Color

Colors are applied to several blocks, items and particles in order to display a much wider array of possibilities than would be possible with a raw unmodified texture without the need for potentially millions of distinct files.

Texture colors

Tinted textures are created by taking the base texture and multiplying it with the given tint, such as the biome color.

Block and fluid colors

Grass

The following blocks are counted as part of the "grass" group of blocks as of 1.19.3, and are accordingly colored:

• Grass Block
• Short Grass
• Tall Grass
• Fern
• Large Fern
• Potted Fern
• Sugar Cane

Grass colors are biome-dependent, and the colors used are usually picked from a dedicated grass colormap, with some exceptions.

The following removed blocks (many unintended) also utilized the grass colors (full lists of renders can be found here and here):

• Green Shrub
• Potted Green Shrub
• Potted Grass
• Potted Grass Block

Foliage

The following blocks are counted as part of the "foliage" group of blocks as of 1.19.3, and are accordingly colored:

• Oak Leaves
• Jungle Leaves
• Acacia Leaves
• Dark Oak Leaves
• Mangrove Leaves
• Vines

Foliage colors are biome-dependent, and the colors used are usually picked from a dedicated foliage colormap, with some exceptions.

The following removed blocks (many unintended) also utilized the foliage colors (a full list of renders can be found here):

• Potted Oak Leaves
• Potted Birch Leaves
• Potted Spruce Leaves
• Potted Jungle Leaves
• Potted Acacia Leaves
• Potted Dark Oak Leaves
• Potted Vines

Water

Water placed in the world is also subject to coloring. In Java Edition, this also applies to cauldrons.

• Water
• Water Cauldron

Unlike grass and foliage, water colors are always predefined, and are never picked from a colormap, even though one used to exist.

Stems

Unlike other crops, pumpkin stems and melon stems utilize a color system which applies a different color for each growth stage.

• Pumpkin Stem
• Melon Stem

Redstone wire

Redstone wire uses a color system which colors the wire depending on its current power level. With no power, it appears as a very dark red, whereas it appears bright red at full power.

• Redstone Wire

Potion cauldrons

Potions placed in cauldrons also use colors to represent the contained potion. ​

Constant colors

A small subclass of blocks use colors which do not change at all under any circumstances.

• Birch Leaves:
   #80A755
• Spruce Leaves:
   #619961
• Lily Pad:
   #208030
• Attached Melon Stem:
   #E0C71C
• Attached Pumpkin Stem:
   #E0C71C

The following removed blocks (many unintended) also used a constant color (a full list of renders can be found here):

• Potted Lily Pad

Entities

Dyed sheep

ID	Name	Java Edition color code		Bedrock Edition color code
		Dec	Hex	Dec	Hex
0	white	15132390	#E6E6E6	-
1	orange	12214293	#BA6015	16351261	#F9801D
2	magenta	9779853	#953A8D	13061821	#C74EBD
3	light_blue	2852515	#2B86A3	3847130	#3AB3DA
4	yellow	12493357	#BEA22D	16701501	#FED83D
5	lime	6329623	#609517	8439583	#80C71F
6	pink	11954303	#B6687F	15961002	#F38BAA
7	gray	3488573	#353B3D	4673362	#474F52
8	light_gray	7697777	#757571	10329495	#9D9D97
9	cyan	1078645	#107575	1481884	#169C9C
10	purple	6694282	#66258A	8991416	#8932B8
11	blue	2962303	#2D337F	3949738	#3C44AA
12	brown	6438693	#623F25	8606770	#835432
13	green	4611344	#465D10	6192150	#5E7C16
14	red	8659484	#84221C	11546150	#B02E26
15	black	1381656	#151518	1908001	#1D1D21

Wolf and cat collar

Both wolf and cat collars use the dye colors directly one to one.

Experience orbs

Experience orb textures are mostly white, gray, and red; a gradient is applied afterward to make them green and yellow.

Other

Particles

Alongside potion particles, several other particles are stored as gray textures with colors applied to them after the fact. Notable examples are the various dripping particles (water, lava, honey, crying obsidian, spore blossom), critical hit (which has a white texture but an orange color is later applied), and magic crit (same).

Note blocks also emit particles, whose base texture is gray, that change color through the spectrum.

Commands can be used to set the colors of some but not all particles.

Banners

Banners are colored according to default dye colors.

Beacon Beam

Beacon beams are colored according to default dye colors. Without any stained class, it defaults to the color for white dye.

End gateway beam

The end gateway creates a beam under certain circumstances which is colored different colors depending on why said beam is created.

Guardian beam

When attacking, guardians shoot a ranged beam which follows a gradient dependent on time.

World border

The world border in Java Edition has several colors. A blue color is applied if the border is stationary. If expanding, the world border takes on a green hue. If the world border is shrinking, the world border turns red. In the Nether, the world border is always red no matter if it is expanding, stationary, or shrinking. The world border becomes more opaque the closer the player is to it, and more transparent if the player is further away.

Biome colors

The temperature and downfall values of a biome are used when determining the colors of a selection of blocks: short grass, grass blocks, some leaves, vines, sugar cane, pink petals, and other features such as water and the sky. Blocks such as mossy cobblestone, mossy stone bricks, and the stems of flowers are not affected by biome coloration.

Biome grass and foliage colors are selected from two 256×256 colormap images: grass.png and foliage.png. Both colormaps can be found in assets\minecraft\textures\colormap‌ or textures\colormap.‌ The grass.png colormap sets the colors for the grass block top and overlay sides, grass, tall grass, fern, tall fern. Meanwhile, the foliage.png colormap sets the colors for oak, jungle, acacia, dark oak, and mangrove leaves.

Biome colormaps use a triangular gradient by default. However, only the colors in the lower-left half of the image are used, even though the upper-right side of foliage.png is colored. Furthermore, as shown in the template images in the gallery below, a select few pixels are considered when the colormap is read by the game, and are determined by the code below.

The temperature and downfall values are used when determining the biome color to select from the colormap. Treating the bottom-right corner of the colormap as temperature = 0.0 and downfall = 0.0, the adjusted temperature increases to 1.0 along the X-axis, and the adjusted downfall increases to 1.0 along the Y-axis. The clamp limits the range of the temperature and downfall to 0.0–1.0. The clamped downfall value is then multiplied by the 0.0–1.0 adjusted temperature value, bringing its value to be inside the lower left triangle. Some biomes' ranges are shown in the template above; the multiplication makes all the line segments point toward the lower right corner.

At borders between or among biomes, the colors of the block and its eight neighbors are computed and the average is used for the final block color.

In Bedrock Edition, biome colors are also visible on maps.

• 

  grass.png

• 

  grass.png with all used pixels with respective temperature and downfall values.

• 

  foliage.png

• 

  foliage.png with all used pixels with respective temperature and downfall values.

• 

  dry_foliage.png This is used to color leaf litter.

• 

  swamp_foliage.png in Bedrock resource. All pixels colored
   #6A7039.

Hard-coded colors

Certain biome colors are hard-coded, which means they are locked into the Minecraft code and are not retrievable from any texture file. Thus, they cannot be modified without the use of mods or shaders.

Swamp color

Swamp temperature, which starts at 0.8, is not affected by altitude. Rather, a Perlin noise function is used to gradually vary the temperature of the swamp. When this temperature goes below −0.1, a lush green color is used (
 #4C763C); otherwise it is set to a sickly brown (
 #6A7039).

Leaf Litter uses color code
 #7B5334.

Dark forest color

The dark forest biomes' grass color is retrieved normally with the same temperature and rainfall values of regular forests, then bit masked with the number #FEFEFE, and averaged with a dark green color (
 #28340A) to produce the final color. In vanilla, the color therefore used is
 #507A32.

Leaf Litter uses color code
 #7B5334.

Pale garden color

Pale gardens use color value
 #778272 for its grass, use color value
 #878D76 for foliage and use color value
 #A0A69C for the Leaf Litter.

Badlands color

All badlands biomes' grass and foliage have hard-coded colors, which are two tan colors (
 #90814D and
 #9E814D respectively). These are not modifiable by grass.png and foliage.png, and are unaffected by temperature.

Cherry grove color

Cherry groves use color value
 #B6DB61 for its foliage and grass. This color is not modifiable by foliage.png and grass.png, and is unaffected by temperature.

Other colors

Several other biome colors are set into the game and currently require external tools in order to be changed. This includes blocks such as birch and spruce leaves and water (which have a hard-coded overlay set onto them), and other features such as the sky and fog.​

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