Spawn

''This article is about natural spawning of players and mobs. For Monster Spawners see: Monster Spawner.''

Spawning refers to players and mobs being created and placed in the game world. Players will respawn on their spawn point upon death.

Spawn Point
Every world created has a spawn point which is generally located somewhere near coordinates x=0.5, z=0.5 and the highest possible Y by default, although sometimes the spawn will glitch up and you can be spawned in a cave, as in the seed "3666440496532277820" (tested) where you spawn inside a spider dungeon. The player's first view of the map will be from the spawn point, facing north.

The spawn point can be moved by sleeping in a bed. If a player has slept in any beds, they will spawn next to the last one that they slept in.

Players can find their spawn point in game by using a compass, or simply by dying and seeing where they show up.

In Beta multiplayer, rather than spawning on top of a single spawn block, players will instead spawn on top in a spawn area of around 20x20 tiles. The spawn area along with a 13 tile border is classed as a protected area, this means non-operator players cannot place or destroy blocks in this protected area nor can they use doors or Redstone devices. Creepers can still destroy terrain in the protected area and TNT placed outside of the protected area will destroy surrounding blocks as usual. The protected area is 46x46 tiles and the spawn area(20x20 tiles) is in the center of this area. It is possible to spawn on top of a tree, in water, or very rarely in lava.

In Beta 1.4, sleeping in a bed will reset your spawn point to that bed when you awake from them naturally at dawn. If the bed at which you have set your spawn point last is removed, your spawn point reverts to its original location (somewhere near x=0,z=0). The same applies to multiplayer, but clicking "Leave Bed" still resets the spawn point.

Mob Spawning
Mobs spawn in packs of up to 4, all of the same type. Wolves can spawn in packs of 8 and Ghasts always spawn alone. Ghasts and Zombie Pigman packs spawn only in the Nether. All other mob packs spawn only in the Overworld. Wolf packs spawn only in forest and taiga Biomes.

Mobs are broadly divided into three categories: hostile, friendly, and water (i.e. Squid). Each category has a spawning cycle once every game tick (1/20th of a second). Before these cycles happen, a list is built of every chunk that is within an 8 chunk distance of any player, on both the X and Z axis. That's a 17x17 chunk, or 272x272 block area for each player. If this area overlaps between multiple players, the common chunks will only be added to the list once.

Mob caps are then calculated based on the number of chunks in the list, using the following formula:

cap = constant * chunks / 256

Each mob category has a seperate cap and a different constant in the formula:

Hostile = 75 Passive = 15 Water = 5

In single player mode, there will always be 17x17 = 289 chunks in the list, and the caps work out to:

Hostile = 84 Passive = 16 Water = 5

The cap is checked once at the beginning of each spawning cycle. If the number of living mobs in a category is over its cap, the entire spawning cycle for that category is skipped.



For each spawning cycle, one attempt is made to spawn a pack of mobs in each chunk in the list. A random location in the chunk is chosen to be the center point of the pack. For the pack to spawn at all, the center block must be the same "material" as the mob -- water for water mobs and air for all other mobs. Note that in the latter case, it must literally be an air block. Any other block, even a non-colliding one, will prevent the entire pack from spawning.

If the center block is suitable, 12 attempts are made to spawn mobs within a 41x1x41 area centered at that block (that's a 41x41 square that is one block high). Mobs will spawn with the lowest part of their body inside this area.

For each spawn attempt, a random block is chosen within the pack area. Blocks close to the center have a much higher chance of being chosen (for the exact details, see the detailed algorithm below). The spawn attempt succeeds only if all of the following conditions are met:


 * There must be no players and no player spawn points within a 24 block distance (spherical) of the spawning block


 * If it's a water mob, then...
 * the spawning block must contain liquid (water or lava)
 * the spawning mob must not be obstructed by other mobs


 * If it's not a water mob, then...
 * the spawning block itself must be non-opaque and non-liquid
 * the block directly below it must be opaque
 * the block directly above it must be non-opaque
 * unless it's a Slime, the spawning mob must not be obstructed by blocks, other mobs, or water


 * If it's a passive mob other than Squid, then...
 * the block directly below the spawning block must be grass
 * the light level of the spawning block must be 9 or brighter


 * If it's a hostile mob other than a Slime, Zombie Pigman, or Ghast, then...
 * the light level of the spawning block must be 7 or darker and more light increases the chance that the spawn will fail
 * sunlight falling on the spawning block further increases the chance that the spawn will fail, by up to 50%


 * If it's a Slime, then...
 * the spawning block must be in a chunk eligible to spawn slimes (see the Slime page for details)
 * the spawning block must be below level 16
 * for medium and large slimes, the difficulty must not be set to peaceful
 * there is an additional 90% chance the spawn will fail, thus slimes only spawn 1/10th as often as other mobs, all other things being equal


 * If it's a Ghast, then there is a 95% chance the spawn will fail, thus ghasts only spawn 1/20th as often as other mobs

If all of these conditions are met then the mob is spawned. The pack is complete when its maximum size is reached or 12 attempts have been made, whichever comes first.

Detailed Mob Spawning Algorithm
This pseudo-code is derived straight from the decompiled source of Minecraft Beta 1.7.3

make a list of chunks within 8 chunks lengths of any player (on X and Z)

for each mob category (hostile, passive, water) { calculate the mob cap = constant * chunks / 256 if the cap has been reached for this category, skip to the next category

for each chunk in the list, in random order { get the biome type for this chunk get the weighted list of mob types that can spawn in that biome use those weights to choose a random mob type from the list

choose a random block location in this chunk, as the "base" block of a pack if the block at that location is opaque, skip to the next chunk if the current mob category and the block do not have the same "material" (ie. water for squids, air for the rest) then, skip to the next chunk

loop 3 times { reset the spawn block equal to the center block of the pack loop 4 times { add random numbers from 0 to 5 to both x and z of the spawn block subtract random numbers from 0 to 5 from both x and z       if the current mob category is water then { if the spawn block is not liquid or the block above it is opaque, the spawn attempt fails } otherwise { if the spawn block is opaque or liquid or            the block above it is opaque or             the block below it is not opaque, the spawn attempt fails }

if the spawn block is within 24 block lengths of any player or the player spawn point, the spawn attempt fails

choose a random direction that the spawned mob will face if any conditions specific to the mob type are not met, the spawn attempt fails { chicken, cow, pig, sheep, wolf: block below spawning block is grass spawning block has a light level or sunlight level of 9 or higher (ie. the check passes even at night if the light level caused by the sun is higher than 9 at daytime)

creeper, zombie, skeleton, spider: sunlight level of spawning block is less or equal to a random number from 0 to 31 light level of block is less or equal to a random number from 0 to 7

slime: difficulty is not set to peaceful or slime size is small (if it's not peaceful, the algorithm won't get to this point) spawn block y coordinate is less than 16 the chunk containing the spawn block is a slime chunk (1 in 10 chance) pass a 1 in 10 random test ghast: pass a 1 in 20 random test squid: must not collide with any other entities

all except squid: must not collide with any other entities must not collide with any blocks must not collide with water }

spawn the mob

if the mob is a spider and a 1 in 100 random test passes, turn it into a spider jockey

if the mob is a sheep, give it a random color if the mob pack is full (1 ghast, 8 wolves, or 4 of any other mob), skip to the next chunk }   }  } }

Other Types of Spawning
A Monster Spawner causes hostile mobs to spawn constantly in any nearby darkness.

A thrown egg has a 1 in 8 chance of spawning a chicken.

Despawning
On every game tick (1/20th of a second), each living mob runs a despawning cycle, with the following rules:


 * A mob that is more than 128 blocks (spherical) from every player will spontaneously despawn (die).
 * A mob that is more than 32 blocks from every player, and is more than 30 seconds old, has a 1 in 800 chance of despawning. That makes the average lifespan of a mob just under one minute, if they never come within 32 blocks of a player (but see the note below).
 * A mob that is within 32 blocks of at least one player, and is more than 30 seconds old, has a 1 in 800 chance of being "born again" -- having their age reset to zero and getting another 30 seconds of immunity to despawning (this may actually be a bug, the actual intention being to always reset the mob's age when it comes closer than 32 blocks).

Note that mobs only run their despawning code while standing still. If they are chasing a player or wandering, none of the above happens. They don't even age if they aren't standing still! So, assuming they spend roughly half their time walking, their average lifespan is probably more like 2 minutes. This may also be a bug.