I'm currently working on an infinite world, mostly inspired by minecraft.
A **Chunk** consists of 16x16x16 blocks. A block(cube) is 1x1x1.
This runs very smoothly with a **ViewRange** of 12 Chunks (12x16) on my computer. Fine.
When I change the Chunk height to 256 this becomes - obviously - incredible laggy.
**So what I basically want to do** is stacking chunks. That means my world could be [∞,16,∞] Chunks large.
**The question is now** how to generate chunks on the fly?
At the moment I generate not existing chunks circular around my position (near to far). Since I don't stack chunks yet, this is not very complex.
As **important side note** here: I also want to have biomes, with different min/max height. So in Biome *Flatlands* the highest layer with blocks would be 8 (8x16) - in Biome *Mountains* the highest layer with blocks would be 14 (14x16). Just as example.
**What I could do** would be loading 1 Chunk above and below me for example.
But here **the problem** would be, that transitions between different bioms could be larger than one chunk on y.
![Transitions between Biomes][1]
My **current chunk loading** in action
![Chunk Loading Example][2]
For the completeness here my current chunk loading "algorithm"
private IEnumerator UpdateChunks(){
for (int i = 1; i < VIEW_RANGE; i += ChunkWidth) {
float vr = i;
for (float x = transform.position.x - vr; x < transform.position.x + vr; x += ChunkWidth) {
for (float z = transform.position.z - vr; z < transform.position.z + vr; z += ChunkWidth) {
_pos.Set(x, 0, z); // no y, yet
_pos.x = Mathf.Floor(_pos.x/ChunkWidth)*ChunkWidth;
_pos.z = Mathf.Floor(_pos.z/ChunkWidth)*ChunkWidth;
Chunk chunk = Chunk.FindChunk(_pos);
// If Chunk is already created, continue
if (chunk != null)
continue;
// Create a new Chunk..
chunk = (Chunk) Instantiate(ChunkFab, _pos, Quaternion.identity);
}
}
// Skip to next frame
yield return 0;
}
}
## Update
Okay here is a picture of a - what I call it - 'layered chunk'. Taken from Minecraft.
What you see here is actually one chunk - in sense of game mechanics. But in sense of logic / programming these are 16 chunks. 1x16x1 chunks.
So the uppermost layer is a noise-generated field (or whatever, a **surface** - to keep it simple) All underlying layers are 'filled' (every block is a material, not air).
Since the image is very large, I've decided to just link to the image.
[IMAGE](http://hydra-media.cursecdn.com/minecraft.gamepedia.com/e/ec/Chunk.png)
[1]: http://i.stack.imgur.com/YSczJ.png
[2]: http://i.stack.imgur.com/1u5km.gif
## Update2:
Well while still thinking about this I came to the following idea, I'll try now:
Load every chunk on x/z viewrange. When the chunk is empty / transpernt (full of air) then I'll go as long as the chunk is empty go one layer down.
I think this should be a way to go. Maybe I'll always load the chunk below the loaded chunk, to avoid falling into a void.
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