--persistence 0.6
lacunarity	Relative reduction of wavelength between octaves. If lacunarity×persistence is larger than 1 (usual case), smaller octaves result in higher slopes than larger ones. This case is interesting for rivers networks because slopes determine rivers position.	--lacunarity 2
	Landscape evolution parameters
K	Abstract erosion constant. Increasing it will increase erosive intensity.	--K 1
m	Parameter representing the influence of river flux on erosion. For m=0, small and big rivers are equal contributors to erosion. For m=1 the erosive capability is proportional to river flux (assumed to be catchment area). Usual values: 0.25-0.60. Be careful, this parameter is highly sensitive.	--m 0.35
d	Diffusion coefficient acting on sea/lake floor. Usual values 0-1.	--d 0.2
flex_radius	Flexure radius. Wavelength over which loss/gain of mass is compensated by uplift/subsidence. This ensures that mountain ranges will not get eventually flattened by erosion, and that an equilibrium is reached. Geologically speaking, this implements isostatic rebound.	--flex_radius 20
time	Simulated time of erosion modelling, in abstract units.	--time 10
niter	Number of iterations. Each iteration represents a time time/niter.	--niter 10
sea_level_variations	Amplitude of sea level variations throughout the simulation (if any).	--sea_level_variations 10
sea_level_variations_time	Characteristic time of variation for sea level, in the same units than time. Increasing it will result in slower variations between iterations.	--sea_level_variations_time 1
flow_method	Algorithm used for local flow calculation. Possible values are steepest (every node flows toward the steepest neighbour when possible), and semirandom (default, flow direction is determined randomly between lower neighbours, with lowest ones having greater probability).	--flow_method semirandom
	Alternatives
config	Another way to specify configuration file	--config terrain_higher.conf
output	Another way to specify output dir	--output ~/.minetest/worlds/my_world/river_data

Example

./generate.py terrain_higher.conf --mapsize 700 --K 0.4 --m 0.5

Reads parameters in terrain_higher.conf, and will generate a 700x700 grid using custom values for K and m.

Map preview

If you have matplotlib installed, generate.py will automatically show the grid aspect in real time during the erosion simulation.

There is also a script to view a generated map afterwards: view_map.py. Its syntax is the following:

./view_map.py grid blocksize

• grid is the path to the grid directory to view. For example river_data/.
• blocksize is the size at which 1 grid cell will be upscaled, in order to match game coordinates. If you use default settings, use 12.

Example:

./view_map.py river_data 12