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.

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🧱 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 – fetch 3D Tiles leaves fast.
  • java-draco-decoder – decode Draco GLBs to plain GLB.
  • 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

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⚠️ 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/releases/download/2.12.3/FastAsyncWorldEdit-Bukkit-2.12.3.jar

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📦 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/download/1.0/VoxelEarth-1.0.jar

• FastAsyncWorldEdit 2.12.3 (recommended)
  FastAsyncWorldEdit-Bukkit-2.12.3.jar
  https://github.com/IntellectualSites/FastAsyncWorldEdit/releases/download/2.12.3/FastAsyncWorldEdit-Bukkit-2.12.3.jar

• 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

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🖥 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.

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🚀 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