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Screenshot01

Some clouds on fancy graphics

In the Overworld, clouds appear at layer 127. They help with direction and are merely aesthetically pleasing. They always float in the same direction – towards the west – making it easy to use them to get the player's bearings.

Appearance

Fancy vs fast clouds

Comparison of Fancy clouds (left) and Fast clouds (right).

Environment01

The pattern clouds have in the default texture pack. A black background was added for visibility.

Clouds will appear differently on different graphics settings, and have a set pattern.
Their appearance (color, shape...) can be changed with a Resource pack.

Fancy graphics

On Fancy graphics, clouds appear as about four block tall semi-transparent prisms. In the nighttime they turn a shade of blue and become more transparent. Their smallest horizontal dimensions are 12×12 blocks wide. They are similar in appearance to the real life cloud type stratocumulus.

Fast graphics

On Fast graphics, clouds appear as opaque planes. They have no daytime/nighttime rotation. Their smallest horizontal dimensions are 8×8 blocks wide. Fast clouds in Pocket Edition are also opaque, but remain in 3D.

Pattern

Unlike many things in Minecraft, clouds are not procedurally generated. With a resource pack, clouds' color can be changed to anything, meaning you could have pink clouds if you so desired. The file can be resized to any size, meaning it would be possible to have a different cloud pattern each day.

Video

Cloud/video

History

c
0.0.14a_01Added clouds, which floated between layers 108 and 112, in the northward direction.
inf
June 15, 2010A Fancy Graphics option was added, whereby clouds would become 3-dimensional, and would have a texture.
a
?Fancy Graphics clouds no longer have a texture.
b
1.8The cloud layer was raised to layer 127.
r
1.0.0Beta 1.9-pre4Clouds now float towards the west.[1]
Beta 1.9-pre5Clouds can now be disabled in the Video Options menu.
1.2.1Build height increased to 256, allowing for players to build much further above clouds.
pocketa
0.6.0Added clouds. Clouds could only be seen in Fancy graphics, and if so, the clouds appeared opaque and 2-dimensional, similar to Fast graphics.
0.7.0Clouds are now toggled with the Beautiful skies option.
0.7.4Clouds now have a darker color to correspond to PC's color.
0.8.0build 2Clouds are always 3D, and are opaque and transparent with Fast and Fancy graphics respectively.
0.9.0build 1New culling of clouds.
Clouds have been made prettier.
0.10.0build 1New double-sided lighting on clouds that's more coherent with the terrain.
build 6Better fog on clouds, starting farther away and following the sky color.
build 7The clouds and the terrain are now tinted red during sunset.
Legacy Console Edition
TU1CU1 1.0 Added clouds.
TU5Cloud height raised to the top of the map, so clouds can no longer phase through blocks.
Cloud movement syncs with the game's time.

Issues

Issues relating to "Clouds" or "Cloud" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.

Trivia

  • If you switch between fast graphics and fancy graphics, clouds will be in a different place than they were before.
  • Clouds are a client-side feature. On an SMP server, the position of clouds is subjective to each individual user, and are not generated server-side.
  • Clouds are not interactive in any form.
  • Clouds are only transparent from above or inside, not from below – except that the sun and the moon are visible through the clouds from below, even if there's a solid object above the clouds in the way, e.g. a cave or house ceiling.
  • Rain and snow appear above clouds, rather than from the clouds as per usual.

Gallery

References

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