For example, how does an infinitely randomized world like Minecraft manage to generate me an identical world to my friend with just a handful of numbers that they send me?
In: Technology
Imagine your computer contains a giant list of random numbers from 0 to 1. Something like
0.287556474
0.784672058
0.045789234
0.572198849
0.519884387
And it goes on for millions of numbers. This list is static and the same for every copy of Minecraft.
When Minecraft is generating a world, it goes (this is an invented super-simple version):
* Check the first number – multiply it by 200 – that’s the size of our first biome
* Check the second number – multiply it by 20, and set the biome based on 1=Desert, 2=Forest, 3=Field, etc
* Check the next 1500 numbers, use those for altitudes within the biome
* etc etc etc
And it goes through this process for many many steps until a world is generated.
What the seed tells you is which number, in that massive list, is the “first number.” So if your seed is 1000000, then you start with the 1000000th number, and that number picks your first biome as per the steps above. Then the 1000001st number picks the type, and we continue through the list of instructions.
So if two players input the same seed, they will use the exact same numbers to generate a world and will wind up with the same world.
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