MINECRAFT
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Blocks

Blocks are the basic units of structure in Minecraft that can be directly placed in the game world.

Blocks are arranged in a 3-dimensional grid of 1-cubic-meter cells. Each cell usually contains exactly one block; exceptions exist in the form of slabs, vines, snow layers, turtle eggs and sea pickles.

Together, blocks and fluids build up the in-game environment, and most can be harvested and utilized in various fashions. Some blocks, such as dirt and sandstone, are opaque and occupy their entire cubic meter, while other blocks, such as glass and flowers, are transparent or non-solid. Explosions destroy some blocks more easily than they destroy others.

Air is a special block. It is an unbreakable transparent block, as a substitute for the absence of blocks. in Java Edition, it has two variants: cave air and void air.

Some blocks, such as torches and glowstone, emit light. The amount of light they emit varies widely; see this table of light values for further information. Opaque blocks completely block light, while transparent blocks can have no effect on light, block the light, or merely weaken it.

Almost all blocks ignore gravity, except for sand, red sand, gravel, anvils, dragon eggs, concrete powder, scaffolding, snow and pointed dripstone, all of which turn into entities when their support is removed.

Block Height

Most solid blocks are 1 meter high (3.28084 ft), but certain blocks (especially slabs and stairs) have non-standard block heights.

A player can automatically step up from a lower to a higher height if the difference is at most 0.6 (3⁄5) of a block or 1.9685 feet.

Textures

The textures on the faces of blocks are 16×16 pixels. Most blocks are proportionately one cubic meter by default, but their shape can be changed using models. Most blocks have static textures, but these blocks are animated: water, lava, Nether portal, End portal, End gateway, prismarine (slab; stairs; wall), sea lantern, magma block, seagrass, kelp, fire, lantern, lit campfire and their soul variants, lit blast furnace, heat block, stems, hyphae, lit smoker, stonecutter and command block.

Using resource packs, the player can change the textures and resolution of blocks, including whether their texture is animated. They can also change the shapes of blocks using models and the size of blocks to any size with equal width and height, though sizes that are a power of two tend to work better.