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Level Format

Byte Order

The level format is stored in Big Endian byte order.

NBT structure

  • MinecraftLevel: The root tag.
    • About: Information about the level.
      • CreatedOn: The Unix time when the level was created.
      • Name: The name of the level, Always A Nice World.
      • Author: The name of the user who created the level.
    • Environment: Information about the environment, varies based on map settings.
      • TimeOfDay: The time in ticks affecting the daylight cycle. Range: 0 - 24000.
      • SkyBrightness: The sky light level. Range: 0 - 15.
      • SkyColor: The RGB color of the sky, 24 bits. Red is SkyColor >> 16 & 255, Green is SkyColor >> 8 & 255, and Blue is SkyColor & 255.
      • FogColor: The RGB color of the sky, 24 bits. Red is FogColor >> 16 & 255, Green is FogColor >> 8 & 255, and Blue is FogColor & 255.
      • CloudColor: The RGB color of the sky, 24 bits. Red is CloudColor >> 16 & 255, Green is CloudColor >> 8 & 255, and Blue is CloudColor & 255.
      • CloudHeight: The height of the clouds.
      • SurroundingGroundType: The block ID of the "surrounding ground".
      • SurroundingGroundHeight: The height of the "surrounding ground".
      • SurroundingWaterType: The block ID of the "surrounding water".
      • SurroundingWaterHeight: The height of the "surrounding water".
    • Map: The map data.
      • Width: The width of the level. (X direction)
      • Length: The length of the level. (Z direction)
      • Height: The height of the level. (Y direction)
      • Spawn: ListTag of 3 ShortTags holding the X, Y, and Z spawn coordinates.
      • Blocks: Width×Length×Height bytes of block IDs (8 bits). XZY order (X increments first)[1]
      • Data: Width×Length×Height bytes of block data (4 bits) and light data (next 4 bits). XZY order (X increments first)
    • Entities: ListTag of CompoundTags holding all the entities in the level.
      • An entity.
        • id: The entity ID.
        • Pos: ListTag of 3 FloatTags holding the X, Y, and Z position of the entity.
        • Rotation: ListTag of 2 FloatTags holding the yaw and pitch of the entities view.
        • Motion: ListTag of 3 FloatTags holding the X, Y, and Z motion of the entity in meters per tick.
        • FallDistance: How far the entity has fallen.
        • Health: The number of hit points the entity has. 20 is 10 hearts.
        • AttackTime: Number of ticks the entity is immune to attacks for.
        • HurtTime: Number of ticks the entity is red from being attacked.
        • DeathTime: Number of ticks the entity has been dead for. (used for death animation)
        • Air: The number of ticks before the entity starts to drown. It starts at 300.
        • Fire: When negative, the number of ticks before the entity can catch on fire. When positive, the number of ticks before the fire is extinguished.
        • AdditionalEntityTags: See Additional Entity Tags
    • TileEntities: ListTag of CompoundTags holding all the tile entities in the level.
      • A tile entity.
        • id: The tile entity ID.
        • Pos: Position of the tile entity[2].
        • Items: ListTag of CompoundTags holding the items in the container.
          • An item stack.
            • Slot: The slot the item is in.
            • id: The item ID.
            • Damage: The item's data value, or damage value for tools.
            • Count: The number of this item in the stack. Range -128 to 127. Values less then 2 are not displayed in-game.
        • AdditionalTileEntityTags: See Additional Tile Entity Tags

Additional Entity Tags

Item (Entity)

NOTE: Item entity doesn't have the AttackTime, HurtTime, and DeathTime tags.

    • Age: The number of ticks the item has been "untouched". After 6000 ticks (5 minutes) the item is destroyed.
    • Item: The inventory item, without the Slot tag.
      • id: The item ID.
      • Damage: The item's data value, or damage value for tools.
      • Count: The number of this item in the stack. Range -128 to 127. Values less then 2 are not displayed in-game.

LocalPlayer

    • Inventory: ListTag of CompoundTags holding the items in the players inventory.
      • Slot: The slot the item is in.
      • id: The item ID.
      • Damage: The item's data value, or damage value for tools.
      • Count: The number of this item in the stack. Range -128 to 127. Values less then 2 are not displayed in-game.
    • Score: The player's score.

Sheep

    • Sheared: 1 or 0 (true/false) - true if the sheep has been shorn.

Additional Tile Entity Tags

Furnace

    • BurnTime: Number of ticks left before the current fuel runs out.
    • CookTime: Number of ticks the item has been smelting for. The item finishes when this value reaches 200 (10 seconds). Is reset to 0 if BurnTime reaches 0.

Notes

  1. The index can be calculated with (y × length + z) × width + x

  2. Calculate Pos tag from X, Y, and Z:
    Pos = x + (y << 10) + (z << 20)

    Calculate X, Y, Z from Pos tag:
    x = Pos % 1024
    y = (Pos >> 10) % 1024
    z = (Pos >> 20) % 1024

License & Credits

This file is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0.

The information here is from this Minecraft wiki page with some wording tweaked and/or simplify

Contributors

The avatar of contributor named as BJTMastermind BJTMastermind

Changelog

Contributors



Documentation page was setup by DexrnZacAttack.


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