TreeCollapse | Tree Felling [1.8-26.3]

🌲 TREECOLLAPSE

Natural tree felling with a real falling animation

Break the lowest log with an axe and watch the whole tree tip over and crash to the ground.

Minecraft 1.8–26.2 | Java 8+ | Spigot | No config | No dependencies

About

TreeCollapse turns tree chopping into a small event. Break the lowest log of a natural tree with an axe and the whole tree tips over around its base, crashes into the ground and drops its logs and leaves where they land.

It is made for survival servers that want a more satisfying early game without a timber plugin's setup. There is no config file, no command and no permission to configure, and it only acts on structures that pass a natural-tree check.

It is not a vein miner. It fells one tree at a time, charges your axe the way vanilla would and removes only the blocks that belong to that tree.

Break the base log
→ Tree is analyzed
→ Axe is charged
→ Tree tips over
→ Landing
→ Items drop
→ Cleanup

⚡ Highlights

• Real falling animation: The tree tips over around its base edge, picks up speed and lands. Players within 96 blocks can watch it.
• Vanilla-style durability: Every log costs what breaking it by hand would cost. Unbreaking is respected, and an axe that cannot afford the whole tree only cuts what it can.
• Natural trees only: Trunks, branches, leaves and surroundings are analyzed first. Log builds, player-placed logs and player-placed leaves are not felled.
• Dense forests: Trees that touch each other fall one at a time, and neighbouring trunks are left in place.
• Only the tree's own blocks: Only that tree's logs and leaves are removed. Terrain, crops and buildings are left in place.
• Works with protection: Every log fires a standard BlockBreakEvent for the player, so claim plugins can cancel it and stop the felling.
• Remembers and resets: Placed logs and felled bases are saved per chunk and reset when a new tree grows in the same place.
• Lightweight: Packets only, no entities added to the world, no repeating task while idle and a single JAR of about 32 KB.
• One JAR, many versions: Minecraft 1.8 up to 26.x through a small version layer resolved at runtime.

How It Works

1. Hold any axe in survival mode and break the lowest log of a natural tree, the one standing on the ground.
2. TreeCollapse analyzes the tree: trunk, branches, leaves and surrounding blocks. If it is not clearly a natural tree, nothing special happens and only that log breaks.
3. Each extra log is charged to your axe like vanilla and fires a BlockBreakEvent for you, so protection plugins stay in control.
4. If the axe can afford the whole tree, its blocks are drawn as one falling shape for nearby players and the tree tips over, away from you when there is room.
5. On landing, every block is removed and drops its items where it landed.

The Fall

• The tree tips over around the edge of its base and accelerates as it falls.
• It picks a free direction. If a tree, wall or hill is in the way, it tries other directions and falls instantly when there is no room at all.
• The trunk comes to rest against whatever it hits, and leaves vanish as they touch the ground.
• Block-break sounds and particles play along the trunk when it lands.
• The falling shape is drawn with packets only. No entity is added to the world.
• Players within 96 blocks see the animation.

Tool Durability

• The axe can afford the whole tree: The whole tree falls.
• The axe cannot afford it: Logs are cut bottom-up until the axe has nothing left to spend. They break instantly without animation, and the rest of the tree stays.
• Unbreaking: Respected, with the same odds as vanilla.
• Unbreakable axe: No wear.
• Creative mode or any other tool: Normal vanilla breaking.

Example: A 15-log tree and an axe with 10 uses left: 10 logs are cut, the axe is used up and the rest of the tree stays where it is.

🌳 Natural Trees Only

Before anything happens, TreeCollapse analyzes the structure, including trunk, branches, leaves, height, width and surrounding blocks. It only fells what clearly looks like a natural tree. Logs placed by players are tracked from the moment the plugin is installed.

What Is Not Felled

• Log houses, cabins, towers, pillars and bridges.
• Logs placed by players and tracked automatically.
• Trees with player-placed persistent leaves near the trunk.
• Trees touching stripped logs, wood blocks, planks, stairs, slabs, fences, doors, glass, bricks, wool, concrete or walls.
• Bushes and tiny trees under 4 blocks tall or with fewer than 10 natural leaves.
• Oversized structures with more than 320 logs, 56 blocks tall or 40 blocks wide.
• Logs that do not stand on natural ground such as dirt, grass or podzol.

Logs placed before the plugin was installed are not tracked, so only the structure checks apply to them.

Supported Trees

• Oak, including big oak.
• Birch, including tall birch.
• Spruce, including giant 2×2 spruce.
• Jungle, including giant 2×2 trees.
• Acacia.
• Dark oak.
• Swamp oak.
• Mangrove, including tall mangrove.
• Cherry, Azalea and Pale Oak.

Supported as available in your Minecraft version. Huge mushrooms, Nether fungi and jungle bushes are not felled.

🌲 Dense Forests

Forests, dark oak groves and jungles are full of trees whose trunks touch and whose branches overlap. TreeCollapse tells them apart:

• The tree you cut falls on its own. Neighbouring trunks are left in place, even when they touch yours.
• Different species side by side, such as oak next to birch or spruce next to oak, are told apart.
• Giant 2×2 trunks are recognized, even when two of them stand next to each other.
• Branches tangled with another tree are left in place instead of guessed at, and come down with the last tree around them.
• Leaves that also hold up a neighbouring tree stay where they are.
• If a neighbouring tree, wall or hill is in the way, the tree falls in another direction.

🛡 Safe by Design

• While a tree is falling, its blocks are locked. Breaking them, interacting with them and leaf decay are cancelled until the fall ends.
• The original blocks are removed only at the end. A block that another plugin or player changed in the meantime is skipped.
• Stopping the server or disabling the plugin mid-fall finishes the falling trees instantly and drops their items.
• If the animation cannot run for any reason, the tree is felled instantly instead and a warning is logged.
• Items drop where each block lands.
• Tree data is written atomically on chunk unload, world save and when the plugin is disabled.

⚡ Lightweight

While idle       → No repeating task
Base log broken  → One bounded scan of that single tree
Tree falling     → One short repeating task every 2 ticks and packets, no entities
Finished         → Task cancelled and falling shape removed for viewers

• Large canopies only animate their outer leaves. Hidden inner leaves are not drawn.
• Tree data lives in small per-chunk files that are read when needed and released when the chunk unloads.

⚙ Configuration & Data

TreeCollapse ships without a config.yml. There is nothing to edit. It sends no chat messages. The console prints one line at startup saying which animation mode is active, plus a warning if the animation cannot run.

It stores only what it needs to remember in small files under plugins/TreeCollapse/, one per chunk:

plugins/TreeCollapse/<world>/<chunkX>_<chunkZ>.dat

Each file holds the positions of player-placed logs and felled tree bases. Delete the folder while the server is stopped to forget all of them.

⌨ Commands & Permissions

TreeCollapse registers no commands and no permissions. Its plugin.yml declares neither. Any player in survival mode holding an axe can fell natural trees.

To keep trees in an area from being felled, use your claim or protection plugin. A cancelled block break stops the felling.

⬇ Installation

1. Download TreeCollapse.jar and put it in your server's plugins folder.
2. Restart the server.
3. Hold an axe in survival mode and break the lowest log of a natural tree.

Requirements: Spigot 1.8 or newer and Java 8 or newer. No other plugin is needed.

Compatibility

• Minecraft 1.8–1.12: Animated falling using falling block packets.
• Minecraft 1.13–1.19.3: Instant felling, without animation.
• Minecraft 1.19.4–26.x: Animated falling using block display packets.

• Tested on: Spigot 1.8.8 and Spigot 26.2.
• Java: 8 or newer.
• Dependencies: None.
• Compatibility: One JAR for every version range. The required server internals are resolved at runtime through a small version layer.

❓ FAQ

A tree didn't fall. Why?

• You broke a log above the base. Break the lowest log, the one standing on the ground.
• You were not holding an axe or were not in survival mode.
• The tree has player-placed logs or leaves, or planks, fences, stairs and similar blocks touching it.
• The tree is too small, under 4 blocks tall, or too large.
• A claim or protection plugin cancelled the break.
• The axe could only afford part of the tree, so only some logs were cut.

Which axes work?

Any axe held in the main hand, from wooden to netherite, in survival mode.

Will it break my builds?

Builds that mix logs with planks, stripped logs, stairs, fences, glass or similar blocks are rejected. Log-only structures that fail the natural-tree checks are also rejected. Logs you place are tracked from the moment the plugin is installed. Logs placed before that are not tracked, so old log-only builds that still carry natural leaves are judged by the structure checks alone.

What happens to the leaves?

Leaves that belong to the felled tree fall with it and drop items like any broken leaf. Leaves that also hold up a neighbouring tree stay in place, and leaves left without any log nearby decay like in vanilla.

Some branches stayed in the air. Why?

In dense forests, two trees can share branches. TreeCollapse does not guess which tree a tangled branch belongs to, so it stays in place and comes down with the last tree around it.

Why does the tree fall instantly on my server?

On Minecraft 1.13 to 1.19.3, the fall animation is not available, so trees fall instantly. Everything else works the same, and the console shows which mode is active at startup.

How heavy is it?

While idle, it keeps no repeating task. Felling a tree runs one bounded scan of that tree and, during the fall, one short repeating task that sends packets. No entities are added to the world.

Where is the data stored and how do I reset it?

In small per-chunk files inside plugins/TreeCollapse/. Delete that folder while the server is stopped to forget every tracked log and felled tree.

⭐ Support & Reviews

If TreeCollapse is useful on your server, a review helps other server owners find it.