Welcome to our new series focusing on the customization and modding capabilities of Orbis, the Hytale world. In this series, we will discuss different aspects of Orbis that are subject to customization and modding.

Disclaimer: This is not an official Hytale blog post but an attempt to give you more details about the customization capabilities of Hytale. Most information you'll see here have already be confirmed, or are very likely to be true. You'll also find a bit of technical explanation about procedural generation, a concept that we already know Hytale will use. Finally, at the end, you'll find a bit of speculation.

This series starts with a very broad subject: the world generation. In a previous article, we summarized the main known aspects about Orbis and its generation process. This time we will of course cover the same topic but from a completely different angle: that of modding and customization.

Are you wondering how far the customization possibilities of Orbis will go? What tools will be made available, what technologies will be used and what will be the limits of these methods? These are all questions that we will try to answer in this article.

The Orbis world is divided into multiple zones

Here is the summary:

Adding additional blocks

Adding and editing Prefabs

Adding new biomes and zones

Control of the Orbis world layout

We will therefore start with the block, the basic construction unit in Hytale, and then we will gradually zoom out, approaching prefab, biomes and zones, until we get to the arrangement of the world as a whole.

Aspect #1 : Adding additional blocks

Let's start with the obvious: adding new blocks to Hytale.

As strange as it sounds, unless you mod the client, it's impossible to add more blocks in Minecraft! Beware though, let's avoid confusion : You may have noticed that many Minecraft servers have their own blocks, including Hypixel. But it's not an addition of blocks per se (since it's impossible without modding the client!): the server rather makes you download its own resource pack that will allow it to replace the texture of blocks it doesn't use by other textures, giving the illusion of bringing new blocks into the game.

Unlike Minecraft, Hytale will be able to download not juste textures but new block definitions when connecting to servers

This technique works well, but it has a major drawback: You are limited to the number of blocks initially present in the game. It is therefore impossible to have more blocks on your server than in the basic game.

On a mini-game server, like HyPixel, this is a non-issue because generally, a mini-game takes place on a small map, using a limited number of blocks. On the other hand, on a roleplay server, with an open world, it is reasonable to want to keep all the blocks of the basic game while adding extra blocks in order, for example, to offer new building materials.

That's exactly what Hytale will offer!

This means that you'll actually be able to add new blocks to the game. By "block", we are not limited to cube-shaped blocks: it is plausible that you will also be able to add new types of stairs, columns, pillars, roofs, but also furniture: chairs, tables, decorative objects...

Blocks are not limited to cubes, but can take any shape : doors, columns, skulls, candle, table, chairs, …

Thus each additional block should have a model (i.e. its basic shape), as well as an associated texture.

Aspect #2: Adding and editing Prefabs

From the plain block, moving on to the prefab!

A prefab (or "prefabricated" ) is simply a structure ready to be placed in a world, at generation time. In Hytale, a lot of decorative elements are prefabs: trees, rocks, ramparts, ruins, houses... And there will be a lot of them (more than 7000 prefabs have been made so far), to guarantee you an environment as diverse as possible.

From January 2019 to March 2020, the game went from 3800 integrated prefabs to over 7000. Here are some tree prefabs.

Most importantly, Hytale will allow you to create your own prefabs, and add them to the world generator. Here are some concrete examples of what it should be possible to do:

Adding new tree models in Orbis

Change the appearance of ruins and some dungeon elements

Remove decorations you don’t like

Dungeon portals are another type of prefab

However, at this stage we are not talking about structural customization yet. For example, we know that dungeons are not prefab, but are instead generated by an algorithm using a method called "procedural generation". We will come back to this later.

Aspect #3 : Adding new biomes and zones

Orbis' customization possibilities are not limited to prefabs: you can go much further, including adding new biomes and zones!

By the way, do you know the difference between a zone and a biome in Hytale?

It's simple: Zones are the main division of the Orbis world. There will be 6 different zones in Orbis. But when you look closer, each zone is subdivided into multiple biomes. For example, in Zone 1 (Emerald Grove), there will be a biome of forest, plains, grassland, coastline, and so on.

Within Zone 1, a wide variety of biomes can be observed

The creation of zones and biomes will not be within everyone's reach because the task is a little more complex. To create a zone, it is not enough to add new blocks and new prefabs, you must also define and fine-tune several variables responsible for the geography of the biome.

Here are a few examples of variables to be adjusted: relief, frequency and size of water points, type of terrain, frequency of caves, forests, but also the creatures that can spawn there... You get the idea, but you have to understand that this was an oversimplified vision of the problem. In reality, all these elements are ruled by complex mathematical equations (allowing to generate noise) and having several parameters. Thus one can imagine that there are 4 or 5 different numerical parameters just to characterize the relief of a biome. This generation will be supported by a set of rules, defining the constraints of your biome.

Example of relief generation using procedural generation

It's all part of a process called "Procedural Generation". It's a technique widely used in video games (including Minecraft, for world generation, or in The Binding of Isaac for level generation) and even in other artistic fields. It's clearly a very complex subject and out of reach for a lot of people. Fortunately, it seems that Hytale's development team is working on simplifying all this, so that it is possible to modify and create your own world generation rules, without a line of code, and only by manipulating configuration files. Yet to be seen how flexible this system will be!

The Binding of Isaac is one of the many games to use procedural generation for the creation of unique levels.

Finally, you should know that the world customization feature is not something exclusive to Hytale. Although unofficial, Minecraft has several mods to enhance or even replace the default map generator. Open Terrain Generator is an example of an alternative, fully customizable, terrain generator for Minecraft capable of offering spectacular results.

Example of a result that can be obtained in Minecraft thanks to Open Terrain Generator

Aspect #4 : Controlling the world layout

Finally, adding new areas also means having to define their arrangement in the world. Yes, think about it: To remain realistic, Orbis probably has rules for positioning biomes and zones. For example, it's inconceivable for an arid desert in Zone 2 to be close to a tundra in Zone 3.

The layout is therefore the way different biomes and zones are juxtaposed with each other, but also their size and frequency of appearance in the world.

Example of a parameter acting on the size of biomes in the context of terrain generation (Open Terrain Generator for Minecraft)

All this is achieved through procedural generation as well, and chances are that the Hytale developers will give us the ability to adjust a few variables responsible for the world layout.

For those who want a less random and more controlled generation, we can also hope that Hytale will offer a map drawing tool, as proposed by Open Terrain Generator for Minecraft.

Indeed, with Open Terrain Generator, you can generate a Minecraft world from a image map that you will have previously drawn yourself.

Example of a drawn map that can be used to generate a world in Open Terrain Generator. Each color corresponds to a biome.

This approach would not only control the biome layout, but would also give total control over the oceans and the shape of both rivers and lakes.

To conclude, customizing the world of Orbis represents a huge technical challenge for Hytale's developers. But it is also a huge opportunity for you, modelers and content creators, to bring your imagination and creativity to bear.

So I'm curious to know how far one can push the Orbis customization slider and whether external tools will be available to help content creators. But even if Hytale’s developers don't offer such tools, maybe, as with Minecraft, players in the community will.

This completes the first part of our "Orbis Customization" series. I hope you enjoyed it! If you've learned anything, don't forget to share this article, it helps us a lot. Join our Discord and follow us on Twitter to keep up to date with the release of new articles. And I'll see you very soon for the next chapter of this series!