Blocks Without Ambient Occlusion Affected by Blocks that Have Ambient Occlusion

Create a “light block” - here’s an example of the components that may appear (for best results, use a block texture that’s hex color ffffff in order to clearly delineate shadows or ambient occlusion effects - I’ve attached a texture like this [white_light_block.png] and a terrain_texture.json as well)

{
    "format_version": "1.21.111",
    "minecraft:block": {
        "description": {
            "identifier": "test:test_block",
            "menu_category": {
                "category": "construction"
            }
        },
        "components": {
            "minecraft:geometry": "geometry.block",
            "minecraft:light_dampening": 0,
            "minecraft:light_emission": 15,
            "minecraft:material_instances": {
                "*": {
                    "texture": "white_light_block",
                    "render_method": "opaque",
                    "ambient_occlusion": 0,
                    "face_dimming": false
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

⚠ Do not use minecraft:geometry.full_block for this test. There are other issues with that geometry, which can be found in this bug report. I’ve attached a sample block geometry to use, which is called geometry.block.

In a world, run command /time set midnight, then place many instances of this block together in the air - not touching any other vanilla blocks or any other types of custom blocks. Verify that there is no ambient occlusion between these custom blocks by themselves. (Image attached).

Place down one of these blocks on a grass (or ground) block. There will be noticeable shadows around the base of the block. (Image attached).

If you have time and an extra custom block on hand, this problem also persists with custom blocks, though the issue has existed with custom blocks for a while now and has recently become an issue with Vanilla blocks as of 1.21.111.