Right now gravity is selectively applied in the game. I can fall to my death, items sink in the sea, gravel and sand slide downward... but one can cut a block out of a tree yet it remains in the air... structures can be built that float. I'd like to see a switchable option to add gravity effects to everything. Making it switchable would preserve the creative aspect for those who prefer building.
Right now, there are two cases: either a block falls if not supported from below or it doesn't. There are no blocks that check whether they are supported from any other direction. This means that if gravity were "turned on" for each block, then everything would collapse – ceilings, caverns, overhangs, leaves, everything. Clearly, this is not the desired result.
What would be needed instead would be to check for each block whether it is supported. This is a recursive operation, and would end up being phenomenally expensive for the vast number of blocks in a Minecraft world. Plus, you'd have to recalculate every time you placed or removed a block. There are some optimizations you could do, but it's still well beyond what would be practically possible.
What would be needed instead would be to check for each block whether it is supported. This is a recursive operation, and would end up being phenomenally expensive for the vast number of blocks in a Minecraft world. Plus, you'd have to recalculate every time you placed or removed a block. There are some optimizations you could do, but it's still well beyond what would be practically possible.
Yep. This is probably why Notch abandoned the idea. (He was planning to have an obsidian block allow floating islands.)
What would be needed instead would be to check for each block whether it is supported. This is a recursive operation, and would end up being phenomenally expensive for the vast number of blocks in a Minecraft world. Plus, you'd have to recalculate every time you placed or removed a block. There are some optimizations you could do, but it's still well beyond what would be practically possible.
http://twitter.com/#!/notch/status/27969437402
Mostly moved on. May check back a few times a year.