Arborea: 3D Bushy Leaves & Worldgen

Arborea replaces vanilla leaf blocks with custom 3D foliage models while keeping vanilla logs, saplings and survival mechanics intact.

Instead of relying on resource pack tricks alone, Arborea combines custom leaf blocks, native biome foliage tinting, a hybrid procedural/structure tree generator and a script-driven leaf decay system.

Features

1. 3D Leaf Geometry & Orientation Variance

Model Design: Built with the Bedrock block format 1.26.20. Each leaf block combines a solid central core (16×16×16) with exterior decorative foliage planes.

Orientation Variance: Foliage plane visibility is driven by a block state evaluated through Molang. World generation and structures assign alternating values, adding visual variety across the canopy with no runtime script cost.

Geometry Profiles (subpacks):

— Bushy (default): recommended for most devices.

— Bushy block: alternative geometry, slightly higher graphics load.

— Bushy++: fullest foliage, higher graphics load.

2. Native Biome Foliage Tinting

Engine Integration: Uses Minecraft's native tint_method (default_foliage, birch_foliage, evergreen_foliage) over grayscale base textures, so leaves follow the foliage color of the biome they are in.

Species Coverage:

— Biome-tinted: Oak, Dark Oak, Jungle, Acacia, Mangrove, Birch and Spruce.

— Fixed colors: Cherry, Azalea, Flowering Azalea, Pale Oak and Poplar (Red, Yellow, Orange).

3. World Generation: Hybrid Procedural & Structures

Clean Feature Overrides: Overrides the vanilla minecraft:*_tree_feature identifiers instead of adding custom biome rules, so vanilla biomes generate Arborea trees automatically.

Structure / Procedural Mix:

— Oak & Birch: 30% handcrafted structures (centered with offsets) / 70% procedural variants.

— Jungle: 50% structures / 50% procedural, both for regular and 2×2 mega jungle trees.

— Spruce: 50% structures / 50% procedural; 2×2 mega spruces use handcrafted structures.

— Swamp: handcrafted drooping canopies (30%) mixed with procedural swamp trees (70%).

— Other species (Acacia, Dark Oak, Cherry, Azalea, Mangrove, Pale Oak): vanilla tree shapes with Arborea leaves. Pale Oak keeps its hanging moss and Creaking Heart placement; Mangroves keep their roots.

4. Script-Based Leaf Decay

Vanilla Bedrock does not run leaf decay on custom blocks, so Arborea implements its own with @minecraft/server:

26 Direction Search: Checks faces, edges and corners, which prevents false decay on the diagonal branches common in jungle and swamp canopies.

Per-Species Support Radius: 4 blocks for Oak, Birch, Spruce, Cherry and Azalea; 5 for Acacia; 6 for Jungle, Mangrove and Pale Oak; 8 for Dark Oak and Poplars.

Performance Budget: Decay checks run through a throttled job queue (a fixed number of leaves every few ticks), so felling a mega tree does not cause stutters.

Hanging Vines: Decaying leaves also remove the vine columns hanging from them.

5. Bone Meal & Sapling Growth

Arborea Trees from Saplings: Bone meal on Oak, Birch, Spruce and Jungle saplings grows Arborea trees (procedural or structure, with the same weights as world generation). Each use has a 20% chance to grow the tree.

Clearance Check: A single 3D volume check makes sure there is enough room before the tree is placed.

2×2 Saplings: Jungle and Spruce saplings arranged in a 2×2 square grow mega trees, if there is not enough room, a regular 1×1 tree is tried instead.

6. Survival & Building

Harvesting: Leaves drop the 3D leaf block itself when broken with Shears or a Silk Touch tool.

Player Building: Leaves placed by a player never decay.

Drops: Hand-broken and decaying leaves can drop saplings, sticks and apples (Azalea leaves drop no sapling). Decay never drops the leaf block.

Mining: Breaks quickly by hand, faster with Shears and Hoes.

7. PBR & Vibrant Visuals

Texture Sets: Every leaf texture has a normal map and a PBR texture_set.json.

Material Properties: Tuned roughness and subsurface scattering for a natural look under Vibrant Visuals.

8. Block Culling

Face Culling: Only the central core participates in face culling against neighboring leaves and solid blocks. Decorative foliage planes stay visible, preserving canopy depth while hidden interior faces are skipped.

Technical Specifications

Installation

1. Import: Open the .mcaddon file (double-click on PC, or "Open with Minecraft" on mobile). Minecraft imports both the Behavior Pack and the Resource Pack.

2. Create a world: Go to Create New World → Behavior Packs → Available, and activate Arborea. The Resource Pack is added automatically as a dependency (check it appears under Resource Packs → Active).

3. Choose a geometry profile: In Resource Packs → Active → Arborea, click the gear (⚙️) icon and pick Bushy, Bushy block or Bushy++.

New world recommended

Arborea works through world generation, so a new world is strongly recommended.

Existing worlds: trees that are already generated stay vanilla. Only newly generated chunks will contain Arborea trees, which can leave visible borders between old and new terrain. Bone-mealed saplings will still grow Arborea trees anywhere.

Removing the addon: Arborea leaves in the world depend on the Behavior Pack. If you disable it later, those blocks will no longer load correctly. Back up your world before adding or removing the addon.

Achivement Friendly