Minecraft Seasons datapack

This datapack by slicedlime introduces dynamic seasonal changes to vanilla Minecraft, completely transforming the surrounding world.

Main Features

Trees turn golden and crimson in autumn, while rain transforms into snowfall during winter. Snow cover whitens tree foliage and blankets small plants and flowers. In the cold season, rivers and some oceans freeze, but ice and snow melt with the arrival of warmth. In spring, leaves turn green with pink flowering patches appearing. The sky also changes hues depending on the time of year.

Savannas alternate between wet and dry periods - during summer rains they bloom with vibrant green. All changes occur exclusively on the server side, ensuring multiplayer compatibility without the need for resource packs.

Compatibility and Limitations

The pack uses experimental world generation features to create seasonal variations of standard biomes. Because of this, it only works with Minecraft 1.21.4 and may stop functioning in new versions. Worlds with the installed pack will show a warning about using experimental features.

Important: Do not attempt to update a world with this pack without checking for a compatible version. The pack is in beta testing stage, using it on important worlds is at your own risk.

Removing the pack has irreversible consequences - when uninstalled, all affected biomes will turn into plains. It's recommended to install the pack only on world copies.

Performance

To track objects like plants under snow, the pack uses marker entities, requiring a sufficiently powerful computer. In multiplayer, the load falls on the server, and network traffic increases. Modern versions of the pack are significantly optimized compared to early releases.

Mod Compatibility

The pack is compatible with shaders and optimization mods, but will not work with mods that alter world generation or other datapacks using experimental generation features.

Command Usage

Since the pack replaces biomes, commands like locate biome may work incorrectly. World time is used as the key for determining seasons, so the time set <time> command will reset the current season to summer. Instead, use time add. Special case: time add 20d advances time by one season (with default season length).

Settings

Season duration in game days (default: 20):

/scoreboard players set SeasonLength _seasons <days>

Pack simulation distance (default: 12 chunks):

/scoreboard players set Range _seasons <chunks>

Number of seasonal column updates (default: 1) and block updates (plants under snow, melting, etc. - default: 8) per tick:

/scoreboard players set SpreadSpeed _seasons <count>
/scoreboard players set BlockSpeed _seasons <count>

Implementation Details

Season duration of 20 game days was chosen as a compromise between change speed and the ability to enjoy each season. Worlds always start in summer, maintaining the standard gaming experience, although snowy biomes when encountered will melt and turn into summer.

Snow only appears during snowfall, so skipping nights with precipitation will reduce winter coverage. Like in vanilla game, changes occur only around players - when staying in one place for a long time, new territories will gradually adapt to the current season.

The pack follows the principle that permanent world changes should be player-initiated. Snow covers flowers, but when snow is broken, the flower drops. When seasons change, the flower reappears. Leaves are not replaced - only their color palette changes depending on the biome, so some types (like birch) don't show seasonal effects.

Installation

The pack uses custom world generation features, so a warning about experimental features will appear when loading a world. However, world generation itself is not changed - biomes are replaced as seasons shift, allowing installation on existing worlds.

For new games: on the world creation screen, click the "Data Packs" button, drag the Seasons zip file into the Minecraft window. The pack will appear in the available list. Move it to selected and complete world creation with the experimental features warning.

Installing on Existing World

Copy the pack's zip file to the datapacks folder in the world directory. If location is unknown, edit the world in the singleplayer list and click "Open World Folder". After copying, close the world if necessary - the pack will activate upon next opening. On servers, a restart is required. The reload command is insufficient for activation as it doesn't reload experimental generation features.