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Which building shapes exist?
| Family | Shape | What it is | Craft (blocks of one material) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blocks | Cube | A full 1 m cube | 2 × 2 blocks → 4 cubes |
| Blocks | Pillar | A 50 cm square column in the middle of its cell | 1 cube → 4 pillars |
| Slabs | Slab | Half a block, 50 cm thick | 3 blocks in a row → 6 slabs |
| Slabs | Half slab | A 25 cm layer, at the bottom or top of its cell | 1 slab → 2 half slabs |
| Slabs | Vertical slab | Half a block standing up, against the side you face | 3 blocks in a column → 4 vertical slabs |
| Stairs | Stair | A staircase step block | 6 blocks laid as a staircase (1, 2, 3) → 6 stairs |
| Walls and fences | Wall | A 50 cm post with arms 75 cm high toward neighbouring walls | 3 × 2 blocks → 6 walls |
| Walls and fences | Fence | A 25 cm post and two rails | block, stick, block in a row → 8 fences |
| Walls and fences | Pane | A 25 cm thick panel, full height: a glass window, a plank partition | 1 vertical slab → 1 pane |
Doors, trapdoors and chests have their own page: Doors and locks. In creative, the catalogue shows the shapes family by family.
How do I craft and place a shape?
- 1
Put whole blocks on the grid
Each cell of the 3 × 3 grid takes one whole 1 m block (64 voxels) of one material. The result is cut in that material: birch planks give birch stairs, granite gives granite walls.
- 2
Take the pieces
A shape never gives more matter than it took, so crouch-breaking cannot make stone out of nothing. Unsure what a block can become? Point at it in your inventory and press I.
- 3
Aim and right-click
The shape goes against the aimed face on the 1 m grid, facing you. Orange preview: crouch to place it on its empty voxels. Red: impossible.
How do stairs and slabs join up?
- Stairs: next to a stair turned a quarter turn, at the same height, a stair becomes an outside corner (the other one is behind it) or an inside corner (the other one is in front). Neighbours redraw when you place or break one.
- Slabs: a slab put on top of a bottom slab (or under a top slab) fills the other half of the cell. Against its side, it keeps the same half. Elsewhere, it takes the half you aim at.
- Vertical slabs: against the inner face of another, one fills the other half. On top, below or at the ends, it extends the wall in the same direction. Turned a quarter turn in front of another, it turns it into an L corner of 48 voxels: two slab walls meet with no gap, and a T closes too.
How do walls, fences and panes link?
A wall, a fence or a pane reaches toward neighbouring cells that hold the same kind, a cube or a pillar, and redraws itself whenever a neighbour comes or goes. A straight run of walls has no post in the middle. On the 25 cm grid, the post of a fence or a pane sits a quarter of a block off the centre, always on the same side.
The nine shapes
Questions
Can I make stairs out of any material?
Any solid full-cube material: rocks, bricks, concrete, glass, metal, planks. Ores, leaves, liquids and light sources do not take shapes.
How do I make a thin wall?
Use vertical slabs: they are half a block thick. Turn one a quarter turn in front of another to close the corner.
How do I make a window?
Make a vertical slab from glass blocks, then craft it into a pane: one vertical slab gives one pane.
Updated