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Dyes are a set of 16 items used to change the color of wool, leather armor, hardened clay, certain mobs, the patterns on banners and glass.

Obtaining

Most dyes are produced by crafting various flowers or other items, or by combining other dyes.

Crafting

Main article: Crafting/Dye
[edit]

Smelting

Ingredients Smelting recipe
Cactus +
Any fuel


Ingredients Smelting recipe
Lapis Lazuli Ore +
Any fuel


Other

Lapis Lazuli can be mined from lapis lazuli ore in amounts of 4 to 8 per ore. They can also be bought from cleric villagers.

Cocoa beans can be harvested from cocoa pods in amounts of 1 to 3 per pod.

Ink sacs can be dropped by slain squid in amounts of 1 to 3 per squid.

Pocket Edition

Ink sacs can be found in dungeons, blacksmith chests, and obtained by killing squids.

Red mushrooms can be smelted to make rose red.

Usage

Dyeing wool and mobs

File:Minecraft-DyeGuide-1.7.2.png

A guide to natural and crafting dye.

Players can dye wool by placing white wool and a dye on a crafting table.

Ingredients Crafting recipe
Any Colored Dye +
White Wool


Dyes can be used on sheep to change the color of the wool. After shearing a colored sheep, they will drop the corresponding color of the wool, as well keep the color of their wool when it regenerates. Breeding colored sheep will result the baby sheep's color to be one of the parental sheep's color, or a resulting color of the combination of both parental sheep's color. Note that the color combining follows the same rules that dyes use – red and yellow sheep will produce an orange lamb, but a blue and yellow sheep cannot create a green lamb. The unlimited reproduction of colored sheep makes dyeing and shearing sheep infinitely more efficient than just dyeing wool directly.

Dye can also be used on tamed wolves. Using a dye on a tamed wolf will change the color of the wolf's collar (red by default) to the color of the dye.

Staining hardened clay

Hardened clay can be stained by placing 8 blocks of hardened clay around a dye on a crafting table.

Ingredients Crafting recipe
Hardened Clay +
Any Dye

8

Staining glass

Stained glass can be stained by placing 8 blocks of glass around a dye on a crafting table. Just like regular glass, stained glass can be crafted into stained glass panes. The recipe for this is the same as with regular glass.

Ingredients Crafting recipe
Glass +
Any Dye

Dyeing armor

File:Dyegraph.png

A graph showing all combinations of two dyes on a tunic.

Leather armor can be dyed by:

There are a possible combination of 12,326,391 colors, as it is possible to put more than one dye on the crafting bench alongside the leather armor. Armor can be dyed multiple times with previous colors affecting the final outcome. Colored armor can be reverted to their original color using a cauldron with undyed water.

The game has a specific formula for calculating the color of dyed armor: each color, in the RGB color model, has a red value, green value, and blue value. For each dye in the crafting grid, and the armor itself (if it is already dyed), the red, green, and blue values are added to running totals. In addition, a running total of the highest value (be it red, green, or blue) is also kept. After this, each total is divided by the number of colors tested. This effectively produces the average red, green, blue, and maximum values. The maximum value of the average RGB values is also calculated. Finally, each average RGB value is multiplied by the average maximum value, and divided by the maximum of the average RGB values. The modified average RGB values are then used as the final color. This procedure can be summed up with the following equations:

for each color (all "total" variables start at 0 before counting):
 totalRed = totalRed + redValue
 totalGreen = totalGreen + greenValue
 totalBlue = totalBlue + blueValue
 totalMaximum = totalMaximum + max(red, green, blue)
 numberOfColors = numberOfColors + 1

averageRed = totalRed / numberOfColors
averageGreen = totalGreen / numberOfColors
averageBlue = totalBlue / numberOfColors
averageMaximum = totalMaximum / numberOfColors

maximumOfAverage = max(averageRed, averageGreen, averageBlue)
gainFactor = averageMaximum / maximumOfAverage

resultRed = averageRed * gainFactor
resultGreen = averageGreen * gainFactor
resultBlue = averageBlue * gainFactor

Due to the way this formula works, the resulting color will never be darker than the average of the input colors, and will often be lighter and more saturated. Of course, the resulting color will never be lighter or more saturated than the lightest or most saturated input color. In addition, this formula will never create an RGB value higher than 255 (which would be invalid in the 8 bit RGB color model).

Dyeing firework stars

A 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 will add a "fade to color" effect to it, overwriting any existing fade colors.

Name Ingredients Crafting recipe
Firework Star Gunpowder +
Any Dye (1-8x) +
Extra ingredient (optional)


Firework Star Any Firework Star +
Any Dye


Main article: Banner § Patterns

Dyes are used in most banner patterns to determine which pattern and what color is used.

Other uses

4 colors of dye have other uses specific to those colors; see their separate articles for the details.

Colors

Primary

These primary dyes are created from a single ingredient spawned naturally in a world.

Name Source Color Notes
Rose Red Poppy
Rose bush
Red tulip
Beetroot (except Console Edition)
Red Made by placing a poppy, red tulip, or rose bush on a crafting grid. In Pocket Edition, it can be made by cooking a red mushroom in a furnace.
Orange Dye Orange tulip Orange Made by placing an orange tulip on a crafting grid. Can also be made from rose red and dandelion yellow.
Dandelion Yellow Dandelion
Sunflower
Yellow Made by placing a dandelion or sunflower on a crafting grid.
Cactus Green Cactus Green Made by cooking cactus in a furnace.
Lapis Lazuli Lapis lazuli ore Blue Mined (one ore yields 4-8 dye). Also obtainable by trading with cleric villagers (1-2 lapis lazuli for an emerald).
Light Blue Dye Blue orchid Light Blue Made by placing a blue orchid on a crafting grid. Can also be made from lapis lazuli and bone meal.
Magenta Dye Lilac
Allium
Magenta Made by placing a lilac or allium on a crafting grid. Can also be made from 2 rose red, 1 lapis lazuli, and 1 bone meal, or from purple and pink dyes.
Pink Dye Peony
Pink tulip
Pink Made by placing a peony or pink tulip on a crafting grid. Can also be made from rose red and bone meal. (Pink wool can also be obtained from rare pink sheep.)
Bone Meal Bone White Made by placing a bone on a crafting grid. (White wool can also be obtained from white sheep or string put into a 2 by 2 square on the crafting table.)
Light Gray Dye Azure bluet
Oxeye daisy
White tulip
Light Gray Made by placing an azure bluet, oxeye daisy, or white tulip on a crafting grid. Can also be made with bone meal and gray dye, or 2 bone meal and an ink sac. (Light gray wool can also be obtained from light gray sheep.)
Ink Sac Squid Black Each squid drops 0-3 ink sacs when it is killed. (Black wool can also be obtained from black sheep, or from naturally occurring lamp posts in villages.). Found in Pocket Edition village blacksmiths and stronghold chests. Can also be obtained by fishing.
Cocoa Beans Cocoa plants Brown Growing on jungle trees. (Brown wool can also be obtained from brown sheep.).

Secondary

Secondary dyes are created by combining primary dyes together.

Name Source Color
Cyan Dye Cactus Green + Lapis Lazuli Cyan
Purple Dye Rose Red + Lapis Lazuli Purple
Gray Dye Ink Sac + Bone Meal Gray
Lime Dye Cactus Green + Bone Meal Lime Green

Data values

All the dyes have the ID name minecraft:dye. The color of a dye item depends on its metadata. The "color codes" are used to determine the color imparted on sheep, wolf collars, and dyed leather armor. The hex value is shown in the extended tooltips of dyed leather armor; however, to set the color using an NBT data tag in a command, the decimal value must be used instead.

Icon Data Description Color Code Sample
Dec Hex Dec Hex
0 0x0 Ink Sac 1644825 #191919
1 0x1 Rose Red 10040115 #993333
2 0x2 Cactus Green 6717235 #667F33
3 0x3 Cocoa Beans 6704179 #664C33
4 0x4 Lapis Lazuli 3361970 #334CB2
5 0x5 Purple Dye 8339378 #7F3FB2
6 0x6 Cyan Dye 5013401 #4C7F99
7 0x7 Light Gray Dye 10066329 #999999
8 0x8 Gray Dye 5000268 #4C4C4C
9 0x9 Pink Dye 15892389 #F27FA5
10 0xA Lime Dye 8375321 #7FCC19
11 0xB Dandelion Yellow 15066419 #E5E533
12 0xC Light Blue Dye 6724056 #6699D8
13 0xD Magenta Dye 11685080 #B24CD8
14 0xE Orange Dye 14188339 #D87F33
15 0xF Bone Meal 16777215 #FFFFFF

Video

Note: This video is outdated and does not include details of the 1.7.2 update's changes to the dyeing system/production chain.

Dye/video

History

b
?Removed green stuff from rose red and dandelion yellow textures.
1.2Added wool dyes.
release
1.1Sheep now have the ability to regrow their wool by eating grass. Dyed sheep will regrow wool in their new color.
1.4.212w34aAdded the ability to dye leather armor and wolf collars.
1.6.113w19aStained clay can now be crafted using dyes.
1.7.213w36aWith the addition of new flowers, many secondary and tertiary dyes are now primary dyes.
13w41aStained glass can now be crafted using dyes.
1.814w30aAdded banners, which can be dyed.
1.915w31aRose red can now be obtained from beetroot
15w34aAdded shields, which can be dyed.
Pocket Edition Alpha
0.3.0Added dandelion yellow.
0.3.3Added bone meal.
0.4.0Added cactus green, cyan dye, lapis lazuli, light blue dye, lime dye, magenta dye, orange dye, pink dye and purple dye.
Added rose red, obtainable by smelting red mushrooms.
0.8.0build 3Ink sacs, cocoa beans, gray dye, and light gray dye are available in the Creative inventory.
Rose red can now be obtained from beetroots.
0.9.0build 1Cocoa beans can now be obtained from cocoa pods.
Removed the cyan flower and replaced it with a new poppy flower that can be crafted into rose red.
build 3All new flowers can be crafted into dyes. Because of this, many secondary and tertiary dyes are now primary dyes.
Gray dye and light gray dye can now be obtained in survival.
build 11Stained clay can now be crafted using dyes.
0.11.0build 1Ink sacs can now be obtained from squid.
Added the ability to dye wolf collars.
0.14.0Cauldrons now used for leather dyeing, by applying a dye to a water-filled cauldron.
Legacy Console Edition
TU1CU1 1.0 Patch 1Added wool dyes.

Trivia

  • Players can obtain each one of every color with 1 cocoa bean, 2 yellow dye and ink sacs, 3 green dye, 4 lapis lazuli and red dyes and 6 bone meal (2 bones).
  • The dyed sheep breeding behavior mirrors Lamarck´s theory, in which the organisms evolve inheriting the external changes and adaptations of the previous generation, transmitting them to their offspring.
  • In Pocket Edition, tertiary colors, along with their regular crafting recipes, can be crafted with primary colors. E.g.: Magenta can be crafted with one rose red and two bone meals.
  • The colors of the dyes match the chat colors in Color Codes except for brown, which is replaced with another blue.
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