Regions

This page will go over Basics in Regions

Topics

Every setting with a * is mandatory for this file

Introduction

Regions are the JSON Equivalent of a Library Subsection, where the books are the biomes, and each biome can tell a story. In normal language; Regions are a way for you to map biomes in your world, and have a system that lets you control all biomes of a certain type (in this region) with a single file.

Since a lot of the settings you can change here can also be changed in each of the biomes individually, we will only go over region-only settings here. This is not the case for the Mastering part, where we will include all settings.

Default in the example

The region files can be found in the regions folder and usually have a descriptive name. We will be using the region "hot" as found in the example project:

{
    "name": "Hot",
    "landBiomes": [
        "desert"
    ],
    "seaBiomes": [
        "ocean"
    ],
    "shoreBiomes": [
        "beach"
    ],
    "caveBiomes": [
        "mountains"
    ],
    "lakeBiomes": [
        "beach"
    ],
    "riverBiomes": [
        "ocean"
    ],
    "landBiomeZoom": 1,
    "seaBiomeZoom": 1,
    "shoreBiomeZoom": 1,
    "caveBiomeZoom": 1,
    "lakeBiomeZoom": 1,
    "riverBiomeZoom": 1,
    "ridgeBiomes": [
        {
            "biome": "swamp-forest",
            "type": "LAND",
            "chance": 1
        }
    ],
    "spotBiomes": [
        {
            "biome": "oak-forest",
            "type": "LAND",
            "rarity": 1
        }
    ],
    "shoreRatio": 0.01,
    "rivers": true
}

Settings

1 - Name *

"name": "Hot"

The name of the region. It is best to keep / make this the same as the name of the file you are editing.

2 - Land, Sea & Shore Biomes *

"landBiomes": [
    "desert"
],
"seaBiomes": [
    "ocean"
],
"shoreBiomes": [
    "beach"
],

Here you specify the biomes in the world as they connect to eachother. "landBiomes" only connect to "shoreBiomes" and "seaBiomes" only connect to "shoreBiomes" as well. "shoreBiomes" connect land with sea.

3 - Cave, Lake & River Biomes

"caveBiomes": [
    "mountains"
],
"lakeBiomes": [
    "beach"
],
"riverBiomes": [
    "ocean"
],

These biomes are optional and have certain properties:

"caveBiomes" can only spawn next to "landBiomes",
"lakeBiomes" can spawn next to "landBiomes" and "shoreBiomes", and
"riverBiomes" can spawn connected to all other biome types.

4 - Biome Zooming

"landBiomeZoom": 1,
"seaBiomeZoom": 1,
"shoreBiomeZoom": 1,
"caveBiomeZoom": 1,
"lakeBiomeZoom": 1,
"riverBiomeZoom": 1

All of the previous biome types have zooming factors to them. Making this number higher will make the biomes larger.

5 - Ridge Biomes

"ridgeBiomes": [
    {
        "biome": "swamp-forest",
        "type": "LAND",
        "chance": 1
    }
]

Ridge biomes are like real-life mountain chains:

These biomes have a few properties:

"biome": "swamp-forest"

Here you specify the type of biome that should spawn as a ridge (a straight but fractal line through the land).

"type": "LAND"

Here you specify the type of terrain ridges should spawn on, can be any of the previous types ("SHORE", "LAND", "SEA", "CAVE", "RIVER", and "LAKE") and "DEFER", where the last option uses a random type every time (not always the same).

"chance": 1

Here you specify the chance that the biome will continue and / or spawn in any given location on the previously specified "type" terrain. Ranges from 0 (never) to 1 (frequently).

For the use of Spot Biomes, this setting is replaced by "rarity",but functions the same.

6 - Spot Biomes

"spotBiomes": [
    {
        "biome": "oak-forest",
        "type": "CAVE",
        "rarity": 1
    }
]

Spot biomes are very similar to the Ridge Biomes, all settings for this are explained there. These biomes can make for very interesting looks in the world, such as this real-life example: