Tools and Downloads

Read about the WHIMC worlds here.
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    World and Simulation Downloads

    The WHIMC server has been constantly updated over many years on the basis of improved user experience and client version compatibility. We’ve kept a pretty extensive archive of previous versions in case we need to recreate previous learning conditions. All content here is offered under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

    Make a copy of part or all of our server using the resources below! Alternatively find older worlds in our Planet Minecraft releases. Some additional setup, like manually adding resource/datapacks, may be required.

    All-worlds download (versions 1.16-1.20.4) and latest 1.21.11
    WHIMC exoplanet and sky datapack (1.17) (1.18.x-1.20.x.) and latest 1.21.11
    Plugins and settings (versions 1.16-1.20.4) and latest 1.21.11
    WHIMC resource packs (for no moon, colder sun, etc)
    Client MultiMC downloads here

    Citizens (required), Cartographer 2 (optional), HeadDatabase (optional), and SurveysPlus (optional) should be purchased separately.

    Local WHIMC Server Setup Process

    Download a local server version – latest 1.21.11 – or previous versions 1.16-1.20.4 – and unpack the ZIP to a directory. The current configuration assumes over 16gb of RAM available for the server, adjust the maximums below (see Aikar’s launch flags in the readme) to match your system capabilities (e.g. change -Xms8G -Xmx16G). Version 1.21.x uses Java 21 or newer, we recommend Java 21 for Windows or Azul Java 21 for MacOS. The (old) 1.16 PaperSpigot server still requires (old) Java 16, versions 1.17-1.20.x use Java 17.

    This local server uses mysql 8.4.x for the WHIMC plugins, you can use something like MySQL Community server to run the database. Core Protect, WorldGuard and Luckperms are set to use local files so you can remove any plugins with the WHIMC-prefix if you do not wish to have a database. Create a MySQL database table schema with the whimc-blank.sql file included in the ZIP. WHIMC plugins will be configured to use the following:

    host: localhost
port: 3306
database: whimc
username: mc134680
password: mc134680

    WHIMC Plugin Source

    All of our plugins are open source and can be downloaded for free from http://guthub.com/whimc and adapted to your own server. There are pre-compiled JARs or you can modify and compile your own version!

    See our section on AI tools for our plugins related to pedagogical agents and integrated learner analysis tools.

    WHIMC-Journey – A multi-world path-finding solution and alternative to teleportation

    WHIMC-ContainerTracker – Examines the contents of containers and any updates to items and their locations, used for Barrelbot to determine student code entries and alterations

    WHIMC-Lockbar – Lock players’ inventory slots to prevent moving items or dropping them

    WHIMC-Observations – Show /observation signs on the map

    WHIMC-Portals – Create portals out of “end portal” type blocks to allow players to teleport between worlds

    WHIMC-PositionTracker – Internal plugin for saving player positions, uses MySQL database to store positions

    WHIMC-ScienceTools – Creates values for oxygen, altitude, wind speed, etc.

    WHIMC-WorldChatPrefixer – For prefixing chat with a formatted world name (indicates where a player is presently when they talk)

    WHIMC-Overworld-Agent – Plugin to create and define agent behavior through use of an NPC created with Citizens (see package above)

    WHIMC-Student-Feedback – Plugin to assess student in-game behaviors and provide feedback

    WHIMC-Photographer – A plugin to send a Minecraft account around to take screenshots following player observations along with a client-side script that sends them off to a server for real-time analysis

    WHIMC-Habitat-Assessor – Engage the AI to evaluate your base for surival-relevant characteristics such as food, oxygen and radiation protection; includes the ML-API (2025 version) used for this and Photographer

    ProtocolLib – prerequisites (libraries) for WHIMC Plugins

    WHIMC Plugin Explanation Videos

    WHIMC Client Packages

    We use MultiMC or Prism to be able to run local simulation mods for a more robust experience. They include several plugins, such as Voxelmap (player minimaps), Sodium (make graphics easier for old computers) and Skyboxes (simulate auroras, clouds and more). To begin, select your Operating System:

    OSX (mac)
    Windows (pc)

    Need help? Ask ginger@illinois.edu questions

    Tools For World Design

    There are lots of great 3rd-party free and open source tools we use to create the worlds and maps you can find on our server.

    Chunker – a collection of tools to help fix maps or convert formats to one another in the different Minecraft ecosystems (Bedrock/phone and Java/computers)

    Worldpainter – create entirely new alien worlds or import existing maps to modify them on a macro-scale!

    Amulet Editor – “meso-scale” editing to replace blocks, import existing schematics, etc…

    Binvox – a simple script that uses your GPU to convert a 3D file (like terrain) to voxels (a schematic) for import to create custom worlds

    Recommended Plugins and Resources

    Using Datapacks to create alien-looking worlds!
    Most of our plugins can be found on Spigot, as we use a current PaperMC install.
    • Cartographer 2 (replaced by Voxelmap run locally) – minimap plugin to help users know where to go
    • Citizens – Create and control interactive NPC’s
    • CoreProtect – block change logging and roll-backs
    • EssentialsX – Player-made homes, server warps and kits, player-to-player private messages, teleports and teleport requests, custom player nicknames, various moderation tools including kicks, temporary bans, mutes and jails
    • FastAsyncWorldEdit and WorldEditSelectionVisualizer – world manipulation plugin for painting blocks, editing regions, etc
    • Decent Holograms (previously HolographicDisplays) – API used for plugins like Observation Displayer – creates floating text labels that can be used to direct players or label areas
    • ImageOnMap (now broken but read-only) – Render images onto maps by embedding an external image URL into a custom and placing it on one or more item frames
    • Head Database, InfoHeads – Custom player heads (small blocks) that you can click to execute commands (used to prompt science tool validation on the moon)
    • LuckPerms – Permissions management – prevent players from running commands or affecting parts of the world you don’t want them to
    • Multiverse-Core – Allows a single Minecraft server to host many worlds
    • Quests – use with NPC’s (Citizens) to create and assign quests to players
    • SignBoard – displays dense text information as an overlay in front of signs, NPC’s or on separate tablets (books)
    • Vault – Permissions, chat, & economy API required for other plugins
    • Worldguard-bukkit and WorldGuardExtraFlags – Create regions in-game with special flags to manipulate gameplay behavior
    • WorldResourcePacks – Apply a different resource pack for each separate world