minecraft

Converting Files into Minecraft Worlds

3 months ago

The core idea is to convert any file into a Minecraft world by mapping each byte to a block.
A palette maps 256 byte values to blocks, excluding blocks with age/level states (like crops) and multi-block entities (beds, chests).
Blocks are placed in a 16x16x16 section, filling a full chunk column (24 sections) from Y=-64 to Y=320, then moving to the next chunk horizontally.
A region file (.mca) can store up to ~96 MiB of data from 32x32 chunks.
Encoding reads the file, writes a header (magic + original size), then places each byte's block at calculated coordinates.
Decoding reads the header to get the original size, then reads the blocks and converts them back to bytes.
Initial mistakes included a flat slab layout that only used 16 blocks of height (reducing capacity), misreading the .mca header causing a 2.3 exabyte size error, and invisible blocks from beds/chests.
Future plans include adding creeper/TNT protection and supporting multi-region worlds for arbitrarily large files.