Emily Nelson

Article / Updated 03-15-2022

One of the most commonly used construction commands in Minecraft is /fill. You can use this command to place lots of blocks in a certain area instantly. To use this command, follow these steps: Go to a corner of the area you want to fill. The Fill command affects blocks in a box-shaped region, up to 32,768 blocks in volume. Pick any of the 8 corners of the box you want to fill. Press F3. This step displays a bunch of information about the current game. Record your coordinates. Part of the information displayed in F3 mode is a line that says Block: followed by three numbers. These numbers tell you where exactly your character is. The X and Z coordinates of your character tell you where you are on the plane parallel to the ground, whereas your Y coordinate tells you your height. Make a note of these numbers because you’ll need to write them into the command. Move to the opposite corner of the area you want to fill. Record the coordinates there. Alternatively, use relative coordinates: A tilde (~) in a command indicates that a coordinate is relative to your own position. So ~ ~ ~ indicates your current position, and ~ ~-1 ~ indicates the block below you. Press the “T” key to open the Chat menu, and type /fill [your first coordinates] [your second coordinates]. For example, you might enter /fill 1123 20 16 1122 30 -16. Enter a space, and then type minecraft: (or press Tab as a shortcut). Every block in this game has a technical name, such as minecraft:stone, minecraft:planks, or minecraft:redstone_torch. The first part is necessary only for autocompletion purposes, as described in Step 8. If you already know the technical name of the block, don’t type only minecraft:; go ahead and type minecraft:stone or minecraft:planks or whatever the name is, and then skip to Step 10. If you don’t know the technical name of the block, stick with Step 7 as written and then go on to Step 8. Press Tab to see a list of block names. From here, you can find the block that you want to fill the area. If you know that its name starts with a certain couple of letters, type those letters, and then press Tab for a narrower search. After you see which block you want to use, type it after the minecraft:. Press the spacebar again, and enter the data value of the block. This is 0 by default — if you select another number, it chooses a variant of the block. For example, wooden planks have a different color based on the data value you give them. Steps 9 and 10 are optional — however, if you complete Step 10, you must complete this one as well. Press the spacebar again, and enter a keyword indicating how to handle blocks that are already inside the fill area. You can pick one of five different keywords: replace: With this keyword, when you fill the target area, any block already in that area is replaced. Alternatively, you can type replace followed by a space and then the name of another block (see Steps 7 and 8). This makes it so that the /fill command replaces every block of that type only in the target area rather than filling up the whole area. Note that replace is the default keyword. At this point the command should look like /fill 1123 20 16 1122 30 -16 minecraft:wool 1 replace. destroy: All existing blocks in the target area are destroyed, just as though a player mined them. keep: This command does not affect blocks already in the target area (except for air, of course). hollow: With this command, only the outer layer of the target area is filled with blocks — all blocks on the inside are replaced with air. outline: Only the outer layer of the target area is filled with blocks, but blocks on the inside remain as they were. Don’t be put off by the length of these instructions — the more you practice, the easier (and faster) it is. The process in the preceding step list works best when you don’t quite know the size of the area you want to fill. But if you want to fill an area that you know is 10x10x20, for example, there’s a faster way to do it: Go to a corner of the area you want to fill. This part is just like the other method, but it’s done for a different purpose. Press F3. In addition to pulling up a menu, the F3 button changes the crosshair in the center of the screen into a symbol composed of a red segment, a green segment, and a blue segment where green is the Y direction, red is the X direction, and blue is the Z direction. These segments point in the positive x-direction, y-direction, and z-direction, respectively. Use the crosshair to figure out the relative coordinates of the opposite corner. For example, if the crosshair numbers read ~100 ~-5 ~2, the opposite corner is 100 blocks in the X-direction, -5 blocks in the Y-direction, and 2 blocks in the Z-direction. Open the chat menu and type /fill ~ ~ ~ [relative coordinates]. For example, to create a platform 100 blocks long and 100 blocks wide, where one corner is where you are and the opposite corner is at 99 ~ ~99, type /fill ~ ~ ~ ~99 ~ ~99. Complete the process as usual. (See Steps 7–10 in the preceding step list.)

Article / Updated 09-17-2021

Minecraft’s helpful /clone command copies the blocks in a certain area and places them in another area. This is extremely useful for duplicating houses, towers, and other structures you want to build quickly. To clone a structure, follow these steps: Build the structure you want to clone. (You can build it anywhere.) Determine the area you want to clone. Imagine this area as an invisible box enclosing the structure. As with the /fill command, this box can’t contain more than 32,768 blocks, so you may have to clone large structures piece by piece. Find the coordinates of two opposite corners of the invisible box. This step is done just like it is with the /fill command. Find the coordinates of the spot where you want to place the cloned structure. You should have a total of three sets of coordinates recorded. Open the Chat menu and type clone [first coordinates] [second coordinates] [destination coordinates]. For example, you might type clone 302 3 2 300 1 0 ~ ~2 ~. Make sure your character is at least somewhat close to both the target that you’re cloning and the destination where you’re cloning it to. Minecraft can load only part of the world at a time. If the Clone command tries to access blocks that are too far away to be loaded, the command doesn’t work and you see the error message "Cannot access blocks outside of the world." Press the spacebar and enter a keyword to indicate how you want to execute the Clone command. The /clone command has these three options: replace: The target structure is cloned and replaces any blocks that are already in the target area. (Note that replace is the default option, so it’s already entered; you don’t have to explicitly type it in.) masked: Only non-air blocks are cloned — for example, you can potentially clone a hollow object so that it surrounds another object. filtered: If you select this option, you must specify which blocks are not filtered. The idea here is that, after you write the command, you add a list of blocks separated by spaces. When the command is executed, only blocks of the listed type are cloned. (Optional) Press the spacebar again, and enter another keyword explaining how the command works. Again, you have three options: normal: This is the default and thus does not need to be typed. You need to enter this keyword only if you selected the Filtered option in Step 6. move: Every block that is cloned is replaced with air, so the structure is moved rather than cloned. force: If this setting is active, the cloning process succeeds even if the destination area overlaps with the area being cloned. (This option normally results in an error message.)