What is a block palette?
A block palette is the short list of blocks you commit to before you build. Good builders rarely use more than five to eight blocks on one house, and each block has a job: a main block for the walls, a dark block for the frame and pillars, an accent for the roof, a secondary block for floors and paths, and a highlight for trim and small details. The generator above fills those roles for you, so the palette is ready to build with rather than just a row of nice colors.
How to use the generator
- Choose a base: search for a block (it always goes into the Main slot) or pick any color.
- Pick a harmony rule and the number of blocks, 5 to 8.
- Lock what you like, then press Regenerate to refill the other slots. Random palette also keeps your locks.
- Check the house preview to spot a roof that blends into the walls.
- Save it: copy the block list or link, or download the palette card as a PNG.
Block groups and filters work like in the block gradient generator: wool, glazed terracotta, concrete powder and ores are off by default, and falling, light-emitting and rare blocks are skipped. A fourth filter skips blocks that rarely work as building material, such as sculk, bookshelves, mushroom blocks, glazed terracotta and ores, unless you pick one as your base.
The five harmony rules
Colors are converted to OkLCh, a color space whose lightness, chroma and hue follow human vision, and target colors are built from your base:
- Shades: same hue, only lightness changes. The safest rule, great for stone and wood.
- Analogous: hues 15–45° either way, such as oak, spruce and birch together.
- Complementary accent: the opposite hue on the roof and one extra, like sandstone with a teal roof.
- Triadic: accents 120° apart. Loud, so best for fantasy and carnival builds.
- Muted / natural: low chroma, leaning on stone, tuff, mud and pale woods for ruins and realistic builds.
If no block sits near a target color, the closest one wins, so treat a rule as a starting point and steer it with locks.
How to choose a good palette
The 60-30-10 rule
Interior designers split a room into about 60% main color, 30% secondary and 10% accent. In Minecraft, let the Main block cover most of the walls, use the Secondary and Dark blocks for floor, frame and pillars, and save the Accent and Highlight for roof and trim. If every block covers the same area, the build looks noisy.
Value contrast
Lightness matters more than hue. From a distance a build reads as light and dark shapes, so the frame should be clearly darker than the walls, and the roof should differ in lightness, not only in color. Blocks of nearly equal lightness blur together in the preview.
Texture contrast
Mix busy and calm textures. Cobblestone, mossy blocks and logs are busy; concrete, smooth stone and planks are calm. A calm main block with a busy frame or base beats two busy textures side by side. The Extra slots are sprinkled into the walls and roof of the preview to show this.
Use shapes from the same block
Depth comes from stairs, slabs and walls, so check that your main blocks have them. Stone bricks, cobblestone, deepslate tiles, tuff bricks and mud bricks come as stairs, slabs and walls. Polished andesite, prismarine bricks and dark prismarine have stairs and slabs but no wall. Every plank type, including cherry, pale oak and bamboo, has stairs and slabs. Concrete, smooth stone and cut sandstone have no stairs, so pair them with a similar block for roofs and trim. Cut copper has stairs and slabs that oxidize like the full block, while the plain block of copper has no stairs of its own.
The preset palettes explained
| Preset | Blocks (main, floor, frame, roof, details, extras) | Why it works |
|---|---|---|
| Medieval | Stone Bricks, Oak Planks, Dark Oak Log, Spruce Planks, Cobblestone, Mossy Stone Bricks, Andesite, Stripped Spruce Log | Gray stone walls with a dark timber frame and a brown roof; the mossy and andesite blocks age the walls. |
| Japanese | Calcite, Dark Oak Planks, Stripped Dark Oak Log, Deepslate Tiles, Cherry Planks, White Concrete, Polished Andesite | Bright plaster-like walls between dark posts and a near-black tile roof, with soft pink cherry trim. |
| Modern | White Concrete, Smooth Stone, Black Concrete, Light Gray Concrete, Polished Andesite, Gray Concrete, Birch Planks | Flat, calm textures in a gray scale; birch adds a touch of warmth. |
| Desert | Cut Sandstone, Smooth Sandstone, Terracotta, Orange Terracotta, Birch Planks, Chiseled Sandstone, Red Sandstone, White Terracotta | Analogous sand and clay tones; chiseled sandstone makes good banding. |
| Nordic | Spruce Planks, Stripped Spruce Log, Spruce Log, Dark Oak Planks, Cobblestone, Mossy Cobblestone, Andesite | Dark wood on a rough stone base, built for snowy taiga. |
| Nether | Polished Blackstone Bricks, Nether Bricks, Polished Basalt, Crimson Planks, Gold Block, Red Nether Bricks, Blackstone, Cracked Polished Blackstone Bricks | Bastion-style blackstone with crimson wood; use gold sparingly for trim. |
| Oceanic | Prismarine Bricks, Smooth Sandstone, Dark Prismarine, Prismarine, Sea Lantern, Cyan Terracotta, Polished Diorite | Teal shades with a sandy floor; sea lanterns light the details. |
| Cherry / fairy | Cherry Planks, Birch Planks, Cherry Log, Magenta Terracotta, Pale Oak Planks, Stripped Cherry Log, Moss Block, Calcite | Pink and cream with a dark cherry frame and moss for a garden feel. |
| Rustic farmhouse | Oak Planks, Spruce Planks, Stripped Dark Oak Log, Red Terracotta, Hay Block (hay bale), Stripped Oak Log, Cobblestone | Warm wood, a barn-red roof and hay details. |
| Industrial copper | Cut Copper, Smooth Stone, Polished Deepslate, Oxidized Copper, Iron Block, Exposed Cut Copper, Weathered Cut Copper, Deepslate Tiles | Fresh copper walls under a green oxidized roof; wax the copper with honeycomb to keep the colors. |
From palette to build
Build the frame first with the Dark block, fill the walls with Main, then add the roof with Accent stairs. For a wall that fades between two palette blocks, use the gradient generator. For a mural, the pixel art generator turns an image into blocks, and the dye colors chart lists every wool and concrete color.