Compass Rose

Introduction

This tutorial shows you how to create words and letters (text) from blocks. The text is placed in the Minecraft world at a position where you print them at. The object you will make is called a compass rose. This is a 2D marker showing the North, South, East, and West directions. In the last step, you will add another dimension to the compass rose to show the Up and Down directions.

Step 1

Print the letter E in the west direction at the player’s current location. This is a direction label for the East direction.

# @highlight
blocks.print("E", GLOWSTONE,
    pos(0, 0, 0),
    WEST)

Step 2

Run the program now.

Printing the direction label will place a big “E” in the Minecraft world at your current position.

Step 3

Change the printing position to (20, 0, 0) so that the letter “E” is placed 20 blocks east of your current position.

With positions, the first number, x, of a position coordinate represents the East/West direction. A positive value goes East, negative goes West.

The position of (20, 0, 0) is relative to the player’s position rather than to a world position. So, (20, 0, 0) means 20 blocks East of the player’s position.

blocks.print("E",GLOWSTONE,
    # @highlight
    pos(20, 0, 0),
    WEST)

Step 4

Run the program again to see the new print position.

The “E” letter is now printed 20 blocks away.

Step 6

Prit another label showinf “W” 20 blocks West. Run the program to test it.

West goes in the negative direction so the position is set as (-20, 0, 0). Don’t move until all letters are printed!.

blocks.print("E",GLOWSTONE,
    pos(20, 0, 0),
    WEST)
# @highlight
blocks.print("W",GLOWSTONE,
    # @highlight
    pos(-20, 0, 0),
    # @highlight
    WEST)

Step 7

Print two more direction labels to show “N” 20 blocks North, “S” 20 blocks South. Try it in Minecraft.

The 3rd number, z, of the position is the South/North coordinate. A positive value goes South, a negative value goes North.

blocks.print("N",GLOWSTONE,
    # @highlight
    pos(0, 0, -20),
    WEST)
blocks.print("S",GLOWSTONE,
    # @highlight
    pos(0, 0, 20),
    WEST)

Step 8

Add direction labels to show “U” 20 blocks Up, “D” 20 blocks Down. Try it in Minecraft.

The 2nd number, y, of the position is the Up/Down direction for elevation. A positive value goes Up, a negative value goes Down.

blocks.print("U",GLOWSTONE,
    # @highlight
    pos(0, 20, 0),
    WEST)
blocks.print("D",GLOWSTONE,
    # @highlight
    pos(0, -20, 0),
    WEST)