WorldGen w/ y-Offset Chunks

[rose chasm]

I just stumbled upon this idea from a 15yo MC suggestions thread on reddit, and I think it would be cool to see a mod of this, could achieve the extreme terrain of some other big terrain mods whilst maintaining performance, even if only as a tech demo, this'd be cool.

[near compass]

oh I would SO play this omg

I'mma give it a go

[near compass]

wait do you mean that the coordinate system changes from chunk to chunk?

oh that's interesting

that might be beyond my skill level tbh

[toxic hill]

this sounds like a bitch to implement

[rose chasm]

yeah, there are a number of technical challenges, and thinking about it, compatibility would be a nightmare

[near compass]

It would be siiiiick tho

[toxic hill]

there’s a million things that would be sick but are way more trouble than they’re worth

[near compass]

!!ivegotagreatidea

[red wren]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/507304429255393324/749723696012197888/VennDiagram.png

[near compass]

yeah....

[rose chasm]

I'm already in the midst of being one of those, I can't do this for another project too XD

[pallid condor]

no reason to do this instead of just increasing the height limit

which is something you can do in vanilla

[rose chasm]

performance

[pallid condor]

marginally at best

you'll need so much custom logic for inter-chunk behaviour

like when a piston pushes a block over a chunk border, suddenly it also needs to move up/down some number of blocks

and, like, pathfinding would be so cursed

and a million other things

[near compass]

How hard would it be to have parallel chunks running?

"real" chunks that process the data normally and then "rendered" chunks that are offset

[pallid condor]

wdym

[toxic hill]

the problem is it's not just rendering

[near compass]

I know that I'm just using that as a simplified term

It's rendering and position mainly i'd say

[toxic hill]

like, if there's an offset of 20 blocks between chunk a and chunk b, when you cross between them, you need to not take 20 blocks of damage

[near compass]

@mild basalt would you have the skill to do this?

(you're literally the most talanted dev I know)

[mild basalt]

this sounds theoretically plausable but I don't think its worth implementing it because of the practicle challenges it might impose, imagine building an underground bunker and you're just walled off by a bunch of bedrock.

even moreso, if you build a redstone flying machine on top of a mountain, and it flies over an ocean, it would techincally be above the build limit, so what would it do?

[near compass]

I was thinking more along the lines of each chunk having normal coordinates but being visually offset

So going from one to another chunk at a certain y-level will stay at the same y-level in the backend for the new chunk but will VISUALLY move whatever the offset distance is

[mild basalt]

I don't get the vision

[near compass]

I feel like the only way to show it is visually but I have no skill animating or drawing

😭

[mild basalt]

do your best

[near compass]

This mod idea explores a world-generation and rendering experiment where each chunk is spatially offset from its neighbors by a random amount — for example, up to ±10–15 blocks vertically and horizontally. The goal is to create a visually distorted landscape where chunks don’t line up perfectly, forming natural-looking mountains, valleys, and rifts without actually modifying terrain data.

Each chunk maintains its own local coordinate space, but entities, players, and rendering all still exist within a shared global coordinate system. This means physics, movement, and interactions like pistons or redstone carry through normally — a piston extending from one chunk into another at Y=50 will continue into Y=50 globally, even if that chunk visually appears offset (say, at Y=30). The effect is purely visual/spatial, not logical: world mechanics remain intact, but the rendering and entity positions are transformed per-chunk.

The result would be a surreal, warped world where players can traverse uneven, disjointed terrain — climbing, falling, or bridging between chunks that are visually displaced. The technical challenge lies in adjusting rendering matrices, entity transforms, and potentially pathfinding, without breaking block or entity interactions across chunk borders.

I used chatgpt

don't kill me please

[mild basalt]

so half the flying machine would appear 10 blocks higher...

[near compass]

Yes

or lower

or whatever the offset is

same for pistons, redstone, etc

[mild basalt]

oh god that's awful

what would bridging look like

or traveling between a barrier

[toxic hill]

The problem here is that chatgpt has not represented your idea well

[near compass]

At least that doesn't come as a surprise

[near compass]

funnies

[toxic hill]

i think if you explained it yourself, it would sound better

[faint rock]

Wow, that sounds terrible. You'd just have random visual discontinuities everywhere; if the terrain sloped smoothly, you'd walk across a chunk border and find yourself falling from the sky--or suffocating 10 blocks underground, depending which way you're walking!

[near compass]

No you go thru the visual border so you can go from y=40 to y=55 or whatever the offset is

[agile lake]

yeah rendering

coordinates

[near compass]

Only pistons etc go thru with an offset

[agile lake]

it would be so messed up with this

easier than cubic chunks but still a mess

[faint rock]

That would still be hideous and terrible, just so you know.

[near compass]

Yes isn't that kind of the point?

[agile lake]

I still have dreams about a stripe lands mod

a mod that turns java into bedrock

but in a terrible way

[near compass]

Ooooo

That sounds cursed

[agile lake]

on 1.12.2 it's interesting

so 1.7 and below give you the bedrock style stripelands

they have hardcoded models

but 1.8+ compiles models first then renders them

so in 1.8 and beyond you get complete models but bad placement

like this

in 1.14+ stripelands crash the game

but a mod that fakes them would be fun

[near compass]

Oh aren't you the guy who extended the wbor to int limit?

[agile lake]

not really

you're likely thinking of thistestuser or zero