Minecraft Architect Tutorial¶

The goal of this tutorial is walk you through how to be a minecraft architect.

The first steps are going to be:

Get the correct setup going (see Installing Minecraft)
Start interacting with the world

This tutorial will cover a few of the basic information and then some techniques for building things in minecraft.

To start:

Start the minecraft server
Log into the minecraft client (make sure you set the version under the profile settings to 1.9.2!)
connect to a world at the address localhost or 127.0.0.1

4. Open up an iPython terminal to test the connection and type in

from mcpi.minecraft import Minecraft
mc = Minecraft.create()
mc.postToChat("hello world!")

5. From now on, you should use a file and do the first following lines so that you have access to the mc object and the Vec3 class.

from mcpi.minecraft import Minecraft
from mcpi.vec3 import Vec3
mc = Minecraft.create()

Information: User-Centric Positioning¶

The first thing you should think about is that everything you do is based around the user. The user is located at a specific place in the world, which are the set of (x,y,z) coordinates. So, when you construct anything, you are constructing relative to them.

You get the positions by:

pos = mc.player.getPos()
### to see what this looks like, you can do
print(pos, type(pos))
### you can also get the x,y,z individually:
print(pos.x, type(pos.x))
print(pos.y, type(pos.y))
print(pos.z, type(pos.z))

It is best to draw things out on paper and plan them. For instance, if you want to make a wall next to the user, you should figure out what the adjustments to the x and z would be. One spot away from the user would be pos.x-1 or pos.z-1

Information: Placing Blocks¶

You can place either a single block or multiple blocks of the same type.

Single Blocks¶

For a single block, you either specify a Vec3 object, or the 3 coordinates. You also specify the block number. You will have a book looking these up.

pos = mc.player.getPos()
### set by the Vec3
mc.setBlock(pos, 42)
### set by each spot individually
mc.setBlock(pos.x, pos.y, pos.z, 42)

### but probably set in front of user, not where they are
mc.setBlock(pos.x+1, pos.y, pos.z+1, 42)

Vectors can add, so instead of typing out the 1 away with each spot individually, you can do

pos = mc.player.getPos()
offset = Vec3(1,0,1)
new_pos = pos + offset
mc.setBlock(new_pos, 42)
### you could have also done:
mc.setBlock(pos + offset, 42)
### or even
mc.setBlock(pos + Vec3(1,0,1), 42)

Multiple Blocks¶

For multiple blocks, you are specifying a cube. For this, you have to give the two corners of the cube. For example, you could do:

mc.setBlocks(0,0,0, 3, 3, 3, 42)

This would create a 3 by 3 by 3 cube. Note, because I didn’t use relative coordinates, you won’t be able to find this cube. To make it relative to the player:

pos = mc.player.getPos()
mc.setBlocks(pos.x, pos.y, pos.z, pos.x+3, pos.y+3, pos.z+3, 42)
### or more easily:
mc.setBlocks(pos, pos+Vec3(3,3,3), 42)

Let’s make a giant box around the player. You will probably have to break your way out.

pos = mc.player.getPos()
mc.setBlocks(pos-Vec3(5,5,5), pos+Vec3(5,5,5), 42)

Technique: Layers¶

When you’re placing blocks, if you want to have a unique shape, you can play the blocks in layers. Imagine building a pirate ship, for example. Each layer starting from the bottom would get longer and longer and slightly wider. This would create a oval-type shape that ships have on their bottom.

You could do the layer technique for faces, buildings, triangles, etc.

How could you use the layer technique to build a four-sided pyramid?

Technique: Negative Space¶

One thing you can do is think about building things with negative space.

For example, let’s say I wanted to build a box around the player, but I didn’t want them to suffocate. Well, you could create the cube first, and then replace the inner part of the cube with a smaller cube of air.

pos = mc.player.getPos()
cube_size = Vec(5,5,5)
air_size = Vec(4,4,4)
mc.setBlocks(pos-cube_size, pos+cube_size, 42)
mc.setBlcoks(pos-air_size, pos+air_size, 0)

Technique: Block Collections¶

Another thing you can do is create collections of blocks using lists and then have a function which can iterate over them and place them one at a time.

def set_points(points, mc, block_type):
    for point in points:
        mc.setBlock(point, block_type)

### example usage
pos = mc.player.getPos()
points = list()
for i in range(10):
    points.append(pos+Vec3(-1*(i%5), i%5, i%5))
set_points(points, mc, 42)

Technique: Circles¶

You could also do a block collection that uses sin or cos to create a circle. I will explicitly give this one to you. Here I am using a set because it enforces uniqueness. No point can exist twice.

def taxicab_circle_x(r):
    point_set = set()
    x = 0
    for angle in range(360):
        theta = math.radians(angle)
        y = math.floor(r*math.sin(theta))
        z = math.floor(r*math.cos(theta))
        point_set.add(Vec3(x, y, z))
    return point_set