Welcome to the Jungle

So now that I've got the basics of the editor under my belt I decided it was time to try and solve one of the first design problems of the mapping. A lot of the overworld is covered in trees; therefore I had to find a way to recreate these levels in the game. The first attempt was in creating my own trees using the tree trunk and leaf blocks. This approach had two problems. The first being the tree looking very "artificial". I created a 2x2 tree trunk and manually added leaves. The following is the result and looks very um... un-tree like.

This um... just won't do.

Not only is the tree ugly as sin, but after loading it up in game the leaves start falling off into saplings. As you are most likely aware, if you chop down a tree in game the leaves will eventually start to fall off and disappear. Apparently there is some sort of attachment relationship that happens when a tree goes naturally in the game vs making one manually. So with this idea quickly scrapped it's up to the next best thing. We will create a tree farm and let them grow naturally. Easy enough let's create the pattern in the zone beside the spawn and see what occurs.

This should look familiar

After letting the game run for a nice 8 hours while I go to work I come home to the following.

Success!

Welcome to the Jungle

I would say this is mostly a success. However, there are still a few minor issues that need to be worked out. For one, it seems like it is difficult to grow saplings directly next to each other and have them grow into trees. I never got a solid 4x4 block tree. The largest one I managed to get was a 2x1 tree. The first problem is that growing the trees this way I can't exactly replicate the overworld map. However, I think that this should work out fine in the end. The 4x4 block trees look a little bulky and I like the look of the 1x1 block growing into a tree much more. The other problem is the fact that the southern border of the map has an area that is blocked off by trees, and these do not create a solid wall to contain the player in. This can be remedied by manually adding in tree trunk blocks to fill in the gaps and create a proper wall. Another minor issue is sometimes the leaves would be a bit aggressive and actually block your path; this can be fixed with some simple pruning. Overall I'm happy with the results and it's time to keep chugging along on the overworld.

Things are looking good so far!