Contents

• Constants
• Functions
• Merge strategies

This class is used when multiple adjacent blocks are to be manipulated. Because of chunking and multithreading, manipulating single blocks using cWorld:SetBlock() is a rather time-consuming operation (locks for exclusive access need to be obtained, chunk lookup is done for each block), so whenever you need to manipulate multiple adjacent blocks, it's better to wrap the operation into a cBlockArea access. cBlockArea is capable of reading / writing across chunk boundaries, has no chunk lookups for get and set operations and is not subject to multithreading locking (because it is not shared among threads).

cBlockArea remembers its origin (MinX, MinY, MinZ coords in the Read() call) and therefore supports absolute as well as relative get / set operations. Despite that, the contents of a cBlockArea can be written back into the world at any coords. Most functions in this class come in pair, one that works with the absolute coords (what the coords would have been in the original world the area was read from) and one (usually with "Rel" in their name) that work on the relative coords (those range from zero to Size - 1). Also note that most functions will raise an error if an out-of-range coord is supplied to them.

cBlockArea can hold any combination of the following datatypes:

• block types
• block metas
• blocklight
• skylight
• block entities (only together with block types)

Block entities stored inside a cBlockArea object have their position set to the relative position within the area.

Typical usage:

• Create cBlockArea object
• Read an area from the world / load from file / create anew
• Modify blocks inside cBlockArea
• Write the area back to a world / save to file

Calls to any setter of this class will not trigger simulator updates (lava, water, redstone).

function Callback(BlockEntity)

function Callback(BlockEntity)

function Callback(BlockEntity)

function Callback(BlockEntity)

function Callback(BlockEntity)

The strategy parameter specifies how individual blocks are combined together, using the table below.

So to sum up:

1. msOverwrite completely overwrites all blocks with the Src's blocks
2. msFillAir overwrites only those blocks that were air
3. msImprint overwrites with only those blocks that are non-air

Special strategies

For each strategy, evaluate the table rows from top downwards, the first match wins.

msDifference - changes all the blocks which are the same to air. Otherwise the source block gets placed.

msLake - used for merging areas with lava and water lakes, in the appropriate generator.

msSpongePrint - used for most prefab-generators to merge the prefabs. Similar to msImprint, but uses the sponge block as the NOP block instead, so that the prefabs may carve out air pockets, too.

msMask - the blocks that are the same in the other area are kept, all the differing blocks are replaced with air. Meta is used in the comparison, too, two blocks of the same type but different meta are considered different and thus replaced with air.

msDifference - the blocks that are the same in both areas are replaced with air, all the differing blocks are kept from the first area. Meta is used in the comparison, too, two blocks of the same type but different meta are considered different.

msSimpleCompare - the blocks that are the same in both areas are replaced with air, all the differing blocks are replaced with stone. Meta is used in the comparison, too, two blocks of the same type but different meta are considered different.