Basic Blocks

For our first block, we are going to make a Copper Ore to go along with our Copper Ingot.

Base Block

We’re going to do something similar to what we did for Basic Items, create a base class for all of our blocks to extend to make our life a bit easier.

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package net.shadowfacts.tutorial.block;

import net.minecraft.block.Block;
import net.minecraft.block.material.Material;
import net.minecraft.creativetab.CreativeTabs;
import net.minecraft.item.ItemBlock;
import net.shadowfacts.tutorial.TutorialMod;

public class BlockBase extends Block {

	protected String name;

	public BlockBase(Material material, String name) {
		super(material);

		this.name = name;

		setUnlocalizedName(name);
		setRegistryName(name);
	}

	public void registerItemModel(ItemBlock itemBlock) {
		TutorialMod.proxy.registerItemRenderer(itemBlock, 0, name);
	}

	@Override
	public BlockBase setCreativeTab(CreativeTabs tab) {
		super.setCreativeTab(tab);
		return this;
	}

}

This is almost exactly the same as our ItemBase class except it extends Block instead of Item. It sets the unlocalized and registry names, has a method to register the item model, and has an overridden version of Block#setCreativeTab that returns a BlockBase.

We’ll also create a BlockOre class which extends BlockBase to make adding ore’s a little easier.

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package net.shadowfacts.tutorial.block;

import net.minecraft.block.material.Material;
import net.minecraft.creativetab.CreativeTabs;

public class BlockOre extends BlockBase {

	public BlockOre(String name) {
		super(Material.ROCK, name);

		setHardness(3f);
		setResistance(5f);
	}

	@Override
	public BlockOre setCreativeTab(CreativeTabs tab) {
		super.setCreativeTab(tab);
		return this;
	}

}

`ModBlocks`

Now let’s create a ModBlocks class similar to ModItems to assist us when registering blocks.

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package net.shadowfacts.tutorial.block;

import net.minecraft.block.Block;
import net.minecraft.creativetab.CreativeTabs;
import net.minecraft.item.ItemBlock;
import net.minecraftforge.fml.common.registry.GameRegistry;

public class ModBlocks {

	public static void init() {
		
	}

	private static <T extends Block> T register(T block, ItemBlock itemBlock) {
		GameRegistry.register(block);
		GameRegistry.register(itemBlock);

		if (block instanceof BlockBase) {
			((BlockBase)block).registerItemModel(itemBlock);
		}

		return block;
	}

	private static <T extends Block> T register(T block) {
		ItemBlock itemBlock = new ItemBlock(block);
		itemBlock.setRegistryName(block.getRegistryName());
		return register(block, itemBlock);
	}

}

This class is slightly different than our ModItems class due to the way blocks work in 1.9. In 1.9, we register the block and the ItemBlock separately whereas previously Forge would register the default ItemBlock automatically.

Brief aside about how ItemBlocks work: The ItemBlock for a given block is what is used as the inventory form of a given block. In the game, when you have a piece of Cobblestone in your inventory, you don’t actually have on of the Cobblestone blocks in your inventory, you have one of the Cobblestone ItemBlocks in your inventory.

Once again, we’ll need to update our preInit method to call the init method of our ModBlocks class:

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@Mod.EventHandler
public void preInit(FMLPreInitializationEvent event) {
	ModItems.init();
	ModBlocks.init();
}

Copper Ore

Now, because we have our BlockBase and ModBlocks classes in place, we can quickly add a new block:

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public static BlockOre oreCopper;

public static void init() {
	oreCopper = register(new BlockOre("oreCopper").setCreativeTab(CreativeTabs.MATERIALS));
}

This will:

Create a new BlockOre with the name oreCopper.
Sets the creative tab of the block to the Materials tab.
Registers the block with the GameRegistry.
Registers the default ItemBlock with the GameRegistry.

Now, in the game, we can see our (untextured) copper ore block!

Copper Ore Screenshot

Next, we’ll look at how to make a simple model for our copper ore block.