Shift down mode enhancement

[huihiuhuai]

Describe the feature

For visual purposes, it would be awesome to have a mode that mimics the Tree Felling mod's falling effect—logs drop straight down like sand, but with no scatter.

[huihiuhuai]

mc 1.20.1

[Rakambda]

There is FALL_ITEM_STRAIGHT starting 1.21.11.3 (#1054) . However for the shift down method this won't be supported. I don;t think it's doable without requiring to be on the client side. I want to keep it server sided as most as I can.

[huihiuhuai]

Isnt what i described just a simpler version of fall blocks which blocks also fall like sand

[Rakambda]

For the instantaneous mode yeah it is a simple thing to do. All the blocks fall at once in a straight path downwards. And that is what FALL_ITEM_STRAIGHT does.

But for the shift down breaking mode it isn't simple at all. Using the vanilla blocks available, that means using the sand/gravel entity. However its behavior is a bit cahotic especially when multiple blocks fall at once. One block will drop fine, but the others above might start to clip in the block below and pop as an item. Also, for the branches nothing will support them, so they'll simply fall to the ground and not stop mid-air.

FallingTree was never designed to be looking pretty but more to be useful. So animations were added quite later on, and it's not really super well made animations, mostly just to please a bit those that wanted them. They all work on the instantaneous mode as it's the easiest one to handle. When the tree is broken, all the blocks turn into a falling entity and happens what happens.
For the shift down mode it works by cancelling the breaking event you made, effectively putting back the block you broke, and instead it breaks the block on the other side of the tree. There's basically nothing that moves, even the block you originally targeted is still the exact same ; the effect of your action is just replicated elsewhere.

FALL_ITEM_STRAIGHT could be replicated to the shift down method, but I don't think it'll have the effect that you want at all. And honestly it might just be more annoying than cutting the tree by hand. Like you'll start breaking your tres, some branches fall of or a falling block pops as an item. Now you have a hole in your trunk, so the shift down won't work on the full tree and you'll have to gather the different broken pieces of your tree by hand. To me it defeats the whole point of the shift down mode which is to consistently aim at the same place to break the tree.