Minecraft function development using golang
As of Minecraft version 1.12 (released on June 7, 2017) external function files can be input to Minecraft providing a list of commands to be executed. Such functions can be invoked in Minecraft at any time to do a wide variety of tasks.
One important command is "fill" which can be used to place blocks anywhere in the game of any type. This allows arbitrary structures to be built.
One way to utilize this capability is to have an external code which produces Minecraft functions that can be used inside the game. The goal of this project, mcFunctionDev, is to develop external code that generates Minecraft functions for a variety of structures.
The development language for this project is golang, partly because it is a great, modern language and partly because this project is an easy way of learning the language basics.
go get github.com/GreenSeaTurtle/mcFunctionDev
This project currently depends on the following projects:
go get github.com/BurntSushi/toml
go get github.com/olekukonko/tablewriter
go get github.com/benmcclelland/mcrender
toml - used to parse the init file and the input file
tablewriteter - writes text output in tabular format
mcrender - visualize objects that have been generated. This relies
on the fauxgl project (github.com/fogleman/fauxgl)
Below is a Minecraft screenshot of a waterfall produced by mcFunctionDev.
mcFunctionDev is run and produces Minecraft function files to generate the waterfall in various orientations. An example of such a function file that essentially produces the waterfall above is:
fill ~0 ~0 ~-2 ~99 ~0 ~-2 minecraft:sandstone
fill ~0 ~0 ~-3 ~0 ~0 ~-3 minecraft:sandstone
fill ~99 ~0 ~-3 ~99 ~0 ~-3 minecraft:sandstone
fill ~0 ~0 ~-4 ~0 ~30 ~-4 minecraft:stone 4
fill ~0 ~27 ~-6 ~0 ~30 ~-5 minecraft:stone 4
fill ~99 ~0 ~-4 ~99 ~30 ~-4 minecraft:stone 4
fill ~99 ~27 ~-6 ~99 ~30 ~-5 minecraft:stone 4
fill ~0 ~30 ~-6 ~98 ~27 ~-6 minecraft:stone 4
fill ~1 ~27 ~-5 ~98 ~27 ~-5 minecraft:stone 4
fill ~1 ~0 ~-4 ~98 ~29 ~-4 minecraft:sandstone
fill ~1 ~28 ~-5 ~98 ~28 ~-5 minecraft:flowing_lava
fill ~1 ~29 ~-5 ~98 ~29 ~-5 minecraft:glass
fill ~1 ~30 ~-5 ~98 ~30 ~-5 minecraft:flowing_water
This is a "north" waterfall. It faces south and runs from west to east. Function files for "east", "south", and "west" waterfalls are also produced. Additional function files are generated that replace the water with lava producing lavafalls.
The "~" symbol in the above function file refers to the player's current position in the game. The number after the "~" gets added to the players position to generate x, y, and z coordinates for two corners that define the fill box. The box is filled with blocks with a type specified by the last argument to the fill command, for example sandstone, lava, glass, etc.
A minor point is that extra spaces are not allowed in these fill commands. This perhaps will be fixed in some future version of Minecraft.
It may seem odd that the waterfall above has lava in it. At higher elevation and with a waterfall that is tall enough, the water at the top can freeze and form ice. This is prevented by by having a hidden layer of lava below the water and seperated by a glass layer.
Below is a Minecraft screenshot of several spheres produced by mcFunctionDev.
As with the waterfall example above, the sphere mcfunction file contains a number of Minecraft fill commands, a very large number of fill commands since each block is placed with one fill command. For example, a sphere of radius 20 with the interior completely filled needs 33401 fill commands. While this seems like a lot, it executes in Minecraft very quickly.