FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

I'm a little bit confused again about the definition of "Blocks". The wiki says, blocks are groups of 16x16x16 Nodes.

But the wiki tells us about ABMs:

The Active Block Modifier consists of a function that is executed at a specific interval for single nodes.

Shouldn't they be called "ANMs"?

Whenever a player is near to a 16x16x16 block, Minetest will load it from the database into cache to send block modifications (place/dig) to the clients. To reduce the RAM usage, a block will become inactive (= unloaded) when there's no player near to it.

Active Block Modifiers can only work in active blocks, what the name says. It will modificate the contents of that block -> swapping dirt to grassy dirt or growing saplings, etc.

Ok, thx.

what is the difference between this and a chunk?

azekill_DIABLO wrote:what is the difference between this and a chunk?

A chunk are 5x5x5 Blocks or 80x80x80 Nodes

http://dev.minetest.net/Terminology

i'm losing my brain with all of this! thanks:)

I think a visual representation of a block, node, chunk etc in the wiki would help for beginners.

Image for inspiration: