The Configuration File

Using a configuration file is now the preferred way of running The Overviewer. You will need to create a blank file and specify it when running The Overviewer like this:

overviewer.py --config=path/to/my_configfile

The config file is formatted in Python syntax. If you aren’t familiar with Python, don’t worry, it’s pretty simple. Just follow the examples.

Note

You should always use forward slashes (/), even on Windows. This is required because the backslash (\) has special meaning in Python.

Examples

The following examples should give you an idea of what a configuration file looks like, and also teach you some neat tricks.

A Simple Example

worlds["My world"] = "/home/username/server/world"

renders["normalrender"] = {
    "world": "My world",
    "title": "Normal Render of My World",
}

outputdir = "/home/username/mcmap"

This defines a single world, and a single render of that world. You can see there are two main sections.

The worlds dictionary
Define items in the worlds dictionary as shown to tell The Overviewer where to find your worlds. The keys to this dictionary (“My world” in the example) is a name you give, and is referenced later in the render dictionary. If you want to render more than one world, you would put more lines like this one. Otherwise, one is sufficient.
The renders dictionary

Each item here declares a “render” which is a map of one dimension of one world rendered with the given options. If you declare more than one render, then you will get a dropdown box to choose which map you want to look at when viewing the maps.

You are free to declare as many renders as you want with whatever options you want. For example, you are allowed to render multiple worlds, or even render the same world multiple times with different options.

Note

Since this is Python syntax, keep in mind you need to put quotation marks around your strings. worlds[My world] will not work. It must be worlds["My world"]

A more complicated example

worlds["survival"] = "/home/username/server/survivalworld"
worlds["creative"] = "/home/username/server/creativeworld"

renders["survivalday"] = {
    "world": "survival",
    "title": "Survival Daytime",
    "rendermode": smooth_lighting,
    "dimension": "overworld",
}

renders["survivalnight"] = {
    "world": "survival",
    "title": "Survival Nighttime",
    "rendermode": smooth_night,
    "dimension": "overworld",
}

renders["survivalnether"] = {
    "world": "survival",
    "title": "Survival Nether",
    "rendermode": nether_smooth_lighting,
    "dimension": "nether",
}

renders["survivalnethersouth"] = {
    "world": "survival",
    "title": "Survival Nether",
    "rendermode": nether_smooth_lighting,
    "dimension": "nether",
    "northdirection" : "lower-right",
}

renders["creative"] = {
    "world": "creative",
    "title": "Creative",
    "rendermode": smooth_lighting,
    "dimension": "overworld",
}

outputdir = "/home/username/mcmap"
texturepath = "/home/username/my_texture_pack.zip"

This config defines four maps for render. Two of them are of the survival world’s overworld, one is for the survival’s nether, and one is for the creative world.

Notice here we explicitly set the dimension property on each render. If dimension is not specified, the default or overworld dimension is used. It is necessary e.g. for the nether render.

Also note here we specify some different rendermodes. A rendermode refers to how the map is rendered. The Overviewer can render a map in many different ways, and there are many preset rendermodes, and you can even create your own (more on that later).

And finally, note the usage of the texturepath option. This specifies a texture pack (also called a resource pack) to use for the rendering. Also note that it is set at the top level of the config file, and therefore applies to every render. It could be set on individual renders to apply to just those renders.

Note

See the sample_config.py file included in the repository for another example.

A dynamic config file

It might be handy to dynamically retrieve parameters. For instance, if you periodically render your last map backup which is located in a timestamped directory, it is not convenient to edit the config file each time to fit the new directory name.

Using environment variables, you can easily retrieve a parameter which has been set by, for instance, your map backup script. In this example, Overviewer is called from a bash script, but it can be done from other shell scripts and languages.

#!/bin/bash

## Add these lines to your bash script

# Setting up an environment variable that child processes will inherit.
# In this example, the map's path is not static and depends on the
# previously set $timestamp var.
MYWORLD_DIR=/path/to/map/backup/$timestamp/YourWorld
export MYWORLD_DIR

# Running the Overviewer
overviewer.py --config=/path/to/yourConfig.py

Note

The environment variable will only be local to the process and its child processes. The Overviewer, when run by the script, will be able to access the variable since it becomes a child process.

## A config file example

# Importing the os python module
import os

# Retrieving the environment variable set up by the bash script
worlds["My world"] = os.environ['MYWORLD_DIR']

renders["normalrender"] = {
    "world": "My world",
    "title": "Normal Render of My World",
}

outputdir = "/home/username/mcmap"

Config File Specifications

The config file is a python file and is parsed with python’s execfile() builtin. This means you can put arbitrary logic in this file. The Overviewer gives the execution of the file a local dict with a few pre-defined items (everything in the overviewer_core.rendermodes module).

If the above doesn’t make sense, just know that items in the config file take the form key = value. Two items take a different form:, worlds and renders, which are described below.

General

worlds

This is pre-defined as an empty dictionary. The config file is expected to add at least one item to it.

Keys are arbitrary strings used to identify the worlds in the renders dictionary.

Values are paths to worlds (directories with a level.dat)

e.g.:

worlds['myworld'] = "/path/to/myworld"

You must specify at least one world

Reminder: Always use forward slashes (“/”), even on Windows.

renders

This is also pre-defined as an empty dictionary. The config file is expected to add at least one item to it. By default, it is an ordered dictionary; the order you add entries to it will determine the default render in the output map and the order the buttons appear in the map UI.

Keys are strings that are used as the identifier for this render in the javascript, and also as the directory name for the tiles, but it’s essentially up to you. It thus is recommended to make it a string with no spaces or special characters, only alphanumeric characters.

Values are dictionaries specifying the configuration for the render. Each of these render dictionaries maps strings naming configuration options to their values. Valid keys and their values are listed in the Render Dictionary Keys section.

e.g.:

renders['myrender'] = {
        'world': 'myworld',
        'title': 'Minecraft Server Title',
        }

You must specify at least one render

outputdir = "<output directory path>"

This is the path to the output directory where the rendered tiles will be saved.

e.g.:

outputdir = "/path/to/output"

Reminder: Always use forward slashes (“/”), even on Windows.

Required

processes = num_procs

This specifies the number of worker processes to spawn on the local machine to do work. It defaults to the number of CPU cores you have, if not specified.

This can also be specified with --processes

e.g.:

processes = 2

Observers

observer = <observer object>

This lets you configure how the progress of the render is reported. The default is to display a progress bar, unless run on Windows or with stderr redirected to a file. The default value will probably be fine for most people, but advanced users may want to make their own progress reporter (for a web service or something like that) or you may want to force a particular observer to be used. The observer object is expected to have at least start, add, update, and finish methods.

If you want to specify an observer manually, try something like:

from .observer import ProgressBarObserver
observer = ProgressBarObserver()

There are currently three observers available: LoggingObserver, ProgressBarObserver and JSObserver.

LoggingObserver
This gives the normal/older style output and is the default when output is redirected to a file or when running on Windows
ProgressBarObserver
This is used by default when the output is a terminal. Displays a text based progress bar and some statistics.
JSObserver(outputdir[, minrefresh][, messages])

This will display render progress on the output map in the bottom right corner of the screen. JSObserver.

Note

JSObserver does not work on locally opened maps, but requires a running HTTP server.

  • outputdir="<output directory path"

    Path to overviewer output directory. For simplicity, specify this as outputdir=outputdir and place this line after setting outputdir = "<output directory path>".

    Required

  • minrefresh=<seconds>

    Progress information won’t be written to file or requested by your web browser more frequently than this interval.

  • messages=dict(totalTiles=<string>, renderCompleted=<string>, renderProgress=<string>)

    Customises messages displayed in browser. All three messages must be defined similar to the following:

    • totalTiles="Rendering %d tiles" The %d format string will be replaced with the total number of tiles to be rendered.
    • renderCompleted="Render completed in %02d:%02d:%02d" The three format strings will be replaced with the number of hours. minutes and seconds taken to complete this render.
    • renderProgress="Rendered %d of %d tiles (%d%% ETA:%s)"" The four format strings will be replaced with the number of tiles completed, the total number of tiles, the percentage complete, and the ETA.

    Format strings are explained here: http://docs.python.org/library/stdtypes.html#string-formatting All format strings must be present in your custom messages.

from .observer import JSObserver
observer = JSObserver(outputdir, 10)
MultiplexingObserver(Observer[, Observer[, Observer ...]])

This observer will send the progress information to all Observers passed to it.

  • All Observers passed must implement the full Observer interface.
## An example that updates both a LoggingObserver and a JSObserver
# Import the Observers
from .observer import MultiplexingObserver, LoggingObserver, JSObserver

# Construct the LoggingObserver
loggingObserver = LoggingObserver()

# Construct a basic JSObserver
jsObserver = JSObserver(outputdir) # This assumes you have set the outputdir previous to this line

# Set the observer to a MultiplexingObserver
observer = MultiplexingObserver(loggingObserver, jsObserver)
ServerAnnounceObserver(target, pct_interval)

This Observer will send its progress and status to a Minecraft server via target with a Minecraft say command.

  • target=<file handle to write to>

    Either a FIFO file or stdin. Progress and status messages will be written to this handle.

    Required

  • pct_interval=<update rate, in percent>

    Progress and status messages will not be written more often than this value. E.g., a value of 1 will make the ServerAnnounceObserver write to its target once for every 1% of progress.

    Required

RConObserver(target, password[, port][, pct_interval])

This Observer will announce render progress with the server’s say command through RCon.

  • target=<address>

    Address of the target Minecraft server.

    Required

  • password=<rcon password>

    The server’s rcon password.

    Required

  • port=<port number>

    Port on which the Minecraft server listens for incoming RCon connections.

    Default: 25575

  • pct_interval=<update rate, in percent>

    Percentage interval in which the progress should be announced, the same as for ServerAnnounceObserver.

    Default: 10

Custom web assets

customwebassets = "<path to custom web assets>"

This option allows you to specify a directory containing custom web assets to be copied to the output directory. Any files in the custom web assets directory overwrite the default files.

If you are providing a custom index.html, the following strings will be replaced:

  • {title} Will be replaced by ‘Minecraft Overviewer’
  • {time} Will be replaced by the current date and time when the world is rendered e.g. ‘Sun, 12 Aug 2012 15:25:40 BST’
  • {version} Will be replaced by the version of Overviewer used e.g. ‘0.9.276 (5ff9c50)’

Render Dictionary Keys

The render dictionary is a dictionary mapping configuration key strings to values. The valid configuration keys are listed below.

Note

Any of these items can be specified at the top level of the config file to set the default for every render. For example, this line at the top of the config file will set the world for every render to ‘myworld’ if no world is specified:

world = 'myworld'

Then you don’t need to specify a world key in the render dictionaries:

renders['arender'] = {
        'title': 'This render doesn't explicitly declare a world!',
        }

General

world

Specifies which world this render corresponds to. Its value should be a string from the appropriate key in the worlds dictionary.

Required

title

This is the display name used in the user interface. Set this to whatever you want to see displayed in the Map Type control (the buttons in the upper- right).

Required

dimension

Specified which dimension of the world should be rendered. Each Minecraft world has by default 3 dimensions: The Overworld, The Nether, and The End. Bukkit servers are a bit more complicated, typically worlds only have a single dimension, in which case you can leave this option off.

The value should be a string. It should either be one of “overworld”, “nether”, “end”, or the directory name of the dimension within the world. e.g. “DIM-1”

Note

If you choose to render your nether dimension, you must also use a nether rendermode. Otherwise you’ll just end up rendering the nether’s ceiling.

Note

For the end, you will most likely want to turn down the strength of the shadows, as you’d otherwise end up with a very dark result.

e.g.:

end_lighting = [Base(), EdgeLines(), Lighting(strength=0.5)]
end_smooth_lighting = [Base(), EdgeLines(), SmoothLighting(strength=0.5)]

Default: "overworld"

Rendering

rendermode

This is which rendermode to use for this render. There are many rendermodes to choose from. This can either be a rendermode object, or a string, in which case the rendermode object by that name is used.

e.g.:

"rendermode": "normal",

Here are the rendermodes and what they do:

"normal"
A normal render with no lighting. This is the fastest option.
"lighting"
A render with per-block lighting, which looks similar to Minecraft without smooth lighting turned on. This is slightly slower than the normal mode.
"smooth_lighting"

A render with smooth lighting, which looks similar to Minecraft with smooth lighting turned on.

This option looks the best but is also the slowest.

"night"
A “nighttime” render with blocky lighting.
"smooth_night"
A “nighttime” render with smooth lighting
"nether"

A normal lighting render of the nether. You can apply this to any render, not just nether dimensions. The only difference between this and normal is that the ceiling is stripped off, so you can actually see inside.

Note

Selecting this rendermode doesn’t automatically render your nether dimension. Be sure to also set the dimension option to ‘nether’.

"nether_lighting"
Similar to “nether” but with blocky lighting.
"nether_smooth_lighting"
Similar to “nether” but with smooth lighting.
"cave"
A cave render with depth tinting (blocks are tinted with a color dependent on their depth, so it’s easier to tell overlapping caves apart)

Default: "normal"

Note

The value for the ‘rendermode’ key can be either a string or rendermode object (strings simply name one of the built-in rendermode objects). The actual object type is a list of rendermode primitive objects. See Custom Rendermodes and Rendermode Primitives for more information.

northdirection

This is direction or viewpoint angle with which north will be rendered. This north direction will match the established north direction in the game where the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.

Here are the valid north directions:

  • "upper-left"
  • "upper-right"
  • "lower-left"
  • "lower-right"

Default: "upper-left"

overlay

This specifies which renders that this render will be displayed on top of. It should be a list of other renders. If this option is confusing, think of this option’s name as “overlay_on_to”.

If you leave this as an empty list, this overlay will be displayed on top of all renders for the same world/dimension as this one.

As an example, let’s assume you have two renders, one called “day” and one called “night”. You want to create a Biome Overlay to be displayed on top of the “day” render. Your config file might look like this:

Note

When ‘overlay’ is used the imgformat must be set to a transparent image format like "png". Otherwise the overlay is rendered without transparency and the render underneath will not show.

outputdir = "output_dir"


worlds["exmaple"] = "exmaple"

renders['day'] = {
    'world': 'exmaple',
    'rendermode': 'smooth_lighting',
    'title': "Daytime Render",
}
renders['night'] = {
    'world': 'exmaple',
    'rendermode': 'night',
    'title': "Night Render",
}

renders['biomeover'] = {
    'world': 'exmaple',
    'rendermode': [ClearBase(), BiomeOverlay()],
    'title': "Biome Coloring Overlay",
    'overlay': ['day']
}

Default: [] (an empty list)

texturepath

This is a where a specific texture or resource pack can be found to use during this render. It can be a path to either a folder or a zip/jar file containing the texture resources. If specifying a folder, this option should point to a directory that contains the assets/ directory (it should not point to the assets directory directly or any one particular texture image).

Its value should be a string: the path on the filesystem to the resource pack.

crop

You can use this to render one or more small subsets of your map. The format of an individual crop zone is (min x, min z, max x, max z); if you wish to specify multiple crop zones, you may do so by specifying a list of crop zones, i.e. [(min x1, min z1, max x1, max z1), (min x2, min z2, max x2, max z2)]

The coordinates are block coordinates. The same you get with the debug menu in-game and the coordinates shown when you view a map.

Example that only renders a 1000 by 1000 square of land about the origin:

renders['myrender'] = {
        'world': 'myworld',
        'title': "Cropped Example",
        'crop': (-500, -500, 500, 500),
}

Example that renders two 500 by 500 squares of land:

renders['myrender'] = {
        'world': 'myworld',
        'title': "Multi cropped Example",
        'crop': [(-500, -500, 0, 0), (0, 0, 500, 500)]
}

This option performs a similar function to the old --regionlist option (which no longer exists). It is useful for example if someone has wandered really far off and made your map too large. You can set the crop for the largest map you want to render (perhaps (-10000,-10000,10000,10000)). It could also be used to define a really small render showing off one particular feature, perhaps from multiple angles.

Warning

If you decide to change the bounds on a render, you may find it produces unexpected results. It is recommended to not change the crop settings once it has been rendered once.

For an expansion to the bounds, because chunks in the new bounds have the same mtime as the old, tiles will not automatically be updated, leaving strange artifacts along the old border. You may need to use --forcerender to force those tiles to update. (You can use the forcerender option on just one render by adding 'forcerender': True to that render’s configuration)

For reductions to the bounds, you will need to render your map at least once with the --check-tiles mode activated, and then once with the --forcerender option. The first run will go and delete tiles that should no longer exist, while the second will render the tiles around the edge properly. Also see this faq entry.

Sorry there’s no better way to handle these cases at the moment. It’s a tricky problem and nobody has devoted the effort to solve it yet.

Image options

imgformat

This is which image format to render the tiles into. Its value should be a string containing “png”, “jpg”, “jpeg” or “webp”.

Note

For WebP, your PIL/Pillow needs to be built with WebP support. Do keep in mind that not all browsers support WebP images.

Default: "png"

imgquality

This is the image quality used when saving the tiles into the JPEG or WebP image format. Its value should be an integer between 0 and 100.

For WebP images in lossless mode, it determines how much effort is spent on compressing the image.

Default: 95

imglossless

Determines whether a WebP image is saved in lossless or lossy mode. Has no effect on other image formats.

Default: True

optimizeimg

Warning

Using image optimizers will increase render times significantly.

Note

With the port to Python 3, the import line has changed. Prefix the optimizeimages module with a period, so from .optimizeimages import foo, bar.

This option specifies which additional tools overviewer should use to optimize the filesize of rendered tiles. The tools used must be placed somewhere where overviewer can find them, for example the “PATH” environment variable or a directory like /usr/bin.

The option is a list of Optimizer objects, which are then executed in the order in which they’re specified:

# Import the optimizers we need
from .optimizeimages import pngnq, optipng

worlds["world"] = "/path/to/world"

renders["daytime"] = {
    "world":"world",
    "title":"day",
    "rendermode":smooth_lighting,
    "optimizeimg":[pngnq(sampling=1), optipng(olevel=3)],
}

Note

Don’t forget to import the optimizers you use in your config file, as shown in the example above.

Here is a list of supported image optimization programs:

pngnq

pngnq quantizes 32-bit RGBA images into 8-bit RGBA palette PNGs. This is lossy, but reduces filesize significantly. Available settings:

sampling

An integer between 1 and 10, 1 samples all pixels, is slow and yields the best quality. Higher values sample less of the image, which makes the process faster, but less accurate.

Default: 3

dither

Either the string "n" for no dithering, or "f" for Floyd Steinberg dithering. Dithering helps eliminate colorbanding, sometimes increasing visual quality.

Warning

With pngnq version 1.0 (which is what Ubuntu 12.04 ships), the dithering option is broken. Only the default, no dithering, can be specified on those systems.

Default: "n"

Warning

Because of several PIL bugs, only the most zoomed in level has transparency when using pngnq. The other zoom levels have all transparency replaced by black. This is not pngnq’s fault, as pngnq supports multiple levels of transparency just fine, it’s PIL’s fault for not even reading indexed PNGs correctly.

optipng

optipng tunes the deflate algorithm and removes unneeded channels from the PNG, producing a smaller, lossless output image. It was inspired by pngcrush. Available settings:

olevel

An integer between 0 (few optimizations) and 7 (many optimizations). The default should be satisfactory for everyone, higher levels than the default see almost no benefit.

Default: 2

oxipng

An optipng replacement written in Rust. Works much like optipng.

olevel

An integer between 0 (few optimizations) and 6 (many optimizations). The default should be satisfactory for everyone, higher levels than the default see almost no benefit.

Default: 2

threads

An integer specifying how many threads per process to use. Note that Overviewer spawns one oxipng process per Overviewer worker process, so increasing this value if you already have one Overviewer process per CPU thread makes little sense, and can actually slow down the rendering.

Default: 1

pngcrush

pngcrush, like optipng, is a lossless PNG recompressor. If you are able to do so, it is recommended to use optipng instead, as it generally yields better results in less time. Available settings:

brute

Either True or False. Cycles through all compression methods, and is very slow.

Note

There is practically no reason to ever use this. optipng will beat pngcrush, and throwing more CPU time at pngcrush most likely won’t help. If you think you need this option, then you are most likely wrong.

Default: False

jpegoptim

jpegoptim can do both lossy and lossless JPEG optimisation. If no options are specified, jpegoptim will only do lossless optimisations. Available settings:

quality

A number between 0 and 100 that corresponds to the jpeg quality level. If the input image has a lower quality specified than the output image, jpegoptim will only do lossless optimisations.

If this option is specified and the above condition does not apply, jpegoptim will do lossy optimisation.

Default: None (= Unspecified)

target_size

Either a percentage of the original filesize (e.g. "50%") or a target filesize in kilobytes (e.g. 15). jpegoptim will then try to reach this as its target size.

If specified, jpegoptim will do lossy optimisation.

Warning

This appears to have a greater performance impact than just setting quality. Unless predictable filesizes are a thing you need, you should probably use quality instead.

Default: None (= Unspecified)

Default: []

Zoom

These options control the zooming behavior in the JavaScript output.

defaultzoom

This value specifies the default zoom level that the map will be opened with. It has to be greater than 0, which corresponds to the most zoomed-out level. If you use minzoom or maxzoom, it should be between those two.

Default: 1

maxzoom

This specifies the maximum, closest in zoom allowed by the zoom control on the web page. This is relative to 0, the farthest-out image, so setting this to 8 will allow you to zoom in at most 8 times. This is not relative to minzoom, so setting minzoom will shave off even more levels. If you wish to specify how many zoom levels to leave off, instead of how many total to use, use a negative number here. For example, setting this to -2 will disable the two most zoomed-in levels.

Note

This does not change the number of zoom levels rendered, but allows you to neglect uploading the larger and more detailed zoom levels if bandwidth usage is an issue.

Default: Automatically set to most detailed zoom level

minzoom

This specifies the minimum, farthest away zoom allowed by the zoom control on the web page. For example, setting this to 2 will disable the two most zoomed-out levels.

Note

This does not change the number of zoom levels rendered, but allows you to have control over the number of zoom levels accessible via the slider control.

Default: 0 (zero, which does not disable any zoom levels)

Other HTML/JS output options

showlocationmarker

Allows you to specify whether to show the location marker when accessing a URL with coordinates specified.

Default: True

base
Allows you to specify a remote location for the tile folder, useful if you rsync your map’s images to a remote server. Leave a trailing slash and point to the location that contains the tile folders for each render, not the tiles folder itself. For example, if the tile images start at http://domain.com/map/world_day/ you want to set this to http://domain.com/map/
markers

This controls the display of markers, signs, and other points of interest in the output HTML. It should be a list of dictionaries.

Note

Setting this configuration option alone does nothing. In order to get markers and signs on our map, you must also run the genPO script. See the Signs and markers section for more details and documenation.

Default: [] (an empty list)

poititle

This controls the display name of the POI/marker dropdown control.

Default: “Signs”

showspawn
This is a boolean, and defaults to True. If set to False, then the spawn icon will not be displayed on the rendered map.
bgcolor

This is the background color to be displayed behind the map. Its value should be either a string in the standard HTML color syntax or a 4-tuple in the format of (r,b,g,a). The alpha entry should be set to 0.

Default: #1a1a1a

center

This is allows you to specify a list or a tuple of Minecraft world coordinates that should be used as the map’s default center, e.g. [800, 64, -334].

You may also specify only two coordinates, in case they will be interpreted as X and Z coordinates, and Y is assumed to be 64 (sea level).

Default: The coordinates of your spawn, or [0, 64, 0] if the regionset has no spawn.

Map update behavior

rerenderprob

This is the probability that a tile will be rerendered even though there may have been no changes to any blocks within that tile. Its value should be a floating point number between 0.0 and 1.0.

Default: 0

forcerender

This is a boolean. If set to True (or any non-false value) then this render will unconditionally re-render every tile regardless of whether it actually needs updating or not.

The --forcerender command line option acts similarly, but with one important difference. Say you have 3 renders defined in your configuration file. If you use --forcerender, then all 3 of those renders get re-rendered completely. However, if you just need one of them re-rendered, that’s unnecessary extra work.

If you set 'forcerender': True, on just one of those renders, then just that one gets re-rendered completely. The other two render normally (only tiles that need updating are rendered).

You probably don’t want to leave this option in your config file, it is intended to be used temporarily, such as after a setting change, to re-render the entire map with new settings. If you leave it in, then Overviewer will end up doing a lot of unnecessary work rendering parts of your map that may not have changed.

Example:

renders['myrender'] = {
        'world': 'myworld',
        'title': "Forced Example",
        'forcerender': True,
}
renderchecks
This is an integer, and functions as a more complex form of forcerender. Setting it to 1 enables --check-tiles mode, setting it to 2 enables --forcerender, and 3 tells Overviewer to keep this particular render in the output, but otherwise don’t update it. It defaults to 0, which is the usual update checking mode.
changelist

This is a string. It names a file where it will write out, one per line, the path to tiles that have been updated. You can specify the same file for multiple (or all) renders and they will all be written to the same file. The file is cleared when The Overviewer starts.

This option is useful in conjunction with a simple upload script, to upload the files that have changed.

Warning

A solution like rsync -a --delete is much better because it also watches for tiles that should be deleted, which is impossible to convey with the changelist option. If your map ever shrinks or you’ve removed some tiles, you may need to do some manual deletion on the remote side.

Custom Rendermodes and Rendermode Primitives

We have generalized the rendering system. Every rendermode is made up of a sequence of rendermode primitives. These primitives add some functionality to the render, and stacked together, form a functional rendermode. Some rendermode primitives have options you can change. You are free to create your own rendermodes by defining a list of rendermode primitives.

There are 9 rendermode primitives. Each has a helper class defined in overviewer_core.rendermodes, and a section of C code in the C extension.

A list of rendermode primitives defines a rendermode. During rendering, each rendermode primitive is applied in sequence. For example, the lighting rendermode consists of the primitives “Base” and “Lighting”. The Base primitive draws the blocks with no lighting, and determines which blocks are occluded (hidden). The Lighting primitive then draws the appropriate shading on each block.

More specifically, each primitive defines a draw() and an is_occluded() function. A block is rendered if none of the primitives determine the block is occluded. A block is rendered by applying each primitives’ draw() function in sequence.

The Rendermode Primitives

Base

This is the base of all non-overlay rendermodes. It renders each block according to its defined texture, and applies basic occluding to hidden blocks.

Options

biomes

Whether to render biome coloring or not. Default: True.

Set to False to disable biomes:

nobiome_smooth_lighting = [Base(biomes=False), EdgeLines(), SmoothLighting()]
Nether
This doesn’t affect the drawing, but occludes blocks that are connected to the ceiling.
HeightFading

Draws a colored overlay on the blocks that fades them out according to their height.

Options

sealevel
sealevel of the word you’re rendering. Note that the default, 128, is usually incorrect for most worlds. You should probably set this to 64. Default: 128
Depth

Only renders blocks between the specified min and max heights.

Options

min
lowest level of blocks to render. Default: 0
max
highest level of blocks to render. Default: 255
Exposed

Only renders blocks that are exposed (adjacent to a transparent block).

Options

mode
when set to 1, inverts the render mode, only drawing unexposed blocks. Default: 0
NoFluids
Don’t render fluid blocks (water, lava).
EdgeLines

Draw edge lines on the back side of blocks, to help distinguish them from the background.

Options

opacity
The darkness of the edge lines, from 0.0 to 1.0. Default: 0.15
Cave

Occlude blocks that are in direct sunlight, effectively rendering only caves.

Options

only_lit
Only render lit caves. Default: False
Hide

Hide blocks based on blockid. Blocks hidden in this way will be treated exactly the same as air.

Options

blocks
A list of block ids, or (blockid, data) tuples to hide.
DepthTinting
Tint blocks a color according to their depth (height) from bedrock. Useful mainly for cave renders.
Lighting

Applies lighting to each block.

Options

strength
how dark to make the shadows. from 0.0 to 1.0. Default: 1.0
night
whether to use nighttime skylight settings. Default: False
color
whether to use colored light. Default: False
SmoothLighting

Applies smooth lighting to each block.

Options

(same as Lighting)

ClearBase
Forces the background to be transparent. Use this in place of Base for rendering pure overlays.
SpawnOverlay

Color the map red in areas where monsters can spawn. Either use this on top of other modes, or on top of ClearBase to create a pure overlay.

Options

overlay_color
custom color for the overlay in the format (r,g,b,a). If not defined a red color is used.
SlimeOverlay

Color the map green in chunks where slimes can spawn. Either use this on top of other modes, or on top of ClearBase to create a pure overlay.

Options

overlay_color
custom color for the overlay in the format (r,g,b,a). If not defined a green color is used.
MineralOverlay

Color the map according to what minerals can be found underneath. Either use this on top of other modes, or on top of ClearBase to create a pure overlay.

Options

minerals

A list of (blockid, (r, g, b)) tuples to use as colors. If not provided, a default list of common minerals is used.

Example:

MineralOverlay(minerals=[(64,(255,255,0)), (13,(127,0,127))])
StructureOverlay

Color the map according to patterns of blocks. With this rail overlays or overlays for other small structures can be realized. It can also be a MineralOverlay with alpha support.

This Overlay colors according to a patterns that are specified as multiple tuples of the form (relx, rely, relz, blockid). So by specifying (0, -1, 0, 4) the block below the current one has to be a cobblestone.

One color is then specified as ((relblockid1, relblockid2, ...), (r, g, b, a)) where the relblockid* are relative coordinates and the blockid as specified above. The relblockid* must match all at the same time for the color to apply.

Example:

StructureOverlay(structures=[(((0, 0, 0, 66), (0, -1, 0, 4)), (255, 0, 0, 255)),
                             (((0, 0, 0, 27), (0, -1, 0, 4)), (0, 255, 0, 255))])

In this example all rails(66) on top of cobblestone are rendered in pure red. And all powerrails(27) are rendered in green.

If structures is not provided, a default rail coloring is used.

BiomeOverlay

Color the map according to the biome at that point. Either use on top of other modes or on top of ClearBase to create a pure overlay.

Options

biomes

A list of (“biome name”, (r, g, b)) tuples to use as colors. Any biome not specified won’t be highlighted. If not provided then a default list of biomes and colors is used.

Example:

BiomeOverlay(biomes=[("Forest", (0, 255, 0)), ("Desert", (255, 0, 0))])
HeatmapOverlay

Color the map according to when a chunk was last visited. The color for Timestamps between t_invisible and t_full will be interpolated between 0 and 255. This RenderPrimitive might require use of the forcerender option. Otherwise the Overlay might not get updated for not visited chunks (resulting in them always being the brightest color, as if recently visited).

Options

t_invisible
The timestamp when the overlay will get invisible. The default is 30 days ago.
t_now
The timestamp when the overlay will be fully visible. The default is today.

Example:

HeatmapOverlay(
    t_invisible=int((t_now - timedelta(days=2)).timestamp()),
    t_full=int(t_now.timestamp()),
)

Defining Custom Rendermodes

Each rendermode primitive listed above is a Python class that is automatically imported in the context of the config file (They come from overviewer_core.rendermodes). To define your own rendermode, simply define a list of rendermode primitive objects like so:

my_rendermode = [Base(), EdgeLines(), SmoothLighting()]

If you want to specify any options, they go as parameters to the rendermode primitive object’s constructor:

my_rendermode = [Base(), EdgeLines(opacity=0.2),
        SmoothLighting(strength=0.5, color=True)]

Then you can use your new rendermode in your render definitions:

renders["survivalday"] = {
    "world": "survival",
    "title": "Survival Daytime",
    "rendermode": my_rendermode,
    "dimension": "overworld",
}

Note the lack of quotes around my_rendermode. This is necessary since you are referencing the previously defined list, not one of the built-in rendermodes.

Built-in Rendermodes

The built-in rendermodes are nothing but pre-defined lists of rendermode primitives for your convenience. Here are their definitions:

normal = [Base(), EdgeLines()]
lighting = [Base(), EdgeLines(), Lighting()]
smooth_lighting = [Base(), EdgeLines(), SmoothLighting()]
night = [Base(), EdgeLines(), Lighting(night=True)]
smooth_night = [Base(), EdgeLines(), SmoothLighting(night=True)]
nether = [Base(), EdgeLines(), Nether()]
nether_lighting = [Base(), EdgeLines(), Nether(), Lighting()]
nether_smooth_lighting = [Base(), EdgeLines(), Nether(), SmoothLighting()]
cave = [Base(), EdgeLines(), Cave(), DepthTinting()]