Voxel Earth

VoxelEarth 1.0

Real places, in Minecraft — now in a single, CPU-only plugin.

VoxelEarth 1.0 is our first “real” release of the Minecraft plugin + tools pipeline for streaming Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles (and other 3D Tiles sources) into Minecraft as voxels. Walk around a fresh world and watch real cities, landmarks, and terrain appear around you — block by block. ---

Highlights

- Single-JAR Minecraft plugin No Node.js, no CUDA, no external scripts required on the server. Just drop the VoxelEarth jar (and optionally FAWE) into plugins/. - 1.20+ support with FAWE integration Designed and tested primarily on Paper 1.20.4 with Java 21+, with a BlockPlacer path that works without FAWE and a FAWE path for high-throughput edits on newer servers. - End-to-end CPU voxelization Complete CPU pipeline for: 3D Tiles → Draco decode → GLB → voxel JSON → Minecraft blocks. - Split pipeline for easier development Each stage has its own focused CLI: - [java-3dtiles-downloader](https://github.com/voxelearth/java-3dtiles-downloader) – fetch 3D Tiles leaves fast. - [java-draco-decoder](https://github.com/voxelearth/java-draco-decoder) – decode Draco GLBs to plain GLB. - [java-cpu-voxelizer](https://github.com/voxelearth/java-cpu-voxelizer) – voxelize GLB into the same JSON format the plugin consumes. - Web client for experiments A lightweight web viewer to explore tiles in your browser and experiment with regions/parameters before you spin up a server: https://github.com/voxelearth/web-client ---

Important: FAWE & Version Notes

VoxelEarth 1.0 has two placement paths: - Paper/Spigot 1.20.4 - Works with or without FAWE. - When FAWE is present, VoxelEarth uses it for fast bulk edits. - When FAWE is missing, it falls back to its internal BlockPlacer path. - Paper/Spigot 1.20+ (non-1.20.4) - We strongly recommend installing FAWE for your server version. - The plugin is compiled against 1.20.4’s API; FAWE smooths over a lot of version differences and gives you async, high-throughput world edits.

Reminder:

For 1.20.4 servers, VoxelEarth can run standalone.

For other 1.20+ versions, drop FAWE into `plugins/` next to VoxelEarth.

Quick FAWE link (the version we build & test against): - FastAsyncWorldEdit (FAWE) 2.12.3: https://github.com/IntellectualSites/FastAsyncWorldEdit/r… ---

Downloads

Adjust filenames if you use different asset names; this is the typical layout.

- VoxelEarth 1.0 Minecraft plugin VoxelEarth-1.0.jar https://github.com/ryanhlewis/VoxelEarth/releases/downloa… - FastAsyncWorldEdit 2.12.3 (recommended) FastAsyncWorldEdit-Bukkit-2.12.3.jar https://github.com/IntellectualSites/FastAsyncWorldEdit/r… - CLI tools (optional but great for dev): - Downloader: https://github.com/voxelearth/java-3dtiles-downloader - Draco decoder: https://github.com/voxelearth/java-draco-decoder - CPU voxelizer: https://github.com/voxelearth/java-cpu-voxelizer - Web client: https://github.com/voxelearth/web-client ---

Requirements

- Server: Paper or Spigot 1.20.4+ - Java: Java 21+ (plugin compiled with --release 21) - Plugins: - Recommended: FastAsyncWorldEdit for your Minecraft version. - VoxelEarth will still run without FAWE on 1.20.4 via its internal BlockPlacer. ---

Quick Start (1.20.4 Example)

Basic Linux setup:

mkdir -p ~/paper-server
cd ~/paper-server

# Paper 1.20.4
wget https://api.papermc.io/v2/projects/paper/versions/1.20.4/builds/499/downloads/paper-1.20.4-499.jar -O paper.jar
mkdir -p plugins

# FAWE (recommended)
wget -O plugins/FastAsyncWorldEdit-Bukkit-2.12.3.jar \
  https://github.com/IntellectualSites/FastAsyncWorldEdit/releases/download/2.12.3/FastAsyncWorldEdit-Bukkit-2.12.3.jar

# VoxelEarth plugin (from this release)
wget -O plugins/VoxelEarth-1.0.jar \
  https://github.com/ryanhlewis/VoxelEarth/releases/download/1.0/VoxelEarth-1.0.jar

echo "eula=true" > eula.txt

java -Xms2G -Xmx4G -jar paper.jar nogui

Full Changelog: https://github.com/ryanhlewis/VoxelEarth/commits/1.0