How to read a Minecraft layer pattern — a first-timer's guide

A KangJuFam pattern slices a building horizontally, one layer at a time from the ground up, and lays the slices out on one PNG like a chessboard. One grid cell is one block; one tile is one layer. It looks dense at first, but there are only a handful of rules. This guide walks through them in the order they appear on the pattern.

The header — name, size, legend

The top line gives the building's name and a size such as 33 x 33 x 13: width × depth × height in layers. The block count and number of block types tell you how much to gather, and the edition (Bedrock or Java) tells you where it was built. Almost every block used exists in both editions.

The LEGEND lists each block with a colour swatch, a one-letter code, its block ID and a count. Cells in the grid carry that colour and letter, so use the letter to tell similar colours apart (dark prismarine and dark prismarine stairs, for example). Blocks are sorted by count, so the first few rows are your main materials.

Direction — up is north

The arrow in the top-right corner points north, which is the top of the pattern; right is east. Check your facing in game (F3 in Java, the coordinates display in Bedrock) and start building while facing north so the pattern and your screen line up. You can build without doing this, but you will be rotating the pattern in your head every time you read a stair, and that is where mistakes come from.

Tiles — LAYER numbers and x2

LAYER 1, top-left of a tile, is the layer that sits on the ground. Each number up is one block higher. The number in the top-right of a tile is how many blocks go on that layer, so you can count when you finish a layer and know nothing is missing.

A tile labelled LAYER 5-6 x2 means those layers are identical, grouped into one tile — place the same layout twice. Repeating wall layers get grouped this way, so a 13-layer building can have 12 tiles.

The numbers along the grid are cell coordinates, and every 4th line is bold. Count long walls in blocks of four along the bold lines instead of cell by cell; it is faster and you miscount less.

Shaded cells — the layer below

Lightly shaded cells with no letter are not blocks to place. They show where the layer directly below had blocks, as a reference. When a roof steps in by one, for example, the new layer should sit one cell inside the shaded outline. Never place blocks on shaded cells.

Blocks with a shape — stairs, slabs, logs

• Stairs: the triangle points to the high side — the direction the back of the stair faces. On a roof eave, the triangles point into the building.
• Hollow triangle: an upside-down stair. Place it by aiming at the underside of a block.
• Slabs: a bar at the top of the cell is a top slab, at the bottom a bottom slab. Aim at the upper half of a block face to place a top slab.
• Sideways logs: two lines show the grain. Place the log against a side face so it lies along the lines.

A stair's back faces the direction you are looking when you place it, so for a triangle pointing north, face north. At corners the game bends stairs to match their neighbours automatically; the pattern shows the direction to place, not the bent result, so place each cell as drawn and the corners take care of themselves.

A build order that avoids mistakes

• Gather the legend counts first. Leaving mid-build for materials is how you lose track of where you were. A stonecutter cuts the material needed for stairs and slabs.
• Place the outline of LAYER 1 first. If the border is right, the inside is just filling.
• Place furniture and lights on their layer. The pattern puts them before the walls and roof for a reason — turning around in a finished narrow room is hard.
• Count blocks at the end of each layer and compare with the tile's number before moving up.
• Place the first roof ring and look from a distance. A wrong stair makes the roof bend the wrong way; catching it on the first ring means fixing a few blocks, not a whole roof.

Each pattern page also has a building-specific guide with its own layer order and material math. Learn the rules here, then use the pattern page for the details of each build.