Light Blocks!

Today, a new 1.17 snapshot released. It introduced quite a few cool new things! Goats, villager trade stuff, new generation etc. But one feature stood out to me.

On bedrock edition, there is an item called ''Light block''. It can only be acquired via creative commands, and has been something I've wanted to see on Java for a long time now. Finally, they have been added! With a few changes, these could be really useful for not only lighting but also for decoration.

Gone are the days of servers like Wynn hiding glowstone under carpets! Finally we have a non-interactable block that produces light. Here's how they look (I love how each level has its own texture btw)


When placed, they act sort of like barriers but also somewhat differently. They are completely invisible and only show up if you hold a light block. Plus, you cannot interact with them and they can be waterlogged. They are deleted when a solid block is placed over them.

Here's how they look when placed, they render similarly to barriers

It's a pretty lazy texture right now, it looks like it honestly took like 10 seconds to make. However, I imagine it will change in the future

When I saw that each light level has its own inventory texture, I thought to myself ''Ooh, that's cool. Lightbulbs in minecraft. Let's see how they look on item frames, maybe they could be used for decoration''

Oh.

Yeah, that ugly little number it has shows up in item frames. As of now, it's not like barriers and structure voids where they can be used to decorate things. I think Mojang should make the number be like durability bars on tools and bundles where they are invisible in the hand and on item frames, just so these can be used as a decoration. I also think the later textures are kinda ugly, but this does seem to be programmer art so they may change later on.

But yeah, you don't have to hide light sources in your builds anymore. Hell, you can place these all over the place and they won't get in the way of your build.

If you want to mess around with these, go to the latest snapshot and do the command /give @p Light and it will work

 

2011 would like to have a word with you about block 36

 

This better not be an April Fools joke block...

 

It's not part of the yearly April Fools update, so no it isn't.

 

Wow, this will be useful for when wynncraft updates to 1.17 in 2034

 

Actually it won't. They implemented it in their own way. You will notice that there are invis light sources on roads. In the middle of those are a structure void. I'm pretty sure they used that as a way to add invisible lighting

 

i'd imagine ingame blocks made to be invisible light sources would be easier to use than however the structure void system works, and might produce less lag

 

It shouldn't. There's very little serverside going on that causes light updates. Pretty much nothing changes on the server side, only client side.