Invisible entity for 1 tick

I need to get all the entities in a certain radius of a location. But the only way to do that is to spawn an entity for 1 tick and use it to getNearbyEntities.

I tried spawning a XP orb but player can see it for a tick. Is there a way to do this without the entity being seen?

I saw in SethBlings videos he spawns a invisible motionless wither head, is there a way to do what with bukkit?

 

@Elimnator Iterate through the world's entities and check if the distance squared is <= value * value

 

@Skionz
I found this way to do it:

Code:

            WorldServer sw = ((CraftWorld) l.getWorld()).getHandle();
            EntityWitherSkull skull = new EntityWitherSkull(sw);
            skull.setLocation(l.getX(), l.getY(), l.getZ(), 0, 0);
            sw.addEntity(skull);

Do you think doing this every 20 ticks will cause more or less lagg then your way?

 

@Elimnator My way is probably better. You could also iterate through the entities in a specific chunk.

 

This solution isn't as resource-intensive as @Skionz:

Code:

    public static List<Chunk> getNearbyChunks(Location l, int range) {
        List<Chunk> chunkList = new ArrayList<Chunk>();
        World world = l.getWorld();
        int chunks = range / 16 + 1;

        Chunk chunk;
        for (int x = l.getChunk().getX() - chunks; x < l.getChunk().getX() + chunks; x++) {
            for (int z = l.getChunk().getZ() - chunks; z < l.getChunk().getZ() + chunks; z++) {
                chunk = world.getChunkAt(x, z);
                if (chunk != null && chunk.isLoaded()) {
                   chunkList.add(chunk);
                }
            }
        }

        return chunkList;
    }

    public static List<Entity> getEntitiesInNearbyChunks(Location l, int range, List<EntityType> entityTypes) {
        List<Entity> entities = new ArrayList<Entity>();

        for(Chunk chunk : getNearbyChunks(l, range)) {
            if (entityTypes == null && entityTypes.size() > 0) {
                entities.addAll(Arrays.asList(chunk.getEntities()));
            } else {
                for (Entity e : chunk.getEntities()) {
                    if (entityTypes.contains(e.getType())) {
                        entities.add(e);
                    }
                }
            }
        }

        return entities;
    }

    public static List<Entity> getNearbyEntities(Location l, float range, List<EntityType> entityTypes) {
        List<Entity> entities = new ArrayList<Entity>();
        for (Entity e : getEntitiesInNearbyChunks(l, (int) range, entityTypes)) {
            if (e.getLocation().distance(l) <= range) {
                entities.add(e);
            }
        }

        return entities;
    }

Credit goes to worstboy32.
If you only want getNearbyEntities then you'll have to change some things, since the last method is dependent on the second one and the second one is dependent on the first one.

 

Thnaks @WarmakerT, I did think that looking through all the entities on in the whole world might cause a bit much lagg.

 

Don't forget to mark the question as Solved when you're ready.

 

Why can't you just spawn the orb at a location below 0 or above like 300?
Nobody will see it

 

@WD_MUFFINFLUFFER
Because then getNearbyEntities will get nothing...

 

Must have derped this morning thinking getNearbyEntities wouldn't rely on Y axis