Voxel and block export

In plain words: Voxel and Minecraft block export

Designed 2 min read 6 connected pages
The short version written for the Snayu team

A planned 3D workflow that converts a model into a bounded voxel grid, maps it to a game block palette and exports a Sponge Schematic v3 (.schem) file, proving the result by reading it back.

Why read it: Read this when working on Minecraft or block-game asset export for the Foundry or Blockworld apps.
  1. 1Three routes: deterministic voxel conversion, block-native generation, and procedural recipes run by a contained interpreter.
  2. 2The first proving fixture is a 32x32x32 grid with full cubes only; unknown blocks fail closed.
  3. 3An exported schematic grants no right to place blocks in a live world.

Designed Designed passage; no exporter delivered.

The original text Underlined words open their plain-English card.

A spatial asset can become a bounded grid, a game-qualified block palette, and a portable schematic. This Form workflow owns that conversion and its read-back evidence. Its return is an artifact that Foundry or Blockworld may separately admit.

The passage is Designed. It shares Form's source custody, typed facets, exact execution attempt, and technical settlement, and the Vision Covenant owns its law. Selecting an exporter grants no authority to place blocks in a live world.

Voxels and the 32-cubed proving fixture

Form distinguishes three voxel routes rather than calling each a Minecraft generator:

  1. Deterministic conversion: normalize an admitted mesh or volume, choose solid, shell, or surface occupancy, sample exactly 32 by 32 by 32 cells, apply an optional palette and interior rule, validate, and export.
  2. Block-native generation: an eligible future model produces or inpaints a bounded semantic block region. The result maps through the same canonical palette and validation; it does not masquerade as a voxelized mesh.
  3. Procedural composition: a Mind may propose an inert ProceduralFormRecipe@1 using admitted shapes, transforms, repetition, booleans, symmetry, palette entries, and bounds. A separate contained interpreter effect validates and renders it. Arbitrary Python, shell, Blender scripts, or Minecraft commands are not this contract.

First make the sampled space unambiguous. VoxelGrid@1 pins dimensions, axes, origin, cell scale, occupancy or density channels, optional colors, source axis-aligned bounding-box (AABB) fit and padding, cell-center or cell-volume sampling, boundary and tie rules, axis-to-index mapping, and source transform.

Mapping that space to blocks adds a game-specific meaning. The canonical BlockGrid@1 pins dimensions, origin, axes, units, exact game registry edition and version plus registry digest, palette revision and ordering, exact block identifiers and state properties, air and unknown policy, source relation, and digest. That canonical grid remains independent of the game-file encoding later chosen for export.

The derived Minecraft projection pins Java edition and version, DataVersion, palette mapping, offset, unsupported-block policy, block-entity and entity policy, metadata and timestamp policy, and encoder revision. Its first profile permits full cubes only; stairs, slabs, fences, fluids, redstone, and stateful blocks require later explicit topology and behavior profiles. Unknown or unsupported states fail closed unless the profile names and records an exact substitution.

The export candidate is Sponge Schematic v3: GZip-compressed NBT with an outer Schematic compound, Version = 3, required DataVersion, unsigned-short interpretation of Width, Height, and Length, Blocks.Palette, and varint Blocks.Data indexed as x + z*Width + y*Width*Length. Read-back normalization proves dimensions, palette, offsets, states, block data, and metadata against the canonical grid.

Return enough material to inspect the conversion: the source grid, canonical block grid, .schem, preview GLB and PNG, block counts, palette statistics, clipping and unsupported-material findings, and the export-and-read-back receipt. At 32,768 cells, the 32-cubed golden fixture can use simple, inspectable data structures rather than a large-volume framework. Its size makes this first proof manageable; it sets no universal product limit.

A .schem admitted to Foundry is a project asset. The same exact blueprint admitted to a Blockworld mission still grants no live placement authority: Sentinel must validate every bounded world effect against world epoch, plot lease, inventory, and mission policy.