Realistic Terrain Generation Mod Wiki

Realistic Terrain Generation (RTG) is a comprehensive world generation engine that replaces the standard Minecraft terrain generator. Unlike many other world-gen mods, RTG does not add any new blocks, items, or biomes to the game. Instead, it focuses entirely on the aesthetic and structural layout of the Overworld, utilizing existing assets to create more natural-looking environments.

By selecting the Realistic world type during world creation, players can experience a world characterized by massive mountain ranges, winding river systems, and vast rolling plains. The mod is highly compatible with popular biome-adding mods, allowing it to apply its realistic shaping algorithms to hundreds of unique environments.

RTG transforms the Overworld by applying advanced noise algorithms to biome generation. The primary goal is to eliminate the 'blocky' and 'jagged' feel of vanilla terrain in favor of smooth transitions and realistic geological formations.

Key Terrain Features

• Realistic Mountains: Mountains in RTG are significantly taller and more varied than vanilla. They feature realistic slopes, plateaus, and peaks, often reaching heights that dwarf standard Minecraft hills.
• Winding Rivers: Rivers are wider, deeper, and follow more natural paths through the landscape. They often connect to larger bodies of water and flow around terrain obstacles rather than cutting through them unnaturally.
• Rolling Hills and Plains: Flat biomes like Plains and Savannas are given subtle elevation changes, creating a 'rolling' effect that mimics real-world meadows.
• Lush Forests: Tree placement is optimized to create denser, more immersive forests. RTG also features custom tree shapes for certain biomes to enhance the visual variety.
• Layered Cliffs: Mesa and Extreme Hills biomes often generate with distinct horizontal layering and sheer cliff faces.

RTG is designed to be the 'hub' for biome mods. It detects installed mods and applies its realistic generation to their biomes automatically.

Supported Biome Mods

Note: If a biome mod is not explicitly supported, RTG will attempt to generate its biomes using a 'generic' realistic template based on the biome's temperature and humidity settings.

It is a core philosophy of the Realistic Terrain Generation mod to remain content-neutral.

• Mobs: RTG does not add any new creatures or mobs. It relies on the spawning rules of the biomes it is generating. If you have a mod like Mo' Creatures or Animania installed, those mobs will spawn naturally within the RTG-generated terrain.
• Items: There are no new items added by this mod. All tools, resources, and materials remain vanilla or are provided by other installed mods.
• Blocks: RTG does not add any new blocks. It uses vanilla blocks (Stone, Dirt, Grass, Sand, etc.) to construct its landscapes. This ensures that worlds created with RTG can be viewed (though not generated) without the mod installed, and it maintains high performance on most systems.

To use RTG, you must specifically select the world type during the creation of a new world.

Singleplayer Setup

1. Click Create New World.
2. Click More World Options....
3. Cycle through the World Type button until it says Realistic.
4. Customize your seed and other settings as normal, then click Create New World.

Multiplayer/Server Setup

To use RTG on a dedicated server, you must edit the server.properties file:

1. Locate the line level-type=DEFAULT (or similar).
2. Change it to level-type=RTG.
3. Delete the existing world folder (if any) and restart the server to generate the new realistic terrain.

Structure Generation

RTG supports the generation of all vanilla structures, including:

• Villages: Adjusted to spawn on flatter areas of realistic terrain to prevent 'floating' houses.
• Strongholds: Generate normally underground.
• Dungeons: Frequency can be adjusted in the config.
• Temples and Monuments: Generate in their respective biomes (Deserts, Jungles, Oceans).

RTG is highly configurable via the rtg.cfg file located in the /config/RTG/ directory. For 1.12.2 and 1.10.2, the configuration is split into general settings and individual biome files.

General Settings (rtg.cfg)

Biome-Specific Configs

Each supported biome has its own configuration file within the /config/RTG/biomes/ folder. These allow you to:

• Enable/Disable RTG Terrain: Revert specific biomes to vanilla generation.
• Enable/Disable RTG Decorations: Toggle custom tree and plant placement.
• Surface Patches: Customize the blocks used for the top layer of the biome (e.g., replacing grass with coarse dirt).

RTG is designed to work alongside other world-shaping mods to provide a highly customized experience.

• Climate Control / Geographicraft: Highly recommended. These mods allow you to control the size of climates, the frequency of specific biomes, and the layout of continents. RTG will use the biome layout provided by these mods.
• Underground Biomes Constructs (UBC): RTG has built-in support for UBC. When both are installed, RTG will use UBC's stone variants for its boulders and cliff faces.
• Dynamic Trees: Fully compatible. RTG's terrain provides the foundation, and Dynamic Trees handles the growth and appearance of the forests.
• Quark: Compatible. Quark's world features (like underground clay or stone variants) will generate within RTG terrain.