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So I was experimenting with half-blocks and stairs, and made this structure:

half-block and stair prison sketch half-block and stair prison screenshot

and since I was inside it when I placed the last stair, I found that I was trapped.

This surprised me since the space inside the structure is 2 blocks tall and 2 blocks wide, and the gap between the stairs in the corner looks quite large. Doing some basic geometry, it's clear that the gap is 1/sqrt(2) or a little more than 0.7 units wide (where 1 unit is the width of one side of a block). It is already obvious that Steve can fit through a 1 unit wide space, but noticing also that doors have width(thickness) and Steve can still fit through the space in an open door seems to imply that Steve's width is somewhat less than 1 unit but more than 0.7 units. I've checked out the Minecraft Wiki and did not find anything detailing this aspect.

How fat is Steve (and the other Steve-sized mobs)?

Edit: I did a bit more research and found that doors take up 3/16 pixels of 1 unit, leaving 13/16 or 0.8125 units of space that Steve can fit through, with some wiggle room left. This can be seen in the following screenshot:

grass pixels with door in block

So the range now is 0.7071 < Steve < 0.8125.

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Steve isn't fat, s/he's pleasantly plump! –  user3389 Aug 9 '12 at 6:02
Steve is 1.80 meters tall (30 pixels) :D –  RustyMember Aug 9 '12 at 9:44
:( downvoting this question –  Steve V. Aug 9 '12 at 14:28
@Steve ... you weren't supposed to find out about this ... I'm sorry to tell you this way, but you're bigger than 0.7 units, and not in the middle either, the middle is open. Ps. Image of structure still to come in future edit (later today). –  Dani Aug 9 '12 at 14:57
Steve isn't fat, he's just big-voxeled. –  gnovice Aug 9 '12 at 18:44

2 Answers 2

up vote 4 down vote accepted

Put Steve in a 1x1 hole and measure the wiggle room. ALL the room - WiggleRoom = Steve

In a 1x1 hole, I pointed the camera straight down and moved from corner to corner. Regardless of corner or orientation, the crosshairs pointed at the farthest point of a 5x5 square from the corner.

16 = 5 + 6 + 5

That's 16 total square width, 5 for the each side of Steve, and 6 for the wiggle room.

Front/back/left/right, the closest you can get to a wall is 5. This test is unable to confirm if Steve is 10x10 square, or a 5 radius circle.

Note: this finding contradicts the original question, as Steve is 0.625 wide, and the asker was expecting more than that. However the original question also supports this answer in the door screenshot (5 texture pixels from door).

It seems reasonable to think that Steve is an unrotating 0.625x0.625 square, which is 0.88 from corner to corner, and could not fit through the ~0.7 gap.

Here is Steve (in green), blocked by two stairs (in purple). Steve is 10 units big, but the yellow line is ~14.14 units big, which is too large to go through the ~11.3 unit opening.

Steve trapped

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Not so. There is plenty of wiggle room. You should have done some research before posting. Also, doors plainly and clearly have thickness as is provable by running into the side of an open door with no walls; or by standing in the door's 1x1 block space with blocks all around and counting the pixels of the floor, or comparing wiggle room in both directions of the floor's plane. –  Dani Aug 9 '12 at 23:07
i think @david was saying that if you put him in the whole you can tell his less then 1 by 1 as there is still Wiggle Room. E.G Steve is as big as 1 by 1 minus how much he can wiggle around. –  TrewTzu Aug 10 '12 at 5:44
@TrewTzu Yes, but he edited his answer completely from the original text, which is why my comment does not make any sense, but I think it should remain anyways, since you can view the original answer by clicking on the edited date. Also, I've tried this and there is no accurate way of measuring "wiggle room". –  Dani Aug 13 '12 at 2:09
You can't stand facing directly forward and move from side to side, checking your position at each extreme? –  Random832 Aug 13 '12 at 20:02
@Random832 I've tried this, with the F3 coordinates, but I wasn't able to get an accurate measure. I also tried comparing the crosshair movement, but this is dependent on the distance from the block in front of you, so it was even more inaccurate. If you are able to take a measurement using this or another technique, please post as an answer with your proof. –  Dani Aug 14 '12 at 16:09
  • Torso is half a meter wide.
  • Shoulders at furthest point are a meter apart
  • Legs are a quarter of a meter wide each

From here

Your legs are 3/4 meters long, as are your arms and your body's height. Your head is half a meter. You are not an accurately proportioned human, but you are realistically tall for a modern human.

EDIT: Your torso is half a meter wide. Your shoulders at furthest point are a meter apart. Your legs are a quarter of a meter wide each. YOU ARE FAT IN MINECRAFT.

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And the Body Mass Index? –  fredley Aug 9 '12 at 8:33
you'll get a divide by zero error –  Joe the Person Aug 9 '12 at 8:47
This doesn't seem to be the correct answer, at least for the characters hitbox. This answer says that in total, you should be one meter wide, but as the question states, open doors have a width, so that can't possibly be true or you wouldn't be able to walk through them. It's probably correct based entirely on the player model though. –  Mr Smooth Aug 9 '12 at 9:36
"Your head is half a meter." O_O –  Alex Aug 9 '12 at 9:50
@Alex half a meter tall that is –  Joe the Person Aug 13 '12 at 7:24

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