Terraforms by Mathcastles
The UNOFFICIAL Community FAQ (WORKING ON V2 UPDATES)
FAQ assembly and goal
astrostl.eth / 0x79C7ADe5B44CA217380C75e9Bd2E8FbEa3e83157��Whitelists welcome!
I am astrostl on Discord and astrostleth on Twitter, and I am a huge fan of Terraforms. My goal is to share what we are learning together about this awesome project and to help grow its community.��Please feel free to ping me with questions, comments, and updates!
Before we begin
Trying to make this easy, but the subject matter is pretty dense.
It is assumed that you already have a moderate understanding of things like crypto, wallets, Ethereum, NFTs, Opensea, and so on.
You are super welcome to keep going if not, but I would recommend looking for NFT intro content on YouTube.
What is Mathcastles?
The humans, the myths, the legends!
Mathcastles is a digital studio that was co-created by 0x113d and xaltgeist.��Its definitive source of information is currently Discord. “from:0x113d#0113” and “from:xaltgeist#6492” will be especially helpful searches, as are pinned messages.
There is also an official web site that was used for minting, but does not yet have any general public content.
What is Terraforms?
This is a surprisingly big question. Hint: it’s not a profile pic.
At a base level, Terraforms is a set of NFTs. Each NFT represents a “parcel” of land on a 20-level virtual “hypercastle”.
Most NFTs tend to be images and metadata that are stored off-chain on the internet. Some store this stuff on-chain.
Terraforms is “extremely on-chain” - procedurally-generated code that lives entirely on Ethereum. And while there are visual representations of the NFTs, what you see is the output of live code.
Huh? Do I need a PHD to buy this?
Absolutely not!
No! It’s entirely reasonable and possible to pick up one that you like because you like it, enjoy the animated vibes, and maybe dig into the details later - or not.
You might see it as an advanced artistic land NFT with upside. Most NFTs are heavy on surface and light on depth. Terraforms is just heavy on both! But if you want to stop at the surface, feel free. You’ll be no less an owner, and no less a participant in its open metaverse.
Where is it?
Shut up and take my money!
��The public mint happened on December 17, 2021 at a price of 0.16 ETH each.
9,905 out of 11,104 were minted, with the rest held in reserve by the creators (instead of an Opensea royalty!).��You can now find them on Opensea. The collection is not yet verified, but note the 10K+ ETH (10M+ USD) volume traded!
NFT PROPERTY BREAKDOWN
Tell me about these NFTs
Sounds good! Let’s start by walking through the Properties and Levels you’ll see on Opensea.��But first, make sure to click around a bunch of them and check out the cool art! Again, each parcel represents a single piece of “land” within the castle. They are all the same size as each other, although they can be “filled” differently.
Level == 3D location
So we know it’s a 3D castle. Here is a representative image from the creators themselves! It has 20 levels, and parcels sit on those. Some levels have a lot of parcels, and some have very few. You can also see the color variation - certain Zones are also only present on certain levels, or a mix.��Fun fact: the castle and its levels actually float up and down!
X/Y Coordinates == 2D location
X/Y coordinates work like the rows and columns of a chess board. Each parcel is a cube (!!) that sits on a level of the castle. The amount of available parcels per level varies, as the levels are larger or smaller.��Each level starts with X0/Y0 and goes on from there to X0/Y1, X1/Y0, X1/Y1, etc. according to how large it is. Levels 13 and 14 are the largest, and therefore have the highest available X/Y coordinates.
Zone == color palette
Don’t confuse this with Chroma! Or Biome, heh. Zone refers to the color palette that the parcel is allowed to display: bright, dark, varieties, and monotones. There are 75 Zones.
Chroma == color change speed
This one might be a bit confusing. Yes, the word normally refers to the intensity of color. In this case, it’s how quickly colors change (h/t el_ranye#4179).��There are 4 different Chromas: Flow, Pulse, Hyper, and Plague. Flow, Pulse, and Hyper run from slower to faster. Plagues have special animations and colors.
Biome == character set
A character set is a list of things that are allowed to be used or printed on the screen. Examples of character sets are A-Z, 1-9, and FUNKY characters.
Each of the parcels over there has a limited set of usable characters. See the differences? These are defined by Biome. There are 92 different ones.
??? == character cycling
The higher the ???, the greater the chance that the parcel will have more cells that cycle through characters. This impacts how static or fluid a given parcel looks (h/t el_ranye#4179).
Mode == Mode
I’m not trying to be cute with a tautology there. This is probably the single most-important and confusing initial aspect of Terraforms.
A parcel’s Mode defines its nature, and its nature defines its capabilities: what it can do, what it can’t do, and who can make that happen.��There are two main modes: Terrains and Daydreams. There are a few key variations around these, though, and some big rules. By writing to the smart contract, you can change your parcel’s Mode (and art!).
“Terrain” Mode == natural art
This is the most common Mode, but will become more rare over time (more on that later). When a Parcel is in Terrain Mode, it displays the art animation (according to its Biome, Chroma, and Zone) that it had imprinted by code at birth.
“Daydream” Mode == canvas for new code-based art
It starts out as ‘blank’ (using a repeating Biome character), and can be programmed with new art. More will be explained on programming (drawing) later - let’s just get through the Modes.
“Terraform” Mode == displayed new code-based art
Yeah, this one didn’t start out as a Pepe! Someone coded that up in the smart contract. Again, more on how to do that yourself later.
“Origin” Modes == OG Daydreams
Upon minting - and in order to stop the castle from immediately starting to destroy itself (more on that later) - a small % of the parcels were created in a Daydreaming state. This is referred to as an “Origin Daydream” Mode, and can be converted to an “Origin Terraform” Mode.��These were special mints for early supporters of the project. They are rare, no more will be added, and it is not possible to turn non-Origins into Origins (or vice-versa). For functional purposes, though, Origins are no different from other Daydream or Terraform Modes.
The Really Important Mode Change Slide™
TERRAIN
DAYDREAM
TERRAFORM
ORIGIN�DAYDREAM
ORIGIN�TERRAFORM
Terrain can be instructed to Daydream. THIS PROCESS IS PERMANENT AND IRREVERSIBLE! Daydream and Terraform (Origin or not) Modes can be switched back and forth freely.��Implication? Terrains are deflationary. Even though they started out as common tokens, they will become less common over time as their owners choose to Daydream them to create art. Interesting!
Summary of the “basics” (ha!)
Let’s review. If this doesn’t make sense, go over the previous slides and poke around until it does.
Parcels sit on Levels of a virtual castle according to their X/Y Coordinates. They have colors according to their Zone, speeds of animation according to their Chroma, and character sets according to their Biome (cycling according to their ??? and height). They display natural art if they are in Terrain Mode, can be drawn upon if they are set to Daydream Mode, and display code-drawn art if they are set to Terraform Mode.��Once a Terrain is set to Daydream, it can never again be set to Terrain, but Daydream and Terraform modes can be flipped back and forth at will. Also, there are a few Origin parcels out there that differ only from other Daydream and Terraform parcels in name alone.
A quick note on wash trading
You may notice some ODD valuations when looking at the LooksRare market or random market analysis tooling.��LooksRare gave $LOOKS tokens to folks who transacted on their marketplace. Because Terraforms has no royalties, it has the unintended side-effect of being a popular NFT for people to sell to themselves at crazy prices in order to collect $LOOKS.
LET’S VISUALIZE IT A BIT
The castle itself (again)
h/t 0x113d#0113 (co-creator!)
Overhead level visualizations
h/t sum1#5964
Plot of all levels with color
h/t tqbl#3063
Parcel height visualization
h/t erin#1111
(WIP) real-time Unity 3D visualizer
h/t Matto#1231
Composite GIF maker
Do you want an animated GIF of your parcel? How about a square PFP overlaid on top of your parcel? 0x0112#0654’s EnterDream tool has you covered! It has a lot of options, but here are some tips:
Interactive Browsers
A simply staggering amount of interactive browsing tools have been developed by the community. Links to many below:�
RARITY AND ITS IMPLICATIONS
Objective and subjective, visible and hidden, valuations
A note on missing data
There are still around 1200 parcels that the creators are holding in reserve for their own use. They assert that these are RANDOM ones - so maybe it’s a load of duds, and maybe some spicy ones are in there.
Until the day that all are minted (and it’s possible that not all whitelists have minted theirs), we won’t have a perfect picture of the entire population and thus can only infer rarity. But with ~90% of them out there, what we have so far should be pretty representative.
A few rarity tools
ERCRarity, freshdrops, and openrarity (listed in alphabetical order) are a few examples of rarity tools that have begun calculating Terraforms rarity. Feel free to send me more of them. It’s pretty wild west out there with rarity being calculated in different ways on different sites.
DISCLAIMER: I do NOT have a vested interest in any of these tools. I DO have a freshdrops NFT subscription, and I HAVE worked with them on what data I think should and should not be calculated. I will openly discuss all of that here as well.
Level rarity
This image shows a parcel for each level according to Opensea. This is not chain data, so there is a bit missing but it’s is definitely directionally accurate.
The market so far has clearly expressed an interest in levels with fewer parcels. The extreme top and bottom being the most rare and interesting, and with preferences for the highest rather than the lowest ones (e.g. l19 > l2 although both are rare and highly-valued). Your author thinks that Level data SHOULD be factored in rarity.�
Cute aside: there is a growing community led by CryptoSpaces#4995 that is trying to set up a “nature preserve” on Level 5 by acquiring Terrain and not Daydreaming it :)
X/Y rarity
X13/Y13 on Level 20 is in a different “vertical” location than X13/Y13 on Level 13. Each level begins with X0/Y0 and builds out from there until it finishes (h/t moose#4234).
�Assuming Levels are important (as the market seems to overwhelmingly believe), X/Y Coordinate rarity can be actively misleading. Levels 13 and 14, for example, will have the most “rare” X/Y Coordinates precisely because they have the largest number of parcels on that level (i.e., they are common rather than rare).��While still keeping them in mind for subjective interests such as 0/0 “corner offices”, “lucky numbers” like 7/7 on Level 7, collecting adjacent parcels, etc., your author thinks that X/Y coordinates SHOULD NOT be factored in rarity.
Zone, Chroma, and Biome rarity
Color palette, animation speed, and character sets all deeply inform the visual representation of each parcel and tastes are highly subjective.
Each of these also has a clear objective rarity according to how many of each are available in the castle. Your author thinks that Zone, Chroma, and Biome SHOULD be factored in rarity.
??? rarity
See previous explanation on what we know of ???. davidhao3300#6141 demonstrates in the histogram that lower numbers are more rare. Still, because of the wide numeric range and subjective impact your author thinks that ??? SHOULD NOT be factored in rarity.
Mode rarity
In an attempt to express it pseudomathically, (OriginDaydream == OriginTerraform) > (Terrain) > (Daydream == Terraform). This is because OriginDaydreams are initially rare (around 1% of the population), because Terrains are deflationary, and because Daydreams and Terraforms are interchangeable. At present Terrains are vastly more common than Daydreams/Terraforms, but all Terrains can become Daydreams/Terraforms and the inverse is not true.
Your author thinks that “PROPER” (see above) Mode SHOULD be factored in rarity with frequent data refreshes. However, to the extent that isn’t possible by the tool your author thinks that Mode should NOT be factored in rarity - otherwise Daydreams/Terraforms will be “incorrectly” graded as rare, plus stale data.
Initial buying recommendations
GOLDEN RULE: let your vibe be your guide! If something resonates with your spirit, listen.
If you do not have plans to make your own art, I would recommend that you first buy something:��- near the floor price (it’s “cheap”)�- that isn’t on Level 13 or Level 14 (it’s less common)�- that isn’t too monotone (people tend to like variety)�- that has the fastest speed you can visually tolerate (higher speeds are more rare)�- that has a character set that is easy on the eyes (lends itself well to art)
If you do have plans to make your own art and that is your primary interest, Level 13 or Level 14 is a great buying opportunity for anything that hits you right in the feels.
Hot or not?
The most consistently-valued things so far (no particular order) are the highest (18-20) and lowest (1-3) Levels, Plague Chromas, Origin Modes, and “X” SEEDs.
A warning on mutability
Something “mutable” can be changed, and something “immutable” cannot be changed. The Terraforms smart contract permits some Mode changes.
This necessarily means that if the owner of a Terrain tells it to Daydream just as you are buying, it could arrive in a Daydream state - even if it was a Terrain when you started.
This especially necessarily means that if you make a bid using WETH, the owner could (maliciously? capriciously?) see that, set it to Daydream, then accept your offer. There is currently nothing that can be done about this - it’s just the nature of the game. There are proposals out there to address it for NFTs in general (h/t el_ranye#4179).
HIDDEN objective rarity: (“X”) SEED
0x0112.eth#0654 and others have discovered some of the impacts of SEED, which Teeport#0898 notes can be found by searching a parcel’s frame source for ‘SEED’. Origins with a SEED > 9000 and non-Origins with a SEED > 9970 have longer loops with unique symbols. An example list from 0x0112 is shown.��PattiHauseman#0001 explains: “If you have the X seed as an Origin Daydream (14 of them) the full loop is 1 minute and 25 seconds. It cycles through the character set but what appears to be a number of variation of sizes as well. Further, on some of them you can manipulate the pulse so it either flows along your drawing line OR it pulses as one when you lift your mouse. Additionally each of the Origin Daydreams that are multi color also have a base color you can set.”��This Google Sheet lists all SEEDs for all tokens. The Terraforms Supplemental tool from UronSol#0001 check seeds.. It is clearly being detected by some folks, with outsized bids relative to ‘objective’ trait rarity being made. yoshi#5572 has made the Seed Sniper site to track active listings.
HIDDEN objective rarity: (“X”) SEED II
0x0112.eth#0654 with clarifications from el_ranye#4179 provide MUCH more detail from their code analysis on both SEED and ??? behavior. Discussions welcome on Discord as more is discovered!��Also: “over 5000 seed all have the randomization of character size everybody is talking about, as well as 10 extra characters from the "xset". all of this will only show after terraformed…imo there is big diff in the feel of terraformed pieces over 5000 vs under, i like both for different vibes and use cases.” - 0x0112.eth#0654
HIDDEN objective rarity: elevation
If you use Etherscan against the “tokenSupplementalData” contract method against your token ID, the fourth number returned will be that token’s elevation (how high or low its “ground” is in a vertical sense). The Terraforms Supplemental tool also provides this info. PlayPeng909#3739 has built an 3D elevation visualization tool (change the ID in the URL).
So far -4 is the lowest one found among those minted, and there is a single parcel on Level 1 at -4 - meaning, at least so far, it represents the absolute floor of the castle. It isn’t yet clear if anyone is factoring it into valuation in a major way. The range is +4 (highest) thru -4 (lowest), or 9 steps. So +4 on Level 20 would be the PEAK of the castle (if a +4 20 even exists).
HIDDEN objective rarity: “Keystones”
9neonlines#9418 (with help from 0x0112#0654) finally discovered that, “some terrains on each level are mini maps of their entire level…This is enabled by a coded Droste effect such that a few terrains showcase the entirety of their levels map (think like a "keystone" map of a given level).”��This addresses a long-standing mystery in the Terraforms universe! Terra Spine (Keystones) (PlayPeng909#3739) provides a list of known ones. More information about the levels they reflect is awaiting confirmation.
DRAWING AND BUILDING
“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” - Henry David Thoreau
What is Terraforms’ license?
I know we don’t usually jump right to licenses in NFTs, but you’ll soon see why it’s important. The license is in the smart contract source, beginning at line 449 of Terraforms.sol. See SUMMARY on the right.��“This license (this “**License**”) was created by Mathcastles LLC ("**Mathcastles**") to promote the interests of and to foster the innovations and creativity oF NFT collectors and developers. This License seeks to maximize the rights of owners to enjoy and profit from the NFTs they own while preserving their value for future owners.”
A note on collapse
Remember earlier when we said that the Origin Daydreams were there to keep the castle from destroying itself?
That is because the smart contract code is set to begin a decay and eventual destruction of the castle unless “enough” parcels are Daydreaming (or Terraforming).
Each Daydreamer forestalls this event by 10 years. If or when there are 500 dreamers, the collapse is forever prevented. Yay! At the time of this writing there are already 481, so this is delayed by 4,810 years and only needs 19 more to be safe for as long as the Ethereum blockchain exists.
DANGER! DANGER!
In order to draw on a parcel, it needs to be in Daydream Mode. If your parcel is in Terrain Mode, this process is IRREVERSIBLE. You will NEVER, EVER be able to go back to being a Terrain!��It’s also the only way to draw! So maybe go for it. But I would massively recommend that you read ahead to see how drawing actually works before committing to it.
How to Daydream
Verify and refresh metadata
Even after your transaction is approved, it might look like nothing changed on Opensea or you might just see the Mode change with no visual confirmation. To force a refresh on Opensea, click on the circle-arrow in the top right corner and give it a minute or so before a page reload. Once your Daydream is visualized, you will notice that it has a repeating character pattern on it and is not animated. You’re ready!
Okay now how do I actually draw?
Well, it’s quite complicated right now. In one sense, you “just” execute the commitDreamToCanvas contract method by supplying your tokenId and a dream. The devil is in the dream, though - it is “an array of 16 units, each representing the heightmap indices of two rows”.��The #builders and #artists channels on Discord are the best sources of bleeding-edge information. Quite a few folks are producing art with custom-made tools. On the next page we’ll go over some of those for you to consider.
Drawing helpers
The official token visualizer (change number ‘1’ to yours) has some crude drawing tools: ‘e’ to erase, ‘q’ for brush sizes, ‘a’ for height level (and mash it during a brush stroke to make patterns)��The Terraforms Supplemental tool from UronSol#0001 (also the curator of Terraforms Builder Resources) gives all kinds of metadata: elevation, characters, palette, and now seed. There is also a tool to generate code by uploading an image. You can find its source code on GitHub along with several other of their tools. The EnterDream tool from 0x0112.eth#0654 drawing tooling. Daydreaming from RueLibbe#4046 and Terraforms Worksheet from BoomBoomNFT#1897 let you visualize Terraforms inputs.
The project itself is also looking into the creation of first-party tooling. We are still early days, but the landscape should open up widely and quickly as we go. If drawing is too intimidating right now, that is understandable. Just wait a bit and it should improve :)
Drawing tools
Can someone else draw for me?
Yes! The Terraforms smart contract authorizes owners to authorize one (1) wallet to draw on their parcel! Use the contract method on the right to grant someone access - it does NOT give them ownership of your parcel.
There will be a record of their wallet committing the code to the blockchain as well, which opens the door for semi-”authenticated” third-party artwork.
How do I blank the canvas again?
Daydream, commit sixteen 0s, Terraform, then Daydream again (yes it’s a multi-step process)
How do I get back to my Terrain art?
As you hopefully know, you cannot get back to Terrain Mode. Restoring something close to the original art from it is feasible, though. A 1:1 restore is not perfectly possible because Terrains and Terraforms also have inherently different animation patterns. Terra Revert by PlayPeng909#3739 is a tool that can display your original art!
How about an animated GIF?
This is a massively popular request and it’s being actively developed. In the meantime, screen recordings converted into GIFs are an option (that’s what I did for this presentation!), and you can play with the methods to export to SVG and/or HTML.
There is an upside to SVG files, by the way - they can scale to any size while retaining the same look.
Meeting your neighbors
This has interesting implications for multi-parcel art!
�dr.slurp#0001 initially determined how to do it with URL hacking, and davidhao3300#6141 notes that it is now possible with Opensea filters.
Example: click on your parcel on OS, click its Level, then filter by both X and Y Coordinates on the left panel to browse.
Working with the data
Tool builder extraordinaire UronSol#0001 has also made Terraforms metadata (inc. supplemental contract data, not just that which is visible on Opensea) available in a public repository. Then they proceeded to outdo themselves and make Terraforms Subgraph, a GraphQL API. Matto#1231 then developed the massive Hypercastle Explorers project. Use them and BUILD!
Gib me dat hardcore drawing detail
V2 CONTRACT UPGRADE
V2 Contract
In December 2023, a major contract upgrade was released to enable new functionality and establish a concept of seasons.
The contract upgrade is optional, user-initiated, and FULLY REVERSIBLE! Flip between V1 and V2 as often as you wish.
Satellites and Antennae
Any other changes?
Yep! Improvements were made to the rendering system, UI, and painting system, and a helper contract for connecting more easily with other artwork was created.
Sub-details might come at a later time.
EASTER EGG HUNTING
Special characters?
PattiHauseman#0001 notes that biome 75’s characters translate to “neighborhood” in Korean, and that biome 76 has the Chinese character for “city”. Perhaps a functional intention?
Blanks and Biome 39
9neonlines#9418 confirmed with 0x113d#0113 that Biome 39 is the only Biome that mints with a blank character. PlayPeng909#3739 also confirmed with 0x113d#0113 that using a ‘9’ in the Terraform data sequence of any parcel creates a blank space.��"Biome 39 is the only Terrain with blank spaces so if you take the heightvalues that those appear in, and apply them to the parcels volumetrically youd get caves and or floating blobs." - 0x113d#0113
“Lithos”
9neonlines#9418 notes that duotone Biome 0 parcels with Zones that are named in brackets (e.g., [BLOOD]) have interesting visual and animation properties, dubbed “Lithos” as in lithographs. These can be found at their http://lith0.xyz/ site (redirects to OpenSea).
Zone Color Palette Origins
The colors used in Zones are known to have real-life inspiration from other media such as video games, anime, and other NFTs. remnynt#7777 has a Zone (Color Palette) Origins Google Sheet that keeps track of guesses and confirmations.
FUTURE PLANS
Not a promise, not a roadmap
Future POSSIBILITIES include:��- Testnet or similar construct with a copy of everything for experimentation
Big Community Plans Too
There is a lot of active conversation ranging from community DAOs to golf games, and constant development in the visualization and tooling space.
https://terrafans.xyz/webtrailer.mp4 is an exciting teaser from the prolific PlayPeng909#3739 on 3D possibilities using real parcels!
APPENDIX A: COMMUNITY CREATIONS
COMMUNITY UTILITIES
COMMUNITY VIDEOS
APPENDIX B: CREATOR VISION QUOTES
APPENDIX B: creator vision quotes continued
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THAT’S ALL. THANKS MATHCASTLES!
Assembled by astrostleth / astrostl��astrostl.eth / 0x79C7ADe5B44CA217380C75e9Bd2E8FbEa3e83157��Whitelists welcome!