Spotlight on Chunker
There is a long list of invaluable apps in my digital toolbelt that help make my job as a Minecraft Education developer A LOT easier. I've compiled a helpful list of some of the digital Minecraft tools I use (link here), but in this blog entry I'm going to spotlight and go into greater detail of one of my favourite tools, Chunker, by Hive Games.
Is there an Education Edition option?
While it doesn't explicitly include Education Edition, Education Edition is Bedrock based and typically a version or two behind the Bedrock release. As such, you have the ability to convert to older Bedrock versions that will be largely, if not entirely compatible in Education Edition. This is incredibly helpful porting over worlds developers have created in a Java or Bedrock based editors.
You can also convert Education worlds to Bedrock or Java, but you will lose any Education Edition specific elements.
Getting Stared
I've used a lot of tools over the years, and this one stands out as beautifully, simply and intuitively designed. To get started, simply drag a .zip or a .mcworld file onto Select Archive or choose a specific folder of a Java world.
From here you can select which version you would like to convert your world to... the latest for both Java and Bedrock are pinned, but you can see all earlier versions by clicking the Show All button.
At the bottom of the page you can click Restart, Advanced Mode or Convert. Convert will immediately convert your world to the selected version, while Restart, will take you back to world selection. Advance Mode has some important additional options you should check before converting.
A few important things to note before I dive in too much further:
Advanced Mode: World Preview
World Preview gives you a top down map of your entire world. There are other map generating tools, but Chunker is probably one of the easiest to use. There's a full screen button at the lower right corner that expands the map to your entire display, handy for screen capturing a decent map image of your world.
Advanced Mode: World Settings
Here we have the majority of the world settings you would be able to configure either inside Minecraft, or through slash commands (and a few that aren't). I'm not going to review all of the settings here, but I will mention a couple that I feel are worth noting:
World Setting Tab | Generator: Normal, Flat and Void options
This lets you configure your map so that when you move beyond it's current borders it either generates new terrain, flat grass, or nothing at all (void). Void is a great setting to enable if you don't want any new terrain generated, and want to keep the focus of your world where you've created it (we all know how students love to run off and explore!).
Game Rules Tab | Drowning, Fall, and Fire damage
You can set these using commands in world, but it's a lot easier setting them here. Toggle on these options to prevent injury due to drowning, falling, and fire if you don't want your players injured by these in Adventure or Survival modes. Oddly, Freeze Damage has not been added yet as an togglable option, but you can still disable this damage in-world using a slash command.
I encourage you to explore the other settings available through this tool... if you hover over the settings, it will provide you with a short description of what that setting does.
Advanced Mode: World Pruning
When you select Dimension/Pruning and select Include in the Chunk Pruning field, you can remove everything outside a selected area on your map. Switch back to the World Preview section, to adjust the borders of your world.
Need to change a lot of blocks from one type to another? With Block mapping, you can select the block type you'd like to change (Input Block) to the block type you'd like to change it to (Output Block).
Like block mapping, Biome Mapping can swap out one biome for another. The only trick here is finding out which biome you have originally. In Java Edition, you can press F3 to open up the debug screen, and there should be a line indicating the biome. Bedrock Edition doesn't have this function, so you'll either to make some educated guesses, or there are some third party tools that you can use to get this information (I don't have any recommendations for this right now, but if you do, leave some suggestions in the comments.)
Alternatively, you can use a tool like Amulet or Axiom to select areas of your map, and simply convert the selected area to whichever biome you like.
Wrapping Up
So, what is Chunker?
Chunker is a free, open-source Minecraft World converter that will convert your Java and Bedrock editions worlds to either format, or even earlier versions of each edition. It's available for download for Windows, MacOS and Linux!
The Windows version is a downloadable .exe file, which you can run without installation.
Is there an Education Edition option?
While it doesn't explicitly include Education Edition, Education Edition is Bedrock based and typically a version or two behind the Bedrock release. As such, you have the ability to convert to older Bedrock versions that will be largely, if not entirely compatible in Education Edition. This is incredibly helpful porting over worlds developers have created in a Java or Bedrock based editors.
You can also convert Education worlds to Bedrock or Java, but you will lose any Education Edition specific elements.
Getting Stared
I've used a lot of tools over the years, and this one stands out as beautifully, simply and intuitively designed. To get started, simply drag a .zip or a .mcworld file onto Select Archive or choose a specific folder of a Java world.
From here you can select which version you would like to convert your world to... the latest for both Java and Bedrock are pinned, but you can see all earlier versions by clicking the Show All button.
At the bottom of the page you can click Restart, Advanced Mode or Convert. Convert will immediately convert your world to the selected version, while Restart, will take you back to world selection. Advance Mode has some important additional options you should check before converting.
A few important things to note before I dive in too much further:
- None of the changes you make in any of these settings or options will be made to the world until you press Convert.
- The original .zip or .mcworld file will be unaffected. Chunker will convert and provide you with an entirely new file with the changes.
- As you will be working with an extracted .zip or .mcworld files with Education/Bedrock, the original world in your game will be unaffected, and you'll need to import the new .mcworld file.
- Be careful not to point the tool to your original Java world files. Always work from a copy.
Advanced Mode: World Preview
World Preview gives you a top down map of your entire world. There are other map generating tools, but Chunker is probably one of the easiest to use. There's a full screen button at the lower right corner that expands the map to your entire display, handy for screen capturing a decent map image of your world.
The button above it will show you any other dimensions that are available to your world (Overworld, Nether, The End).
Advanced Mode: World Settings
Here we have the majority of the world settings you would be able to configure either inside Minecraft, or through slash commands (and a few that aren't). I'm not going to review all of the settings here, but I will mention a couple that I feel are worth noting:
World Setting Tab | Generator: Normal, Flat and Void options
This lets you configure your map so that when you move beyond it's current borders it either generates new terrain, flat grass, or nothing at all (void). Void is a great setting to enable if you don't want any new terrain generated, and want to keep the focus of your world where you've created it (we all know how students love to run off and explore!).
Game Rules Tab | Drowning, Fall, and Fire damage
You can set these using commands in world, but it's a lot easier setting them here. Toggle on these options to prevent injury due to drowning, falling, and fire if you don't want your players injured by these in Adventure or Survival modes. Oddly, Freeze Damage has not been added yet as an togglable option, but you can still disable this damage in-world using a slash command.
I encourage you to explore the other settings available through this tool... if you hover over the settings, it will provide you with a short description of what that setting does.
Advanced Mode: World Pruning
When you select Dimension/Pruning and select Include in the Chunk Pruning field, you can remove everything outside a selected area on your map. Switch back to the World Preview section, to adjust the borders of your world.
Drag the corners around to select the area of the map you wish to retain. Anything outside of the selected area will become void, and if you've also selected the World Setting - Generator: Void, then nothing will generate outside of the selected area when you load it into Minecraft.
This is an amazing tool for bringing focus to your Minecraft lessons, and trimming unneeded areas.
Warning! Any NPCs within the border area will disappear during trimming! Typically I use this tool early in the development process and add my Education and lesson content later.
This is an amazing tool for bringing focus to your Minecraft lessons, and trimming unneeded areas.
Warning! Any NPCs within the border area will disappear during trimming! Typically I use this tool early in the development process and add my Education and lesson content later.
Block Mapping
Need to change a lot of blocks from one type to another? With Block mapping, you can select the block type you'd like to change (Input Block) to the block type you'd like to change it to (Output Block).
Biome Mapping
Like block mapping, Biome Mapping can swap out one biome for another. The only trick here is finding out which biome you have originally. In Java Edition, you can press F3 to open up the debug screen, and there should be a line indicating the biome. Bedrock Edition doesn't have this function, so you'll either to make some educated guesses, or there are some third party tools that you can use to get this information (I don't have any recommendations for this right now, but if you do, leave some suggestions in the comments.)
Alternatively, you can use a tool like Amulet or Axiom to select areas of your map, and simply convert the selected area to whichever biome you like.
Wrapping Up
When you've configured all the settings and options, click Convert. Depending on the size of your world it could take some time, but it will output a new file for you based on your selections. If there are any errors, it will prompt you with a report.
You can now import your world into Minecraft Education and confirm that the changes have been made.
Have a request for another tool you'd like to me to spotlight? Please leave your suggestions in the comments!
Have a request for another tool you'd like to me to spotlight? Please leave your suggestions in the comments!
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