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Minecraft Was Missing One Brilliant Idea

2026-07-12 · 15:48 UTC ·Two Minute Papers ·0 min read

Brief

Two Minute Papers published a short demo/presentation (2026-07-12) showcasing Terrain Diffusion, a diffusion-based approach by Xander Gos for procedurally generating high-quality Minecraft terrain. The video links to the research page, a Modrinth mod, and the GitHub repository so players and developers can try the mod and inspect the code; it also points to Lambda’s GPU cloud for running the model.

Why it matters

Terrain Diffusion (author Xander Gos) is a diffusion-model method for generating Minecraft terrain; the paper and demo resources are hosted at https://xandergos.github.io/terrain-diffusion/ (published alongside a mod and code).

Key details

  • Playable mod and source code are available: Modrinth page (https://modrinth.com/mod/terrain-diffusion) and GitHub repo (https://github.com/xandergos/terrain-diffusion); Two Minute Papers released a demo video on 2026-07-12 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae9q7KsRbuI).
Source evidence

❤️ Check out Lambda here and sign up for their GPU Cloud: https://lambda.ai/papers

📝 The paper is available here:
https://xandergos.github.io/terrain-diffusion/
https://modrinth.com/mod/terrain-diffusion
https://github.com/xandergos/terrain-diffusion

Source video for some parts of the footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irE4tcDtUIg

🙏 We would like to thank our generous Patreon supporters who make Two Minute Papers possible:
Adam Bridges, Benji Rabhan, B Shang, Cameron Navor, Charles Ian Norman Venn, Christian Ahlin, Eric T, Fred R, Gordon Child, Juan Benet, Michael Tedder, Owen Skarpness, Richard Sundvall, Ryan Stankye, Shawn Becker, Steef, Taras Bobrovytsky, Tazaur Sagenclaw, Tybie Fitzhugh, Ueli Gallizzi

Channel: Two Minute Papers
Published: 2026-07-12
Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae9q7KsRbuI