Minecraft: Bedrock Edition 1.16.100.56 beta now available, has creator-focused changes

What you need to know

• Minecraft is a continuously improving game, and gets near-weekly betas testing out new changes and improvements.
• The latest beta to hit the scene is 1.16.100.56, for Minecraft: Bedrock Edition on Xbox, Windows 10, and Android.
• This beta has a decent changelog filled with bug fixes and further improvements to the new Achievements screen.
• The biggest changes in this beta are for creators, however, with a massive list of improvements there.

If you're surprised that a new beta has hit the Minecraft scene, don't be. A new beta arrives more-or-less every week, with varying levels of changes included. The beta releasing for Minecraft: Bedrock Edition today is update 1.16.100.56, and there's a decent list of changes included here. Bug fixes, general improvements, and further changes to the new Achievements screen Mojang Studios have been testing are all here, but there's also a ton of changes catered for creators as well. If you're a fan of creating your own worlds, packs, and more. you'll want to check these changes out.

If you're interested, you can also skip the wait for public release and find out how to test Minecraft beta builds yourself, so you can get ahold of these changes and improvements early.

The changelog for 1.16.100.56 includes:

Bug fixes

Performance and stability

• Fixed several crashes that could occur during gameplay
• Fixed a crash on startup on Xbox One

Achievements screen

• Time played now displays correctly on the achievement screen
• Allow navigating the focus to the summary by pressing left on the gamepad when narration is enabled
• Updated input legends for achievement list and achievement reward
• "Screen" is now narrated when opening an achievement detail screen
• Fixed how we calculate how many rewards a player has
• Show the achievements, even after a timeout, when the data has been fetched
• Don't play click sounds when using a mouse button that is not primary
• Fix issue where the scrollbar would appear even when there is no content to scroll
• Added acceleration to focus navigation while using a gamepad
• Fixed focus persistency while switching from the All tab
• Fixed support for the mouse "back button" to go back from the achievements screen
• Fixed support for the Escape button to go back from the achievements screen
• Fixed an issue where the Input Legend for a Tab would be "open" even when the Tab was already selected

General

• Fixed text-to-speech not reading the messages on various screens
• Fixed maps not being in the list of items when using the /clear command
• Fixed sign-in button becoming unresponsive after backing out of sign-in prompt screen

Gameplay

• Cobblestone is now shown as the default ingredient for stone tools
• Reduced and reintroduced linear attenuation for raid horn sound
• The correct sounds are now played for breaking and placing item frames

Technical changes

Record item component

• Items can now be made records to play music in Jukeboxes

Component variables

• sound_event A string value corresponding to a sound event in the game code. This string must be one these for music to play: "13", "cat", "blocks", "chirp", "far", "mall", "mellohi", "stal", "strad", "ward", "11", "wait", "pigstep"
• duration A float value that determines how long particles are spawned from the JukeBox Block, should approximately match length of sound event
• comparator_signal An integer value that represents the strength of the analogue signal, used by the Comparator Block

Item names

• Renamed items to be consistent with the list of Java items found here
• Added new BlockRaycastComponent that can override the AABB used for outlines and raycasting )
• Added new BlockCollisionComponent that can override the AABB used for entity collision )
• Added new BlockPropertyComponent that can replace the blockProperties : Unwalkable, Infiniburn, PreventsJumping, Immovable, BreakOnPush, OnlyPistonPush and BreaksWhenHitByArrow
• Added new BlockQueuedTickingComponent that triggers events for a block on a range of time set by the creator
• Added new BlockRandomTickingComponent that triggers events for a block randomly
• Added a Rotation Component that allows a block to rotate The component only allows axis-aligned rotations
• Adds the base implementation of the CraftingTableComponent
  
  • Allows the creation of custom crafting tables
  • Currently only supports 3x3 grids

Add-on's and script engine

• Added 'minecraft:placement_filter' component which allows you to set conditions for where this block can be placed. This component will also kick in whenever neighboring blocks change and pop it's loot if it is no longer in a valid location
• Added serialization to Block Descriptor
• Added static anyMatch functions to BlockDescriptor to compare a list of BlockDescriptors against: Block*, BlockLegacy, or BlockDescriptor
• Added a function to compare two BlockDescriptors. This covers: matching blocks, any tag of either descriptor match, block states with matching permutations
• Changed the BlockDescriptor BlockLegacy member variable to a Block* so we can set the block states during deferred block resolution and get the block with the states set
• Removed all the existing Block* json parsing
• Added unit tests to verify parsing and serializing block descriptors
• Added unit tests to verify comparing a BlockDescriptors against each other
• Added unit tests to verify getting a block from BlockDescriptor with the states set

DataDrivenBlockEvents

• Adds support for parsing and performing the following event responses:
  • Added the set_block_at_pos event response
  • Spawn Loot
  • Set Block
• Added support for the on_interact trigger component
  
  • Added support for the on_player_placing trigger component
  • Also added MoLang queries for cardinal_block_face_placed_on and cardinal_player_facing for getting placement context

DataDrivenBlockModels

• Added the first pass of the new data driven block tessellation pipeline
• Added the "minecraft:geometry" component to allow using a block model for rendering
• Added the "minecraft:unit_cube" component to allow using a default unit cube for rendering. Unit cubes get some extra effects like ambient occlusion and face removal
• Added the "minecraft:material_instances" component to allow mapping faces and material_instances in a geometry file to an actual material
• Fixed smooth lighting and ambient occlusion with new data driven blocks

Schema

• Split allowed_blocks into use_on and dispense_on
• use_on specifies what blocks an entity placer item is allowed to be used on, omit to allow all blocks
• dispense_on specifies what blocks an entity placer item is allowed to be dispensed on, omit to allow all blocks

ExecuteCommand

• Added support to item json events for the execute_command keyword. It supports both a string and string array format, where the string is the command intended to run. Commands are compiled at load time and executed after add/remove_mob_effect and teleport actions, but before other triggers for events. Commands will be segmented in sequence and randomize nodes as expected

Items

• Created RepairableItemComponent that data-drives how an item is repaired in game

RunCommand

• Added support to entity json events for the run_command keyword alongside the current add and remove keywords. It supports both a string and string array format, where the string is the command intended to run. Commands will be run after component groups have been added and removed, and will be segmented in sequence and randomize nodes as expected
• Updated the following components to parse and use BlockDescriptor instead of Block*
  • BlockBreakSensorComponent
  • BlockListEventMap
  • BreathableComponent
  • BreedableComponent
  • BuoyancyComponent
  • EntityPlacerItemComponent
  • PreferredPathComponent
  • SeedItemComponentLegacy
• Updated the following features to parse and use BlockDescriptor instead of Block*
  • NoSurfaceOreFeature
  • OreFeature
  • SingleBlockFeature
• Updated the following goal definitions to parse and use BlockDescriptor instead of Block*
  • GoalDefinition
  • RaidGardenGoal
  • VanillaGoalDefinition
• Updated the following surfaces code to parse and use BlockDescriptor instead of Block*
  • MesaSurfaceAttributes
  • SurfaceMaterialAdjustmentAttributes
  • SurfaceMaterialAttributes
• Updated the following tests to reflect the changes from updating code to use BlockDescriptors
  • BuoyancyComponentServerTests
  • FeatureHelperTests
  • NoSurfaceOreFeatureTests
  • OreFeatureTests
  • SingleBlockFeatureTests
• Updated the following trees to parse and use BlockDescriptor instead of Block*
  • AcaciaTreeCanopy
  • AcaciaTreeTrunk
  • FallenTreeTrunk
  • FancyTreeCanopy
  • FancyTreeTrunk
  • MegaPineTreeCanopy
  • MegaTreeCanopy
  • MegaTreeTrunk
  • PineTreeCanopy
  • RoofedTreeCanopy
  • SimpleTreeCanopy
  • SimpleTreeTrunk
  • SpruceTreeCanopy
  • TreeHelper