A typical biome file breakdown. This page specifically is going to explain the default, parameters. these parameters WILL be covered in the elsewhere the same. this is a quick start
This page has not yet been updated in accordance with the new structure. Most information should still be valid, but keep this warning in mind.
The information below is a variant of the Biome tutorial, and we would recommend that you familiarize yourself with that first. this would then make more sense especially the complexity will become less complex.
Name - What is the biome called in-game, filename refers only to what internal schema know
Layer - What blocks makeup the biome floor, and sub-terrain (not including caves)
Objects - This lists the 'things' that you want to place all over the place eg: trees, rocks, etc...
Generators - The way the terrain Height-map is designed
Derivative - This sets the Vanilla Color, Mob spawn, Weather, and some other event
Many of these here will give you a world that 'looks' like a normal world, but Iris is able to give you so much customization that you can have many types of variants that can look otherworldly.
Much of what you have seen above, IS used in the example projects, when it comes to what a final project biome looks like, they would look like something like this
We highly recommend that you familiarize yourself, and toy around with them before diving straight into the heavy lifting- that is, advanced biome manipulation. Biomes are the some of the most important parts of this plugin. I don't think i need to explain how important that the biomes are, please familiarize yourself with Vs-code and make a custom biome using [this] to do so; once you do that feel free to dive into the harder parts in the next page. Good luck, we hope that you make a world of your dreams.
A not so typical Biome file breakdown. This is going to cover the Object based values in the biomes file. All of the flags and objects, and changes can all be found here and on the previous page
You can instead specify multiple biome derivatives to randomly scatter colors in this biome FLOOR. This sets the gradients of colors that are done by derivatives, this is great to set the ground colors to look bruised or else-wise.
You can instead specify multiple biome derivatives to randomly scatter colors in this biome SKY. Since 1.13 supports 3D biomes, you can add different derivative colors for anything above the terrain. (Think swampy tree leaves with a desert looking grass surface) This is a great way for setting a 3D color dynamic in leaves or in biome-sky related changes.
The child (if set) shape if, and when it is generated If this biome has children biomes, and the gen layer chooses one of this biomes children, How will it be shaped? The map represents the biomes/children very well, See Style to see how to use it
Carve Terrain or not This changes the dispersion of the biome colors if multiple derivatives are chosen. Please See Style to see how to use it, this is just a shape filter
Define custom block drops for this biome Drops are the items that are dropped when broken. This is a universal parameter see here to see how to use it.
Have a biome generate in the midst of this biome List any biome names (file names without.json) here as children. Portions of this biome can sometimes morph into their children. Iris supports cyclic relationships such as A > B > A > B. Iris will stop checking 9 biomes down the tree.
Decorators are used for things like tall grass, bisected flowers, and even kelp or cactus (random heights) This is the best place where you can set the flowers, and organics that are in a per biome basis.
Creates ore & other block deposits underground This ADDS this list of deposits to the dimensional/regional parent. This is explained here, this can be set for multiple parents thus its a dimensional parameter
Effects that play in this biome. Effects are ambient effects such as potion effects, random sounds, or even particles around each player. This has a large explanation here.
Entity spawns during generation What entity spawns here during the generation of this world. This may soon have support for mythic/other mob providers in the future
If the following entity type spawns, spawn this entity. Set to unknown for any entity spawn. This is a fantastic way to prevent the spawn of a cow or any other vanilla spawned mobs. Maybe Mythic mobs in the future etc...
Generators are a form of STYLE generators:
Style/Generator is the 4-D (that's one more D than 3D) rules that draw the carve layer. Please refer to the Universal Parameters here to see the usage of generators
What Generates in conatiners here in this biome This is a global parameter, and a regional, AND a biome parameter. this is a great breakdown of loot. Beware that by default this stacks with other parent loot rolls unless otherwise specified
Modes "CENTER_HEIGHT": The default place mode. This mode picks a center point (where the center of the object will be) and takes the height. That height is used for the whole object.
"MAX_HEIGHT": Samples a lot of points where the object will cover (horizontally) and picks the highest height, that height is then used to place the object. This mode is useful for preventing any part of your object from being buried though it will float off of cliffs.
"FAST_MAX_HEIGHT": Samples only 4 points where the object will cover (horizontally) and picks the highest height, that height is then used to place the object. This mode is useful for preventing any part of your object from being buried though it will float off of cliffs.
"MIN_HEIGHT": Samples a lot of points where the object will cover (horizontally) and picks the lowest height, that height is then used to place the object. This mode is useful for preventing any part of your object from overhanging a cliff though it gets buried a lot
"FAST_MIN_HEIGHT": Samples only 4 points where the object will cover (horizontally) and picks the lowest height, that height is then used to place the object. This mode is useful for preventing any part of your object from overhanging a cliff though it gets buried a lot
"STILT": Stilting is MAX_HEIGHT but it repeats the bottom most block of your object until it hits the surface. This is expensive because it has to first sample every height value for each x,z position of your object. Avoid using this unless its structures for performance reasons.
"FAST_STILT": Just like stilting but very inaccurate. Useful for stilting a lot of objects without too much care on accuracy (you can use the over-stilt value to force stilts under ground further)
"PAINT": Samples the height of the terrain at every x,z position of your object and pushes it down to the surface. It's pretty much like a melt function over the terrain.
"VACUUM": Applies multiple terrain features into the parallax layer before this object places to distort the height, essentially vacuuming the terrain's heightmap closer to the bottom of this object. Uses MAX_HEIGHT to place
This is an interesting way to quite literally put text on the surface Please refer to this, for a full explanation of how to use this interesting tool. you can make a trademark per biome if you wanted. the possibilities are strangely endless.
A not so typical Biome file breakdown. This is going to cover the Non-Object based values in the biomes file. All of the flags and objects, and changes can all be found here and on the next page
This zooms in the biome colors if multiple derivatives are chosen: Imagine using a crumpled ball of paper, then zooming into it. that's what this does. margionally pointless with only 1 derivative Default: 1 Min: 1.0e-4 Max: 512
When iris carves in this biome, this is the biome that gets plastered in that region. This is a great way to make carves sound spooky in the dark. Any vanilla biome is supported here.
This defines the layers of materials in this biome. Each layer has a palette and min/max height and some other properties. Usually a grassy/sandy layer then a dirt layer then a stone layer. Iris will fill in the remaining blocks below your layers with stone. List of BiomePaletteLayers (Objects)
Derivatives are fairly straightforward, in what they do- should hopefully be a simple concept to understand. That being said, it plays an important role in biome creation. This will determine what mobs spawn (that can be tweaked to prevent this), What the color of blocks will be (Grass being green to dark brown etc), and some of the sounds you may hear (can also be tweaked). As a visual see below:
Blocks
Mob Spawns
Audio
Will change depending on what the derivative is, and you can not change this anywhere but here.
The mobs that spawn will mirror whatever the derivative is in vanilla terms (Cow in forest, Ghast in Nether Wastes) mobs can be changed elsewhere.
Some of the audio you might hear in this biome is from the derivative, this can be changed elsewhere.
The layers to iterate below the surface for locked layer biomes (mesa). This is very good at creating a mesa or stacked style of terrain, There is nothing from carving to smoothing that will cancel this from generating. this affects the terrain layer and below. ASSUMING that you marked it as true
This is an important key to remember, if you are locking layers, and you have a set of layers. This represents the max possible layers that can stack, assuming that locklayers is on, and you have layers defined.
The human readable name of this biome Name of biome. no real explanation needed
The rarity of this biome (integer) Generally speaking the higher the number is, the more common it is, but if you have only a few biomes try to keep the results as you would want, try and keep it under 256 (you can go higher), but higher would make the biome almost invisible in a general schema of 100 biomes, as every biome (and region) is a roll at random EACH usage so if its 1-in-10, there will NOT guarantee a biome every 10, as its a random roll.
The fluid type that should spawn here The type of fluid if this biome is underwater. To 'defer' this value to whatever the parent dimension fluid type is, use an empty string. you can see fluid settings(dim) here.
Debug color for visualizing this biome with a color in the MAP. ie: #F13AF5 This in the map changes the visual representation of a biome so you can see it more clearly, in the image below any of the colors represent a biome, and how the noise/layers interact with them.
If you want to know how to use this tool to see biomes go here