Biomes

Biome files in plugins/MythicSeasons/biomes/ set how each biome looks in every season: sky, water, fog, grass and leaf colours, environment attributes and a few climate values.

• Biome files are read at startup, so a change needs a restart. /ms reload only reads their atmosphere section again, while the weather simulation runs.
• The 20 shipped files and CUSTOM_EXAMPLE.yml come back at the next start when they are missing.

How the colours reach players

The plugin never changes a world's biomes. It swaps per-season copies of them into the chunks sent to players, to match the world's season and phase.

• A season picks its colour set with biome-color-index, see Season Options.
• Copies are named <biome-display-name>:<season>_<file name in lowercase>, like mythicseasons:spring_forest, with a number for colour variants (fall_forest0) and _blend0 to _blend3 for phase blends. A custom file uses its first biome instead of the file name: mythicseasons:mypack_fall_rainforest for mypack:rainforest.
• modify-biome-on-client: false in config.yml sends vanilla chunks to everyone, and /toggleseasoncolors to one player. Land claims can switch the effect off in an area or pin another season there. Block replacements and populator blocks follow the same switches.
• A season or phase change sends the chunks around players again, slowly, see Chunk refresh.

Shipped files

• A season counts as recoloured when one of its six colours is not NONE. Files that recolour nothing still apply freeze-in-winter and temperature-difference.
• A biome no file lists keeps its vanilla colours.

Climate and temperature

• The built-in temperature-difference is the value in the shipped files table, except for PALE_GARDEN.yml, which sets -7 over a built-in 0. Custom files get 0.
• In an includes: ALL file each biome gets a value from its vanilla temperature instead: up to 0.1 gives -12, up to 0.3 gives -4, up to 1.0 gives 0, up to 1.4 gives 10, and above that 15.
• The seasonal snow and ice players see come from populators, not from freeze-in-winter.
• water-temperature is not read any more. For colder water in some biomes, add a line with the MythicMobs biome condition to the pack's MS_Wetness skill, see Temperature.
• The atmosphere section only works while the simulation runs, and never for custom biomes listed as namespace:name or reached through includes: ALL, since it matches names without the namespace. See Per-biome offsets.

Colours

Each season has a section under colors (spring, summer, fall, winter). A season whose six colours are all NONE is not recoloured, and its attributes are ignored.

• Write colours as six hex digits (RRGGBB). Quote a colour with a leading #, or the # starts a YAML comment and the value counts as NONE. Quote all-digit colours too, or YAML reads a number. A short FFF is not expanded.
• NONE must be in capitals. A lowercase none fails, and that season of the file is skipped with Could not load <season> in file: <file>.
• NONE keeps the biome's own sky, fog and water colours.

With grasscolor: NONE, a recoloured season still gives the copy the fixed grass colour from this table, not vanilla's climate-based one. In every recoloured season swamps and dark forests lose their special grass shading. The leaf column is only used as the vanilla side of a phase blend.

• CAVES.yml, PALE_GARDEN.yml and custom files keep the original biome's grass colour when it has its own. Where it has none, blends use 91BD59 for grass and leaves.
• With treecolor: NONE the copy keeps the original biome's leaf colour, if it has one. Otherwise the game works the leaves out from the copy's climate, so a hot or cold biome can show other leaf colours than in vanilla.

Colour lists

grasscolor and treecolor take a comma-separated list of two or more colours, scattered over the world in patches.

colors:
  fall:
    grasscolor: BFB755
    treecolor: 'E8962A, E8962A, AEA42A, 6BA941, 60A17B'
    weights: '30, 25, 20, 15, 10'

Fall leaves in five colours, orange most often, and one grass colour everywhere.

• All lists of one season need the same number of colours. A single colour repeats for every entry.
• The patches are rolled again at every start, so a tree can change colour after a restart. Blended phases use the first colour of a list.
• Patches are built for the longest list on the server, at least five colours. weights only work on a list of exactly that length, so use the same length everywhere.
• weights and patchsize apply to every biome on the server, and the last file loaded wins: the shipped group files in the order of the table above, then custom files with an includes list, then includes: ALL files.

Environment attributes

attributes under colors.<season> sets environment attributes of that season's copy, such as cloud height, fog distance or star brightness. They need Minecraft 1.21.11 or newer. Older servers log Environment attributes need Minecraft 1.21.11 or newer; this server version cannot apply: <keys>.

colors:
  winter:
    skycolor: D2DEFF
    attributes:
      fog_end_distance: 512.0
      star_brightness: 0.8
      sky_light_color: C8D0E8

Winter fog closes in at 512 blocks.

• Write a key as its name (cloud_color), its path (visual/cloud_color) or its full id (minecraft:visual/cloud_color). Every attribute of the running Minecraft version works, see the Minecraft Wiki.
• Colours are six hex digits, or eight (AARRGGBB) for attributes with alpha. Other values are written as in a data pack.
• cloud_opacity (0 to 1) is not a Minecraft attribute: it becomes the alpha of a six-digit cloud_color.
• While the volumetric clouds are on (enabled and clouds.enabled in atmosphere.yml, as shipped, on a supported server), cloud_color and cloud_opacity show nothing.
• In the blended phases, colour and number attributes mix with the neighbouring season's values: 55 percent of the neighbour in START and END, 75 percent in EARLY and LATE. Switches take the neighbour's value, and an attribute only one of the two seasons sets keeps that value.

Season transitions

With sub-seasons on, the colours blend with the neighbouring seasons outside MIDDLE, and a change to season-cycle or foliage-transitions needs a restart. See Sub-Seasons.

Custom biome files

Biomes from a world generator or a biome plugin need a custom file: any other .yml file in biomes/, with CUSTOM_EXAMPLE.yml as the template. It takes every key above plus includes, one line of text (not a YAML list):

• ids written as namespace:name, separated by commas (/ms biomelist lists them);
• ALL: every biome whose namespace is neither minecraft nor your biome-display-name;
• NONE: the file is off.

includes: mypack:rainforest
temperature-difference: 8
colors:
  fall:
    treecolor: 'E8962A, E8962A, AEA42A, 6BA941, 60A17B'
  winter:
    skycolor: D2DEFF
    watercolor: 216FC4
    waterfogcolor: 216FC4
    grasscolor: B8D0E1
    treecolor: B8D0E1
    fogcolor: A6D1FF

mypack:rainforest stands for whatever your generator registers. Spring and summer keep the vanilla colours.

• All biomes of a list share the copies of the first one, so the first id must exist on the server. If it does not, every season of the file that sets colours fails with Could not load <season> in file: <file>.
• A biome named in an explicit list is left alone by includes: ALL files, so ALL can set the default and other files the exceptions.
• CUSTOM_EXAMPLE.yml ships with includes: ALL and fall and winter colours, which therefore apply to every custom biome on the server. Set includes: NONE in it to turn it off.

Commands

Console messages

After loading, the console prints Biome files: <n> loaded, <n> skipped.