The Summon Command is one of the most advanced commands in Minecraft, whether you summon a giant in full diamond armor, or a cow named "Hi my name is Bob", the Summon command is complex.
The purpose of the Summon command is to summon entities.
The purpose of the Summon command is to summon entities.
Uses for /summon
There are many uses for the summon command, which I shall list here.
-Summoning animals and mobs
One of the most common uses for the /summon command is to summon animals and mobs. One very simple command that does just that is "/summon Creeper ~ ~ ~". This command summons a Creeper (exploding mob) at your exact coordinates. The ~'s mean that you summon his relative to your coordinates. If you did "/summon Creeper 10 54 800" the Creeper would be in a whole different place!
-Summoning FallingSand entities that look like other blocks
Another use for /summon (mainly in Minecraft maps) is to summon FallingSand entities (See our language of Minecraft page) that look like other blocks. To summon just a plain block of FallingSand, you do /summon FallingSand ~ ~ ~ , if you want to disguise this FallingSand block, you add a {BlockID:1} for example, the 1 is the block id, block 1 is stone, so there would be a falling stone block. The command all in one would look like /summon FallingSand ~ ~ ~ {BlockID:1}.
-(Outdated) Summoning Blocks
Until the addition of /setblock in 13w37a /summon was used to summon blocks. They used FallingSand entities to summon blocks. An example is /summon FallingSand 10 86 23 {TileID:1,Time:1}. This would summon a falling sand block at 10 86 23.
-Summoning animals and mobs
One of the most common uses for the /summon command is to summon animals and mobs. One very simple command that does just that is "/summon Creeper ~ ~ ~". This command summons a Creeper (exploding mob) at your exact coordinates. The ~'s mean that you summon his relative to your coordinates. If you did "/summon Creeper 10 54 800" the Creeper would be in a whole different place!
-Summoning FallingSand entities that look like other blocks
Another use for /summon (mainly in Minecraft maps) is to summon FallingSand entities (See our language of Minecraft page) that look like other blocks. To summon just a plain block of FallingSand, you do /summon FallingSand ~ ~ ~ , if you want to disguise this FallingSand block, you add a {BlockID:1} for example, the 1 is the block id, block 1 is stone, so there would be a falling stone block. The command all in one would look like /summon FallingSand ~ ~ ~ {BlockID:1}.
-(Outdated) Summoning Blocks
Until the addition of /setblock in 13w37a /summon was used to summon blocks. They used FallingSand entities to summon blocks. An example is /summon FallingSand 10 86 23 {TileID:1,Time:1}. This would summon a falling sand block at 10 86 23.