Minecraft:Dye

Colored block/item chart

In-game colored block/item spectrum

Dyes are a set of sixteen items used to change the color of Minecraft:wool, Minecraft:carpets, Minecraft:terracotta, Minecraft:concrete powder, Minecraft:glass, Minecraft:shulker boxes, Minecraft:beds, Minecraft:candles, Minecraft:bundles, Minecraft:harnesses, the patterns on Minecraft:banners, Minecraft:firework stars, certain mobs, and text on Minecraft:signs and Minecraft:hanging signs. Template:IN, they can be used to dye water in a Minecraft:cauldron (which is thereafter used to dye Minecraft:leather armor) and Minecraft:shulkers; Template:In, leather armor can be dyed directly. Template:IN, they can be used to dye Minecraft:balloons and Minecraft:glow sticks.

Template:IN, Minecraft:bone meal, Minecraft:ink sacs, Minecraft:lapis lazuli, and Minecraft:cocoa beans can generally substitute for Minecraft:white dye, Minecraft:black dye, Minecraft:blue dye, and Minecraft:brown dye, respectively, in crafting recipes and for use in dyeing items or mobs. However, they have other important uses that aren't related to color, and are therefore not considered true dyes. They are mentioned in this article only regarding their use as dyeing agents; see their individual articles for complete information about them.

File:Dye Recipes.png

A guide for creating all the dyes

Obtaining

File:Dye creation chart.png

A chart showing which pairs of dyes can be used to craft other dyes

Most dyes can be crafted from Minecraft:flowers and a few other items; some dyes can be crafted by combining multiple dyes of different colors, and every dye is sold by the Minecraft:wandering trader. Some dyes can be found in loot, and Minecraft:green dye is obtained by smelting Minecraft:cactus.

Main articles

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Crafting dye

Crafting/Dye

Trading

File:Wandering Trader GUI.png

The trading UI of a wandering trader in Java Edition, showing 3 orange dye being sold.

Minecraft:Wandering traders may sell 3 of any dye for 1 Minecraft:emerald. Template:Trade sources

Mob loot

Template:IN, Minecraft:wandering traders have a chance of 8.5% (increased by 1% per level of Minecraft:Looting) to drop 3 dyes when killed while showing the item as trade offer, if the player holds an Minecraft:emerald.

Usage

Crafting

Dye can be used to add dye to undyed items through Minecraft:crafting, and to craft dyed items directly. Template:IN, Minecraft:bone meal, Minecraft:ink sacs, Minecraft:lapis lazuli, and Minecraft:cocoa beans can be substituted for the corresponding dye in any of the following usages unless otherwise specified.

Wool

A piece of Minecraft:wool in any color can be dyed by combining 1 wool with any dye in a crafting grid. Template:Crafting

Carpets

A Minecraft:carpet of any color can be dyed by combining 1 carpet with any dye in a crafting grid. Template:Crafting

Terracotta

Minecraft:Terracotta can be stained by placing 8 blocks of terracotta around a dye in a 3×3 crafting table. Stained terracotta can not be restained to a different color. Template:Crafting

Concrete powder

Dyes can be used to craft Minecraft:concrete powder, which can then be set into their respective Minecraft:concrete blocks. Concrete powder and concrete cannot be redyed. Template:Crafting

Stained glass

Minecraft:Glass can be stained by placing 8 blocks of glass around a dye in a 3×3 crafting grid. Template:Crafting

Stained glass panes

Glass panes can be stained by placing 8 glass panes around a dye in a 3×3 crafting grid.

Shulker boxes

A Minecraft:shulker box can be dyed by combining it with any dye in a crafting grid. A dyed shulker can be re-dyed using the same crafting recipe. A dyed shulker box can only be undyed using a Minecraft:cauldron. Template:Crafting

Beds

A Minecraft:bed of any color can be dyed, by combining it with any dye in a crafting grid. Template:Crafting

Candles

An undyed Minecraft:candle can be dyed by combining it with any dye in a crafting grid. Template:Crafting

Bundles

A Minecraft:bundle of any color can be dyed, by combining it with any dye in a crafting grid. Template:Crafting

Harnesses

A Minecraft:harness of any color can be dyed, by combining it with any dye in a crafting grid. Template:Crafting

Firework stars

A Minecraft:firework star can have a single color or a combination of up to eight colors when crafted with dyes. Adding one or more dyes to a crafted firework star adds a "fade to color" effect to it, overwriting any existing fade colors. Template:Crafting Template:Crafting

Balloons

Template:Education feature Dye can be used to craft Minecraft:balloons. Template:Crafting

Glow sticks

Template:Education feature Dye can be used to craft Minecraft:glow sticks. There are no light gray or black variants. Template:Crafting

Banner patterns

Template:Main Dyes are used to add a banner pattern to a banner. When using a Minecraft:loom, each pattern uses 1 dye, which determines the color of that pattern.

Dyeing water inside cauldrons

Template:Anchor Template:Exclusive Water can be dyed in a cauldron by holding any dye in the hand and pressing Template:Ctrl on a cauldron filled with water.

Dyeing armor

File:Leather armor dye graph.png

A graph showing all combinations of two dyes on a leather tunic Template:In.

Minecraft:Leather armor, Minecraft:wolf armor, Minecraft:leather horse armor can be dyed:

• Template:IN, armor is dyed by Template:Control it on a Minecraft:cauldron filled with dyed water. This consumes 1 layer of water but does not change the color of the water.
  • The armor can be undyed by Template:Control it on a cauldron with undyed water. This does not change the water's color to the color of the armor, and changes the armor to have no dye color.
  • Adding a dye to dyed water mixes the color of the water with the color of the dye, as 2 colors (using the formula below). The game does not remember which colors were placed into the cauldron. It just mixes the current color with the added dye, using the formula below. So, blue + pink + blue + pink is not the same as pink + blue + pink + blue.
• Template:IN, it is possible to Minecraft:craft more than one dye with the armor, and armor can be dyed multiple times with previous colors affecting the outcome.
  • Colored armor can be reverted to its original color by Template:Control it on a cauldron with undyed water.
  • Since multiple dyes can be combined at once, more colors of dyed armor are obtainable in Survival. The exact number is 5,713,438. See this discussion for more information.

Armor retains its enchantments and name when dyed or undyed.

Mixing samples

Template:JE:

Template:ItemSprite = Template:Tint

Template:ItemSprite + Template:ItemSprite + Template:ItemSprite = Template:Tint

Template:ItemSprite + Template:ItemSprite + Template:ItemSprite = Template:Tint

Dye mixing formula

Each edition of the game uses a specific formula for calculating the color of dyed armor. In this formula, the color of armor or cauldron water, and each dye color, in the RGB color model, has a red value, green value, and blue value.

Template:Collapse,\frac{\operatorname{total}\left(c_{s}.y\right)}{c_{s}.\operatorname{length}},\frac{\operatorname{total}\left(c_{s}.z\right)}{c_{s}.\operatorname{length}}\right)}</math>

For this formula, the exact order of floating point operations matters.

• <math>x\cdot\frac{y}{z}</math> is not the same as <math>\frac{x\cdot y}{z}</math>.
• <math>f_{a}\left(c_{s}\right)</math> cannot be written as <math>\operatorname{mean}\left(c_{s}\right)\cdot\frac{\operatorname{mean}\left(p_{max}\left(c_{s}\right)\right)}{p_{max}\left(\operatorname{mean}\left(c_{s}\right)\right)}</math>, because some mix operations would give slightly different colors.

}} Template:Collapse{2}</math>

Notes: (when adding a single dye to dyed cauldron water)

• <math>c_{next}</math> is the color that the dyed water will have after the dye is added.
• <math>c_{current}</math> is the color of the dyed water before the dye is added.
• <math>c_{dye}</math> is the color of the dye.

Bedrock Edition encodes each of these colors as an RGB vector, where each element is a float. The floats range from 0 to 1.

• The first element of the vector is the red component (R) of the color.
• The second element of the vector is the green component (G) of the color.
• The third element of the vector is the blue component (B) of the color.
• A value of <math>x</math> in any given component corresponds to a value of <math>y=\operatorname{round}\left(255\cdot x\right)</math> in the RGBA format.
• The color values of the dye items are stored in the RGBA format. To convert a value of <math>x</math> in the RGBA format to a float for the mixing algorithm, the formula <math>x=\frac{y}{255}</math> is used.

The color of the cauldron itself is stored in the ARGB32 format (a type of RGBA), meaning the effective formula is more like this:

• <math>\begin{bmatrix} c_{floatR} \\ c_{floatG} \\ c_{floatB} \end{bmatrix}=c_{next}=\frac{c_{current}+c_{dye}}{510}</math>
• <math>c_{next}=\begin{bmatrix} \operatorname{round}\left(255\cdot c_{floatR}\right) \\ \operatorname{round}\left(255\cdot c_{floatG}\right) \\ \operatorname{round}\left(255\cdot c_{floatB}\right) \end{bmatrix}</math>
• Where <math>c_{next}</math>, <math>c_{current}</math>, and <math>c_{dye}</math> are RGBA vectors, with an implied alpha = 255, in this format: <math>\begin{bmatrix} R \\ G \\ B \end{bmatrix}</math>.

}}

Dyeing sheep

Dyes can be Template:Control on sheep to change the color of the wool. Shearing a colored sheep drops the corresponding color of the wool, and the sheep retains the color when the wool regenerates. Killing colored sheep drops one block of wool with the corresponding color. Minecraft:Breeding colored sheep produce a lamb colored as one of the parent sheep, or a color resulting from the combination of both parents' colors. The color combining follows the same rules that dyes use – red and yellow sheep produce an orange lamb, but a blue and yellow sheep cannot create a green lamb. In case the colors of the colored sheep do not mix, the color of a lamb is randomly chosen between the two parents with equal chance. The unlimited reproduction of colored sheep makes dyeing and shearing sheep infinitely more efficient than just dyeing wool directly.

Dyeing collars

Dye can be used on a tamed Minecraft:wolf or Minecraft:cat to change the color of its collar from the default red to the color of the dye.

Dyeing signs

Dye can be Template:Control on a Minecraft:sign or a Minecraft:hanging sign to change the text color. Template:IN, Minecraft:ink sacs cannot be used for this purpose; black dye must be used to change the text to black. A sign cannot be dyed if its color is already the color of the dye. Attempting to dye it will not use the dye and will open the menu to edit the sign, if possible. A sign defaults to black text when placed.

Trading

Apprentice, journeyman, and expert-level shepherd Minecraft:villagers buy 12 of any of the dyes for an Minecraft:emerald. Template:Trade uses

Color values

The "color codes" are used to determine the color imparted on Minecraft:banners, dyed Minecraft:leather armor, Minecraft:leather horse armor and Minecraft:wolf armor, Minecraft:wolf and Minecraft:cat collars, Minecraft:beacon beams, Minecraft:tropical fish, Minecraft:sheep, and Minecraft:firework stars. The hex value is shown in the extended tooltips of dyed armor; however, to set the color using an NBT data tag in a Minecraft:command, the decimal value must be used instead. The color values for firework stars are slightly different. Template:IN, sheep's wool uses different colors than the base dye values, appearing noticeably darker.

Color codes are usually encoded using the corresponding numeric ID, although e.g. Minecraft:signs store the color name instead to represent text color.

ID	Name	Color codeTemplate:Note		Firework color code		Sheep color code (JE)
		Dec	Hex	Dec	Hex	Dec	Hex
0	white	16383998Template:Only 15790320Template:Only	Template:ColorTemplate:Only Template:ColorTemplate:Only	15790320	Template:Color	15132390	Template:Color
1	orange	16351261	Template:Color	15435844	Template:Color	12214293	Template:Color
2	magenta	13061821	Template:Color	12801229	Template:Color	9779853	Template:Color
3	light_blue	3847130	Template:Color	6719955	Template:Color	2852515	Template:Color
4	yellow	16701501	Template:Color	14602026	Template:Color	12493357	Template:Color
5	lime	8439583	Template:Color	4312372	Template:Color	6329623	Template:Color
6	pink	15961002	Template:Color	14188952	Template:Color	11954303	Template:Color
7	gray	4673362	Template:Color	4408131	Template:Color	3488573	Template:Color
8	light_gray	10329495	Template:Color	11250603	Template:Color	7697777	Template:Color
9	cyan	1481884	Template:Color	2651799	Template:Color	1078645	Template:Color
10	purple	8991416	Template:Color	8073150	Template:Color	6694282	Template:Color
11	blue	3949738	Template:Color	2437522	Template:Color	2962303	Template:Color
12	brown	8606770	Template:Color	5320730	Template:Color	6438693	Template:Color
13	green	6192150	Template:Color	3887386	Template:Color	4611344	Template:Color
14	red	11546150	Template:Color	11743532	Template:Color	8659484	Template:Color
15	black	1908001	Template:Color	1973019	Template:Color	1381656	Template:Color

Data values

ID

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Template:BE: Template:ID table Template:ID table Template:ID table Template:ID table Template:ID table Template:ID table Template:ID table Template:ID table Template:ID table Template:ID table Template:ID table Template:ID table Template:ID table Template:ID table Template:ID table Template:ID table

Sounds

Template:Edition: Template:SoundTable

Template:Edition: Template:SoundTable

History

New Nintendo 3DS Edition

• Pre-release dye textures hidden within Minecraft:Items.png.
  Pre-release dye textures hidden within Minecraft:Items.png.

Trivia

• Players can obtain each one of every color with 1 cocoa bean, 2 dandelions/wildflowers or 1 sunflower, 2 ink sacs, 3 cactuses, 4 lapis lazuli or 4 cornflowers, 4 small red flowers (for example, 4 poppies) or 2 rose bushes, and 6 bone meal.
• In Bedrock Edition, tertiary colors, along with their regular crafting recipes, can be crafted with primary colors. For example, magenta can be crafted with one red dye and two white dyes.

External links

• Tools for calculating leather dye combination: minecraft.tools (webapp); pyMCDyes (open-source Python script, outdated); DyeLeatherArmor: a tool for calculating an exact crafting recipe for any sRGB color