I am trying to recreate the dark matter tools from Equivalent Exchange 2, and for the shovel, want to have a 3x3 layer of blocks broken when you break a block. However, this 3x3 layer currently stays flat, and I want to find a way of checking if the player is mining from the side, or from the top/bottom of the block, and then remove the surrounding blocks accordingly. How do I check what direction the player has mined from? I think that player.cameraPitch would be too inaccurate.

player.cameraPitch is definitely the wrong thing.

You want player.getLookVec() and call world.rayTraceBlocks(...) with it (before the block is set to air) and that will tell you what side it intersects.

 

You'll have to figure out which of the two parameters is the player's location and which is the vector to trace.

But player.getLookVec only returns one Vec3, and world.rayTraceBlocks requires two different Vec3s.

You'll have to figure out which of the two parameters is the player's location and which is the vector to trace.

Oh, right, sorry.