Minecraft World Workflow

What a Minecraft export produces

A Minecraft project turns real-world terrain and OpenStreetMap vectors into a ready-to-play world. Export writes a Java Edition world folder or a Bedrock Edition .mcworld package from the full project region: block terrain with the relief of the source elevation, roads, paths, and railways as surface materials, rivers and lakes as water, forests as oak trees, buildings as block structures shaped by their OSM tags, and a flattened spawn pad where the world starts. The world is named after the project.

The world opens like any normal save. It is created in Creative mode with the daylight cycle and weather stopped, and Java Edition worlds also have commands enabled. MapToPlay writes only the exported area, so expect a hard edge; a Java Edition world continues as flat ground beyond it. Change the game mode and rules in Minecraft after the first load if you want survival play.

The download also contains README.md with the install steps and maptoplay.json with the export settings and the DTM and vector data providers used, including their attribution text. Follow those provider terms when you publish the world.

Create the project

Click New project on the Projects page, keep Project Wizard, and choose Minecraft on the Game step. Minecraft uses the full selected region as the map: there is no separate playable area, and the Area presets of 512, 1,024, 2,048, and 4,096 m set the complete square. Advanced accepts custom dimensions up to 20,480 m per side, priced at the next larger preset.

Let the wizard queue DTM and OSM processing. Imagery is optional: it is a visual reference in the Editor and is never written into the world, so skip it when you want a faster project.

Choose the project size with the export in mind. A block is never smaller than one metre, so a 2,048 m project produces a 2,048-block world at full detail and a larger output size adds nothing. A larger project is exported at a coarser scale instead; see Export the world.

Import terrain and vectors in the Editor

Open the project in the Editor and import the processed DTM as the terrain layer. Then import the OSM source with a Minecraft vector mapping collection. The built-in Minecraft Default Vector Mapping classifies buildings, open water, rivers and streams, forests, major roads, local roads, paths, railways, sand and beaches, and grassland and parks. Read the import preview before applying it: it lists the layers, categories, geometry types, and feature counts the mapping will create.

Minecraft export requires imported DTM and vectors. It does not require imagery and never exports it, so import imagery only as a reference for checking the vectors. Save the project before exporting.

Working-terrain edits are exported as they are. Plateau, Blur, Depth, Grade, and manual sculpting are already part of the terrain the exporter reads; nothing is replayed from the original DTM. Smooth or flatten steep ground in the Editor when you want gentler block slopes.

What vectors become in the world

Every mapped feature is written onto the terrain surface at export. The default mapping needs no further collection work: the Editor offers no tree, building, water, or road collections for Minecraft, so the layer and category of each feature decide its blocks.

• Roads: major roads become stone 8 m wide and local roads cobblestone 5 m wide; paths become coarse dirt 2 m wide. Apply the persistent Buffer modifier to a road to set its own width; the exported footprint follows the buffered width.
• Railways: gravel strips 3 m wide, or their buffered width.
• Water: polygons become standing water and waterway lines become flowing water 4 m wide, or their buffered width. Water is two blocks deep by default over a sand bed. If you carved the bed with the Depth modifier, the surface still sits at bank level and the carved terrain becomes the deeper floor.
• Forests: forest polygons and lines receive a sparse, deterministic scatter of oak trees, and every forest point feature becomes a single tree. Trees are skipped on water, roads, buildings, and around the spawn pad.
• Ground: sand and beaches become sand, grassland and parks stay grass, and unmapped ground is grass.
• Buildings: each footprint becomes a block structure with walls, windows, a door, floors, and a roof. OSM tags decide the look: the building type and amenity choose a material palette (residential, commercial, industrial, farm, religious, historic, tower, and more), building:levels and height set the height, building:material, building:colour, roof:material, and roof:colour override materials, and roof:shape picks flat, gabled, hipped, pyramidal, skillion, dome, cone, or onion. Construction, ruins, and abandoned tags produce unfinished or damaged walls. Edit these tags in Attributes to change a building before export.
• Surface blocks come from textures. A mapping rule that carries a texture from the Minecraft ground textures collection, such as sand, gravel, stone, cobblestone, coarse dirt, or snow, writes that block instead of the layer default. Create a custom Minecraft vector mapping to change which blocks a class of features receives, then import OSM with it.

Understand terrain heights

Relief is written at one block per metre. The lowest point of the terrain sits at Min Y and every other point rises by its height above that lowest point. When the elevation span is larger than the range between Min Y and Max Y, the whole relief is compressed uniformly to fit; otherwise it is kept one to one.

Min Y and Max Y are set under Minecraft settings in the export dialog and default to the vanilla limits of -64 and 319. Raise Min Y to lift the whole map, or narrow the range to deliberately flatten a mountainous site. Below the surface the world is three blocks of dirt over solid stone down to a bedrock floor; there are no caves, ores, or structures.

Set the spawn point

In the Editor, open Layers, click +, choose Markers, and create the layer. For a Minecraft project it contains one movable Spawn Point marker at the project centre. Select the marker and move it with the ordinary point interaction or the Transform tool. The marker’s rotation is saved but does not change the spawn.

At export the spawn is placed on the terrain at the marker: a 5 × 5 block pad of polished andesite is flattened there, and water, buildings, and trees are kept off it so the world always starts on safe ground. Without a marker layer, the spawn is the centre of the map with the same pad.

Export the world

Open the project page and choose Export. Maximum output edge sets the world size in blocks on its longest side: choose 512, 1,024, 2,048, or 4,096 with the size cards or the previous and next arrows. The Suggested badge marks the size that best matches the project area. The selected region is scaled to fit the chosen edge, and because a block is never smaller than one metre, a size larger than the project’s longest side in metres does not add detail.

Under Minecraft world, choose the Edition: Bedrock is selected by default and Java is the other option. The panel also shows the full project region in metres and the output type, a Java Edition Anvil world ZIP or a Bedrock Edition .mcworld package. Minecraft settings opens the Terrain Y range with Min Y and Max Y. Both must be whole numbers from -64 to 319 with Max Y above Min Y; the dialog blocks queueing until the range is valid.

Worker can stay on Auto or target a specific online worker. The footer shows the Task Unit cost, which grows with the output size, and Queue export starts the job. Follow it on Exports and download the archive from the export details when it completes.

Install a Java Edition world

The download is a ZIP containing one world folder with level.dat, region/, README.md, and maptoplay.json. Extract it and move the whole folder into the saves directory of your Minecraft installation, then start Minecraft Java Edition, open Singleplayer, and load the world named after the project.

• Windows: %APPDATA%\.minecraft\saves
• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/minecraft/saves
• Linux: ~/.minecraft/saves

Install a Bedrock Edition world

The download is a ZIP containing the .mcworld package plus README.md and maptoplay.json. Extract it and double-click the .mcworld file on a device with Minecraft Bedrock Edition installed; Minecraft imports the world and adds it to Play. If double-clicking does nothing, open Minecraft first and import the file from the Play screen.

The world is named after the project and starts in Creative mode on Peaceful difficulty.

Final check

Walk the world once before sharing it.

• You spawn on the flattened pad at the marker position or the map centre.
• Roads, railways, and paths follow their centerlines at the expected width.
• Rivers and lakes hold water at bank level and do not flood the surrounding ground.
• Buildings stand on the terrain with the intended height and roof shape.
• The relief looks right; a world that is too flat means the elevation span exceeded the Terrain Y range and was compressed.
• The map ends where you expect it; nothing beyond the exported area comes from MapToPlay.