Building & Resources guides — page 2

Minecraft guides filed under Building & Resources.

/locate: finding structures, biomes and why it sometimes says nothing is nearby

locate searches a bounded radius and gives up rather than looking forever. Here is the difference between structure, biome and poi, and what to do when it fails.

2026-07-04Building & Resources

Biomes are 3D now: why the biome under your feet is not the one on the surface

Cave biomes generate independently of the surface, which changes mob spawns, water colour and where structures appear. What that means in practice.

2026-06-28Building & Resources

Armour maths: why 20 armour points is not 80% reduction

The armour formula includes toughness and the attack's armour-piercing. Here is the real equation, what Protection adds on top, and where the hard caps sit.

2026-06-26Building & Resources

Replacing sounds with a resource pack: sounds.json and the .ogg requirement

Minecraft only plays Ogg Vorbis, and a sound event is not a file. Here is the mapping file, how to add a sound instead of replacing one, and why yours is silent.

2026-06-25Building & Resources

XP levels and total experience: the three formulas and what a death costs

Levels are not linear — level 30 is 1,395 XP but level 60 is 6,720. Here are the piecewise formulas, what you keep on death, and the cheapest level for enchanting.

2026-06-24Building & Resources

Hiding and resizing HUD elements with a resource pack

The hotbar, crosshair and XP bar all live in one texture atlas. Here is how to make parts of it invisible, what cannot be moved, and the font trick for custom HUD text.

2026-06-22Building & Resources

Map art: why your image looks wrong, and the 3-shade trick that fixes it

Maps have 61 base colours, not 16 million — but each has four shades set by block height. Staircasing triples your palette and is why good map art is never flat.

2026-06-20Building & Resources

Custom paintings and music discs without replacing the originals

Both became datapack registries, so you can add new ones instead of overwriting vanilla. Here are the two files each needs and the sizing rule paintings must follow.

2026-06-18Building & Resources

Decorated pots: all 23 sherds, where each one digs up, and the give command

A pot takes four sherds, one per face, and the order you place them decides which face gets which. Where every sherd comes from and how to skip the digging.

2026-06-16Building & Resources

Looking for more Minecraft tools?

A suite of client-side generators, viewers and converters — all free, all in your browser.