Falling Block

Falling Block
Behavior	Does not exist
Details
Size	Height: 0.98 Blocks Width: 0.98 Blocks

A falling block is the entity form of a block that appears when a gravity-affected block loses its support.

Spawning

Falling blocks naturally spawn where gravity-affected blocks lose their base of support. These blocks include:

• Anvil
• Concrete Powder
• Dragon Egg
• Gravel
• Pointed Dripstone
• Red Sand
• Sand
• Scaffolding
• Snow layer‌
• Suspicious Sand
• Suspicious Gravel

Although it has the same appearance as its corresponding block and is also affected by gravity, the primed TNT entity is a different kind of entity than the falling block entity.

If cheats are enabled, falling block entities can be spawned using the command /summon. By tweaking the BlockState NBT tag, it is possible to summon a falling block entity that normally does not fall as a block, such as dirt or stone, although it has the same behavior as a naturally spawned falling block.

Behavior

A falling block continues falling until it lands on another block with a solid top surface. If it lands with the bottom center of its hitbox in a replaceable block (grass, water, vines, air, etc.), and the block below can support it (i.e. not a replaceable block), then the falling block returns to its block state. Otherwise, it breaks and drops as an item.

Like most other entities, falling blocks are affected by explosions and bubble columns, can be launched by a moving slime block, can be pushed by pistons, can be slowed down by cobwebs, and can slide down the side of a honey block. However, they do not bounce on a stationary slime block and can neither be pushed nor slowed down by water or lava.

Falling blocks pass through most entities without colliding with them, although projectiles such as arrows bounce off them. They do not have health, cannot be attacked and do not take damage. They are also immune to all status effects.

By default, a falling block that has existed for more than 600 ticks (30 seconds) destroys itself and drops as an item. This can be changed by modifying the entity's Time NBT value. Suspicious blocks also drop themselves after falling for more than 30 seconds, making this the only way to obtain suspicious blocks in Survival.

Commands such as /data‌ can change the moving and facing directions of a falling block, although there are no in-game mechanics that can alter a falling block's facing direction. They can be removed with the /kill command.

Some falling blocks, like anvils and pointed dripstone, deal damage to players and mobs in the same block space where they land. The damage is dealt only on landing, and is not dealt to players and mobs that collide with them in mid-air. A falling block that deals damage can be summoned if its HurtEntities tag is set to true. The amount of damage dealt per block fallen can be customized via the FallHurtAmount tag, and the maximum damage dealt can be customized via the FallHurtMax tag.

Sounds

Some falling blocks produce sounds when they land.
Java Edition:

Sound	Subtitles	Source	Description	Resource location	Translation key	Volume	Pitch	Attenuation distance
	Anvil landed	Blocks	When an anvil lands and survives	block.anvil.land	subtitles.block.anvil.land	0.3	0.9-1.0	16
	None	Blocks	When a pointed dripstone lands from falling	block.pointed_dripstone.land	None	2.0	0.9-1.0	16
	Block broken	Blocks	When a suspicious sand block lands from falling	block.suspicious_sand.break	subtitles.block.generic.break	1.0	0.8	16
	Block broken	Blocks	When a suspicious gravel block lands from falling	block.suspicious_gravel.break	subtitles.block.generic.break	1.0	0.8	16

Bedrock Edition:

Data values

ID

Java Edition:

Name	Identifier	Translation key
Falling Block	falling_block	entity.minecraft.falling_block

Bedrock Edition:

Name	Identifier	Numeric ID	Translation key
Falling Block	falling_block	66	entity.falling_block.name

Entity data

Java Edition:

Main article: Entity format

• Dynamic block entity data
  • • Tags common to all entities
  •  BlockState: The falling block represented by this entity.
    •  Name: The resource location of the block.
    •  Properties: Optional. The block states of the block.
      •  Name: The block state name and its value.
  •  CancelDrop: 1 or 0 (true/false). Whether the block will be cancelled from being placed when it lands on a solid block. When true, it also prevents the block from dropping as an item (regardless of what the DropItem tag is set to). However, if true and the falling block's Time tag goes to 0 before landing on a solid block, it will still destroy itself and drop itself as an item (or not, respective to what the DropItem tag is set to). CancelDrop defaults to false for summoned and naturally occurring falling blocks (except for Suspicious Blocks).
  •  DropItem: 1 or 0 (true/false) – true if the block should drop as an item when it breaks. Any block that does not have an item form with the same ID as the block does not drop even if this is set.
  •  FallHurtAmount: Multiplied by the FallDistance to calculate the amount of damage to inflict. By default this value is 2 for anvils, and 6 for pointed dripstone.
  •  FallHurtMax: The maximum hit points of damage to inflict on entities that intersect this falling block. For vanilla falling blocks, always 40 × 20.
  •  HurtEntities: 1 or 0 (true/false) – true if the block should hurt entities it falls on.
  •  TileEntityData: Optional. The tags of the block entity for this block.
  •  Time: The number of ticks the entity has existed. When Time goes above 600, or above 100 while the block is below Y=1 or is outside building height, the entity is deleted.

Bedrock Edition:

See Bedrock Edition level format/Entity format.

History

Java Edition Infdev
20100618					Added falling block entity with the ID FallingBlock.
Java Edition
1.0.0		Beta 1.9 Prerelease 6			Added dragon eggs, which create falling blocks.
1.4.2		12w41a			Added anvils, which create falling blocks.
1.7.2		13w39a			Added red sand, which creates falling blocks.
1.11		16w32a			The entity ID has been changed from FallingBlock to falling_block.
1.12		17w06a			Added concrete powder, which creates falling blocks.
1.14		18w45a			Added scaffolding, which creates falling blocks.
1.17		20w48a			Added pointed dripstone, which creates falling blocks if the block above it gets destroyed while the pointed dripstone is a stalactite.
1.20 (Experimental)		23w07a			Added suspicious sand, which creates falling blocks.
1.20		23w12a			Added suspicious gravel, which creates falling blocks.
		23w14a			Added the CancelDrop tag.
Pocket Edition Alpha
v0.6.0					Sand and gravel are now affected by gravity with the addition of falling blocks.
v0.8.0		build 8			Falling blocks now drop their item form when falling onto blocks they cannot replace.
v0.9.0		build 1			Added red sand, which creates falling blocks.
v0.12.1		build 1			Added anvils, which create falling blocks.
					Snow now creates falling blocks.
Pocket Edition
1.0.0		alpha 0.17.0.1			Added dragon eggs, which create falling blocks.
1.1.0		alpha 1.1.0.0			Added concrete powder, which creates falling blocks.
Bedrock Edition
1.8.0		beta 1.8.0.8			Added scaffolding, which creates falling blocks.
1.17.0		beta 1.16.210.56			Added pointed dripstone, which creates falling blocks if the block above it gets destroyed while the pointed dripstone is a stalactite.
Next Major Update (Experimental)		beta 1.19.70.23			Added suspicious sand, which creates falling blocks.
		beta 1.19.80.20
					Added suspicious gravel, which creates falling blocks.
Legacy Console Edition
TU1	CU1	1.00	Patch 1	1.0.1	Added sand and gravel along with falling blocks.
TU9					Added dragon eggs, which create falling blocks.
TU14		1.05			Added anvils, which create falling blocks.
TU31	CU19	1.22	Patch 3		Added red sand.
TU53	CU43	1.49	Patch 23	1.0.3	Added concrete powder, which creates falling blocks.
		1.83			Added scaffolding, which creates falling blocks.
New Nintendo 3DS Edition
0.1.0					Added falling blocks along with sand, red sand, gravel, and anvils.
1.7.10					Added dragon eggs, which create falling blocks.
1.9.19					Added concrete powder, which creates falling blocks.

See also

• Tutorials/Falling blocks
• Entity

Entities 

View at: Template:Entities/content [edit]