Box Based 3D terrain generation algorthms? (procedural generation)

Question

I have been looking at this game called Minecraft and was intrigued by how it can dynamically generate random maps that look and feel right. What types of algorithms are used to generate terrains based on cubes like this?

Thanks

Answer 1

Perlin noise usually works really nicely.

Its also worth looking into midpoint dispacement (or the diamond square algorithm)