Creating a Pack from Scratch

This guide will outline the process of creating a new Terra config pack from the beginning. If you haven’t already, please read the Config Development Introduction for more information before continuing.

If you’re stuck or need an example, you can find reference config packs for this guide on the GitHub repo.

If you wish to modify an existing pack rather than creating your own from scratch, please refer to the Modifying an Existing Pack guide instead.

Setting up a New Pack

PROCEDURE

1. Create your config pack directory

Navigate to your packs directory and create a new folder inside, the name of this folder is up to you to decide. The pack directory will contain all your config files.

2. Create a pack manifest

Create a new config file within your pack directory with the file name pack.yml.

Pack manifests define pack-wide information that is required for it to load correctly - such as who made it, what version the pack is, and what dependencies such as addons and Minecraft versions are required for it to function.

3. Set the pack ID and version

Open your pack manifest in your editor of choice.

Within your editor, add the following parameters to your pack manifest:

pack.yml
1id: YOUR_PACK_ID
2
3version: 0.1.0

A parameter can also be thought of as ‘config options’ - for a more complete explanation of how these work you can refer to the Config System page.

You’re free to change these parameters to whatever you’d like, with some restrictions:

  • The pack id must only contain alphanumeric characters (A-Z, 0-9) and dashes or underscores (no spaces).

  • Pack ids conventionally use all uppercase letters, however this is not a strict requirement.

  • The pack version must use the format X.Y.Z, according to the SemVer spec.

Optionally, you can also specify yourself as the author of your pack with the author parameter:

pack.yml
1id: YOUR_PACK_ID
2
3version: 0.1.0
4
5author: YOUR_USERNAME # Optional

Tip

As explained here, the order in which parameters are specified does not matter, so you are free to define each parameter in whatever order you’d like. In addition, extra blank lines between parameters is ignored, the follow examples are all equivalent:

pack.yml
1id: YOUR_PACK_ID
2
3version: 0.1.0
pack.yml
1id: YOUR_PACK_ID
2version: 0.1.0
pack.yml
1version: 0.1.0
2id: YOUR_PACK_ID

4. Specify a config file format

Terra requires you to specify the file format of config files, as outlined on the Config Files page. To do so, we will need to include an addon in our pack manifest that has the functionality to parse config files.

In this guide we will be using YAML for our config files provided by the language-yaml addon. YAML is the standard language used for writing Terra config files. We can include this via the pack manifest addons parameter like so:

pack.yml
1id: YOUR_PACK_ID
2
3version: 0.1.0
4
5addons:
6  language-yaml: 1.+

Addons defined under the addons parameter are specified as key-value pairs where the key specifies the addon name, and the value specifies the required addon version(s).

The string 1.+ means that the pack can use any version of the addon where the major version (the first number) is 1, and the minor version (second number) is 0 or above.

Note

All config files within a config pack must use a file format supported by the language addons specified within the pack manifest. The pack manifest itself differs in that it must use a file format supported by any installed language addons, though it should be written using a format it specifies.

5. Specify the chunk generator

Chunk generators tell Terra how to generate the base blocks of a chunk (before any decoration is applied) and are implemented via addons.

For this guide, we will use the NOISE_3D generator which is implemented by the chunk-generator-noise-3d core addon. We can utilize this by adding chunk-generator-noise-3d to the addons parameter like so:

pack.yml
addons:
  language-yaml: 1.+
  chunk-generator-noise-3d: 1.+

Note

This will be the assumed process you’ll follow when prompted to include an addon!

Now that we have a generator available, we can tell the pack to use it via the generator parameter like so:

pack.yml
1id: YOUR_PACK_ID
2
3version: 0.1.0
4
5addons:
6  language-yaml: 1.+
7  chunk-generator-noise-3d: 1.+
8
9generator: NOISE_3D

The NOISE_3D generator also requires being able to define two more additional things called samplers, and palettes. To be able to define these we can add the following addons to our pack manifest like so:

pack.yml
addons:
  language-yaml: 1.+
  chunk-generator-noise-3d: 1.+
  config-noise-function: 1.+
  palette-block-shortcut: 1.+

6. Create your first biome

1. Add the config-biome addon as a dependency, using versions 1.+. This will allow us to create new biomes via the BIOME config type which is provided by the addon.

2. Create a new config file, this can be named anything but for this guide we will use the name first_biome.yml.

3. With first_biome.yml open in your editor, set the config type via the type parameter, and config id like so:

first_biome.yml
1id: FIRST_BIOME
2
3type: BIOME

4. Set the vanilla parameter to a vanilla biome ID. We will use minecraft:plains in the example but you could use any valid vanilla biome ID you want.

first_biome.yml
1id: FIRST_BIOME
2
3type: BIOME
4
5vanilla: minecraft:plains

Terra uses the vanilla parameter to determine how things like mob spawning and grass color is handled, however this is may differ based on the platform you’re on.

7. Add the generator parameters to your new biome

These parameters will determine how the NOISE_3D generator generates terrain within our biome:

terrain.sampler - Shapes the terrain within the biome.

For now, we will use the following config for terrain.sampler:

first_biome.yml
 1id: FIRST_BIOME
 2
 3type: BIOME
 4
 5vanilla: minecraft:plains
 6
 7terrain:
 8  sampler:
 9    type: LINEAR_HEIGHTMAP
10    base: 64

How exactly this works will be explained in a later guide but just know that this will produce flat terrain at the Y-level specified by the base parameter (for which we will use y=64).

palette - Defines the blocks that make up the terrain in the biome.

The palette parameter accepts a List of singular key-value pairs, where the key represents a palette config and the value is an Integer that determines the upper Y level the palette will apply to until the next lower palette.

For example, with the following config, Palette C would be used for terrain below y10, Palette B would be used between y11 and y30, and terrain above y31 would use Palette A:

palette:
  - Palette A: 319 # From y319 downwards until next palette down (at y30)
  - Palette B: 30  # From y30 downwards until next palette down (at y10)
  - Palette C: 10  # From y10 downwards

The palette-block-shortcut addon allows us to easily define single block palettes using the format BLOCK:<block id>. For our biome config, we will use minecraft:stone, and use 319 to specify that terrain from y319 downwards will consist of minecraft:stone.

first_biome.yml
 1id: FIRST_BIOME
 2
 3type: BIOME
 4
 5vanilla: minecraft:plains
 6
 7terrain:
 8  sampler:
 9    type: LINEAR_HEIGHTMAP
10    base: 64
11
12palette:
13  - BLOCK:minecraft:stone: 319

8. Define a biome provider

For our pack to load, and for FIRST_BIOME to generate, we will need to define a biome provider. Biome providers tell Terra how to place biomes in a world.

We can define a provider under the biomes parameter, but first we will need to add a provider to our pack for use. For this guide, we will be using the SINGLE biome provider, which will require adding the biome-provider-single core addon (versions 1.+).

After you have added biome-provider-single, you can add the biomes parameter to your pack manifest like so:

pack.yml
 1id: YOUR_PACK_ID
 2
 3version: 0.1.0
 4
 5addons:
 6  language-yaml: 1.+
 7  chunk-generator-noise-3d: 1.+
 8  config-noise-function: 1.+
 9  palette-block-shortcut: 1.+
10  config-biome: 1.+
11  biome-provider-single: 1.+
12
13generator: NOISE_3D
14
15biomes:
16  type: SINGLE
17  biome: FIRST_BIOME

You can see that the biome parameter of the SINGLE provider is set to the id defined in your first biome config. This will make FIRST_BIOME generate everywhere in worlds using your pack.

9. Load up your pack

At this stage, your pack should now be capable of generating a world! You can load up your pack by starting your development client / server which contains the pack you have just defined. You can confirm that your pack has loaded if the pack id (as specified in the pack manifest) appears when using the /packs command, or in your console when starting the server / client up.

If for whatever reason your pack does not load, an error message will show up in console explaining why the pack has failed to load, please read through any of these errors and try to interpret what you may have done wrong, and follow through the previous steps again carefully.

If you still are unable to load the pack, feel free to contact us with any relevant errors.

Conclusion

Once you have verified your pack has loaded correctly, you can now generate a world with your new pack!

Reference configurations for this introduction can be found on GitHub here.