A list of changes between versions, and how they affect modders

MC Version Changes.md

Please do comment if something is wrong or lacking, also keep it to majors unless the minor has a breaking change which mod devs who are maybe coming back to the modding scene from an older version should know about

List of versions and how they affect modders best I can tell:

1.6->1.7:

• resources became way better
  • ig block models were defined in code in 1.6
  • as well as texture atlases needing to be manually stitched instead of being a collection of 16x textures that the game stitches at runtime

1.7->1.7.2:

• string ids are now favored over numeric ids

1.7.2->1.8:

• commands
• particles are no longer handled as entities

1.8->1.9:

• balancing changes

1.9->1.10:

• idk

1.10->1.11:

• aren’t those the same version /s

1.11->1.12:

• I also don’t honestly know

1.12->1.13:

• the flattening (no more metadata, way more is possible)
• worldgen changes, start of massive rendering changes
• lots of other internal changes
• mods functionally must be completely rewritten

1.13->1.14:

• unsure, but POI came along which is useful for some mods

1.14->1.15:

• blaze3d takes over rendering in most areas of the game
• entity renderers and tile entity renderers are much easier to work with
• Any mod which does rendering needs to be slightly redone.

1.15->1.16,

• lots of worldgen changes
• post processing shaders are a part of vanilla
• refactors to how guis render (matrix stack instead of render system for translations/rotations/etc)

1.16->1.16.2:

• worldgen changes
• json biomes and dimensions(?)
• ResourceKeys

1.16->1.17:

• vertex and fragment shaders
  • these are quite useful for optimization mods as well as just in general for over the top mods
  • They also mean that the game no longer has to make a temporary variable for sake of matrix transformations, thus slightly optimizing the game’s memory footprint
• java 16
• world height limit is no longer hardcoded
• for worldgen, instances of ChunkAccess have a getMaxBuildHeight and getMinBuildHeight method, which should be used when iterating through the y axis for compatiblity with mods like CubicChunks and also to account for worldgen datapacks

(the following is provided by corgi taco)

• Feature placement method now uses a context instead of multiple arguments
  • the same is true with Carvers
• World is now in "Protochunks"
• SurfaceBuilders now have a minSurfaceHeight parameter
• Noise Step/Status of Chunk Generation now returns a CompletableFuture
  • indicates movement to multi threading of chunk generation
• WorldGenRegion is now aware of it's status
• WorldGenRegions are given a task range (I'd assume vertical height which it's meant to generate?)
• ChunkGenerator$getBaseStoneSource
  • I'd assume returns the block which surface builders should replace and the world generator should generate
• ChunkGenerator$createAquifer
  • not 100% sure about this, but I'd assume this is so that Aquifers can be generated acrossed multiple chunks without breaking due to chunk boundries

From Silk; 1.7.10 -> no more manual IDs for blocks and items
Is apparently 1.7->1.7.2 it seems

Third

actually from 1.7.2 to 1.8 A LOT changed:
now every block model must use blockstates, command selectors were added, rendering TEs and other things was completely remade and other things I cannot remember
the rest seems ok

in 1.8 particles are now particles, not entities

Source message for the 1.17 changes which Corgi Taco mentioned:

World Height(Introduction of the LevelHeightAccessor)
World in Protochunks(cast LevelHeightAccessor to serverlevel)
Feature place method parameters are now in a single parameter(class)
Carver carve method parameters are now in a single parameter(class)
Surface builders have a new Min Surface height parameter
Noise Step/Status of Chunk Generation now returns a CompletableFuture(I do believe it's multithreaded, @SuperCoder79 do you know if this is the case?)
World Gen Region is now aware of it's status
World Gen regions are now given a task range(in chunks) as a field
ChunkGenerators now have a BaseStoneSource method.
ChunkGenerators now have a Aquifer method
Structure classes got a new parameter that can be passed into the chunk generator’s heightmap method to get terrain height or column of blocks
Im not super sure on this one but... exceptions/logging is now done when a block is attempting to place beyond a region's x/z but like it's not super far outta bounds