Seams Fixed 2.0

Smooth climate zone transitions an biomes for EarthLike and Alien

TL;DR

This mod used to fix several issues with the planet data files:

• Misaligned height maps
• Misaligned lakes
• Biome map not seamless
• Latitude based climate zones causing horizontal lines on ground textures
• An entire mountain missing on Triton

The "Economy 2" update (v1.209) fixed the height map and lake issues. My original support ticket was solved: https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers/pc/topic/28675-please-consider-fixing-the-planet-height-maps

This mod now only changes the climate zone transitions and biomes for the Alien and EarthLike planets.

Log messages about missing sky textures can be safely ignored. Those will still be loaded from the game installation folder.

Mod Editions

Better Stone Edition of this mod: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3208490885 Industrial Overhaul Edition of this mod: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3227772832

Notes

Due to changing the biome map, the trees will be in different positions. This might lead to issues with existing saves. For example trees might spawn in buildings. I made sure that the Easy Start locations and the Lost Colony scenario don't have these issues.

I'm keeping the GPS list of the glitched lakes archived here in case you want to check other mods that might still use the unpatched material maps:

GPS:Glitch Lake Bottom Left:35070.06:47237.83:-19203.93:#FF75C9F1: GPS:Glitch Lake Left Middle:40819.51:45767.68:-3585.16:#FF75C9F1: GPS:Glitch Lake Middle Right:-37409.74:47180.62:11498.52:#FF75C9F1: GPS:Glitch Lake Right Bottom 1:-41624.53:41625.29:-16999.07:#FF75C9F1: GPS:Glitch Lake Right Bottom 2:-31830.91:41751.28:-31546.33:#FF75C9F1: GPS:Glitch Lake Top Left:32358.57:42274.08:30280.47:#FF75C9F1: GPS:Glitch Lake Top Right:-34184.43:40847.61:31221.33:#FF75C9F1: In addition one of the lakes in the desert zone was partially overridden by sand. Looks like that one also got fixed by the Economy 2 update.

Seamless Climate Zones

Vanilla climate zones are based on latitude causing horizontal lines on the planets, especially when viewed from space. Had to draw new climate zones by hand and rewrite the climate zone definitions in the SBC file. Added one additional sand area in the desert.

Seamless Biomes

Vanilla biomes use a repeating noise map that has tiling issues. The desert biomes did not take cube map distortions into account. Programmed a tool that calculated a seamless noise map for biomes which preserved the distribution of the vanilla noise map.

What Files were changed?

This mod replaces the material map pngs in the EarthLike and Alien subfolder (up_mat.png, ...) of the planet data files. These files contain the lake/material definitions, biome definitions and ore definitions. I also had to add a long section of material definitions to the PlanetGeneratorDefinitions.sbc file to define the new climate zones.

Mod Compatibility

This mod is not compatible with other mods that change the planet data files in the Data\PlanetDataFiles directory. These are for example mods that change the ore distribution.

Mods confirmed to work with this mod:

• Smooth Voxels
• Not so smooth Voxels

Mods confirmed to NOT work with this mod:

• Industrial Overhaul (changes ore map)
• Better Stone (changes ore definition)

Better Stone Edition

The old version of this mod will work with Better Stone. This is not the case for version 2.0 because I had to rewrite the planet generator definition file which also contains the ore definitions. Since I like Better Stone very much, I made a Better Stone edition. It can be found here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3208490885

Tools

The tools I wrote to create this mod and identify issues in the planet files are available on my GitHub: https://github.com/michi84o/SpaceEngineersTools This also contains the HeightMapEdgeFixer that could be used to fix height maps of other mods.

Re-Upload Policy

Feel free to use my mod files in your own mods however you like. If you do so it might be good to mention that my mod is already included and does not have to be added separately.