When the buildings are placed into the world, what will happen to the terrain around the house? I mean, could you end up with a house that half sticks out over a ravine, or a 3 story house in which the first 2 floors are completed surrounded by dirt? Or will the house have a foundation of sorts as well?
Yeah, when the "tiles" are put together for real they will have a leveling strategy. So, for example, in the case of these buildings it will pick a level that doesn't submerge the building more than two blocks deep for where it wants to be placed (and with the doorway level to street at least). It will then fill in the terrain with stacked rock (it's up to the template how this will be done) up to a certain point and cap that off with stone beyond a certain depth. So if the building is placed on a cliffside the "sticking out" part will end up with a stone shelf sticking out of the cliff side with stacked rock a few layers deep. Eventually I also want to have leveling templates set up to have cooler or more complicated looking supports in such cases. So maybe it's not just a big stone shelf but some graceful sloped beams or whatever.
Overall it is using a modular system, in which sections of the house are randomly selected from premade rooms. Once you can confirm that each section is somehow compatible with each other section, it should work flawlessly. The houses you have shown look good so far too because variety is what makes map building more realistic.
Yep. And the benefit of this system is that you can make templates that are as specific or as random as you want. So if you are some modder writing your own adventure and you need a house of a certain configuration then you can plan it out specifically or even add custom sections just for that house. Or maybe only the first floor has to be specific so you let the rest generate.
The sky's the limit, really.