Minecraft update allows up to 4,000 different block types

Posted February 14, 2012 by Julian Benson in News.

The next Minecraft update will allow for 4,000 different block types, as well as raising the height of the world space.

Jeb’s been hard at work at the next Minecraft update. Rather than adding in new features and items he’s cracking open the engine to let modders do that for him.

Dubbed ‘Anvil‘, the next update will expand the possible number of different block types from the already sizeable 256 to a whopping 4,096. Modders will be able to go a little nuts with all those possibilities. No longer will they have to choose between wood and lumber. Hell they could go a little crazy and add timber to the mix.

Here’s the full list of updates:

• Maximum build height has been increased to 256 (was 128)
• Empty sections of the world are not loaded into memory
• Block ids have been increased to 4096 (was 256) by adding a 4 bit data layer (similar to how meta data is stored)
• Block ordering have been changed from x/z/y to y/z/x in order to improve compression
• Packets for sending chunks have been updated (a full 128-high chunk is smaller than the old format, and a chunk with lots of empty space is much smaller)
• Biomes are saved per x/z column, which means they can be altered by tools

The game will automatically port saves from the old version of the engine into the new so there’s no need to worry about your world being left behind.

For full details click here. And, click here for the rest of out Minecraft coverage.

Tagged as Anvil, Jeb, Jens Bergensten, Minecraft