NatureGen

NatureGen is a lightweight, JSON-driven ecological world regeneration mod for Minecraft Forge.

Depends on Helix UI!

It restores natural blocks around active players without scanning the entire world, allowing grass, small vegetation, and controlled sapling recovery to happen gradually and safely during gameplay.

NatureGen is designed as a configurable world-recovery system: it does not simply spam plants everywhere. Every regeneration rule is limited by conditions such as biome, ground type, light level, sky visibility, nearby parent blocks, random chance, and local density caps.

Features

World Regeneration

NatureGen performs periodic regeneration passes around active players.

Current default recovery systems include:

Grass block recovery from dirt and coarse dirt
Small grass and fern recovery on valid natural ground
Sapling scattering near existing parent trees
Biome-aware tree recovery
Density-limited sapling placement
Safe sky and light checks
JSON-configurable rules

Controlled Tree Recovery

Tree recovery is intentionally conservative.

Saplings are not placed randomly across the whole world. They require:

A valid biome category
Natural ground
Air above the target block
Visible sky
Enough light
Nearby matching logs or leaves
A low random chance
A max_nearby density limit

This prevents forests from spreading infinitely or filling the world with saplings.

Default tree recovery rules include:

Oak / birch saplings in forest biomes
Spruce saplings in taiga biomes
Jungle saplings in jungle biomes
Acacia saplings in savanna biomes
Oak saplings in swamp biomes

In-Game Overlay Menu

NatureGen includes an in-world configuration overlay.

Press the configured key while already inside a world to open the NatureGen overlay menu.

Default key:

The overlay provides quick access to:

General enable / disable controls
Regeneration pass frequency
Active regeneration rules
Per-rule enable / disable toggles
Chance adjustment
Density limit adjustment
Tree recovery presets
Rule reload tools
Logging status

The keybind can be changed in:

Options → Controls → NatureGen

Regeneration Rule Editor

The in-game overlay lists all active regeneration rules from:

config/takesome/natureregen/generators.json

Each rule can be inspected and edited directly from the overlay.

Supported editable values include:

Enabled / disabled state
Chance value
Density limit for rules using max_nearby

Disabled rules are stored in JSON with:

"enabled": false

JSON-Driven Rules

NatureGen rules are stored as JSON and can be edited manually or through the in-game overlay.

Example rule:

{
  "id": "forest_sapling_scatter",
  "target": {
    "random": [
      "minecraft:oak_sapling",
      "minecraft:birch_sapling"
    ]
  },
  "place": "above_ground",
  "conditions": {
    "biome_category": ["forest"],
    "ground_is": [
      "minecraft:grass_block",
      "minecraft:dirt",
      "minecraft:podzol"
    ],
    "air": true,
    "sky_visible": true,
    "min_light": 9,
    "nearby": {
      "blocks": [
        "minecraft:oak_log",
        "minecraft:birch_log",
        "minecraft:oak_leaves",
        "minecraft:birch_leaves"
      ],
      "radius": 8,
      "vertical_radius": 8
    },
    "max_nearby": {
      "blocks": [
        "minecraft:oak_sapling",
        "minecraft:birch_sapling",
        "minecraft:spruce_sapling",
        "minecraft:jungle_sapling",
        "minecraft:acacia_sapling"
      ],
      "radius": 12,
      "vertical_radius": 2,
      "max": 3
    },
    "chance": 0.018
  }
}

Supported Rule Conditions

NatureGen currently supports:

chance
ground_is
block_below
air
air_above
min_light
sky_visible
nearby
max_nearby
density_limit
biome
types
biome_category
biome_categories

Commands

NatureGen also includes command-based control:

/naturegen status
/naturegen reload
/natureregen status
/natureregen reload

Use /naturegen reload after manually editing the JSON rule file.

Configuration Files

Main server config:

config/naturegen-server.toml

Regeneration rules:

config/takesome/natureregen/generators.json

Dependency

NatureGen depends on the Helix UI library.

Helix UI is required for the in-game overlay menu, mod configuration interface, visual controls, and FontAwesome-style UI icons.

Required dependency:

Helix UI

Make sure Helix UI is installed together with NatureGen. Yes, that's the only one mod using that library, but later there'll be more :3

Design Goals

NatureGen is built around several core principles:

Regenerate the world gradually
Avoid aggressive world spam
Keep all regeneration data-driven
Make recovery rules understandable and editable
Provide safe defaults
Support in-game tuning without restarting the world
Preserve natural Minecraft-style progression
Test Helix UI on real mods ;)

Performance

NatureGen does not scan the entire world.

Instead, it samples a limited number of positions around active players at a configurable interval. This keeps the system lightweight and prevents unnecessary chunk-wide processing.

Default behavior is tuned to be conservative and safe for normal gameplay.

Recommended Use

NatureGen is useful for:

Survival worlds
Long-running servers
Post-destruction recovery
Nature restoration systems
Modpacks with ecology or survival themes
Worlds where players want gradual environmental healing

Current Limitations

Dark oak recovery is not enabled by default because natural dark oak growth requires a 2x2 sapling formation.
Some biome type support is currently mapped through vanilla biome categories.
Advanced worldgen-style systems are intentionally out of scope; NatureGen focuses on runtime ecological recovery.

Summary

NatureGen adds controlled, configurable, and safe world regeneration to Minecraft.

It helps the world recover naturally over time without overwhelming the landscape, while giving players and modpack authors full control through JSON rules and an in-game Helix UI overlay.

In future versions support with Dynamic Trees may be added