FW Paint

A client-side Fabric mod for Minecraft 26.2 that paints with blocks — build smooth colour/brightness gradients or fill regions with 3D noise patterns, using the blocks already in your inventory. It places blocks the legit, multiplayer-safe way (no cheats), so it works on servers too.

A noise-filled wall

What it does

You mark out a region in the world, pick how blocks should be ordered (by colour, brightness, a texture analysis, or by hand), and FW Paint fills the region for you:

Gradient tool — a smooth blend from one block to another across a line/wall.
Noise tool — a natural, blotchy pattern driven by a 3D noise field (great for rock, terrain, abstract textures).

Everything is driven from one screen (press K), and the blocks it uses come straight from your hotbar/inventory.

How it works

1. Mark the area. Hold your tool in Marker mode and click to place start markers (turquoise) and end markers (amber). Together they bound the region you want to fill.

Start and end markers bounding a wall

2. Choose your blocks + style. Open the screen (K). The left side lists the blocks from your inventory; the right side is the settings. Pick how the gradient is ordered and tune it.

3. Fill it. Switch to Place mode and click in the marked region — the blocks get placed for you, gradient or noise.

The little status line in the corner always tells you which tool you're holding and what it'll do:

Marker mode Place mode Disabled

The gradient tool

Mark a start and end, and FW Paint orders your blocks into a smooth ramp between them. You control how "distance" is measured (average colour, brightness, the colour of a texture's darkest/lightest pixels, or how different each texture is from the start), the curve (ease in/out, steps), chaos (how often it scatters a step for a hand-made look), and how many distinct steps to use.

The Gradient tab

The result — a clean blend from dark to light, with a touch of chaos so it doesn't look too perfect:

A finished gradient wall

The noise tool

Instead of a straight line, the noise tool samples a 3D noise field at each block's position and maps it onto your block order — so valleys get one end of the gradient, peaks get the other. Pick a noise type (Smooth / Perlin / Fractal), a seed, and the feature scale, and a live preview shows exactly which blocks will appear.

The Noise Paint tab with live preview

In Place mode, right-click flood-fills the region bounded by your markers with the noise pattern:

A noise-filled wall

Pick mode

For full manual control, set the order mode to Pick: select a block and press + / − to number it. Numbered blocks (lowest → highest) become the exact sequence used — no algorithm, just your order. Give two blocks the same number and one is chosen at random each placement.

Keybinds & quick start

Key	Action
K	Open / close the FW Paint screen
G	Cycle the held tool's mode: `Active: Marker` → `Active: Place` → `Disabled`

On the Settings tab, set your Gradient tool and/or Noise tool to any item — the mod is only active while you hold that item.
Hold the tool, Marker mode (G), and place start (left-click) + end (right-click) markers.
Open the Gradient or Noise Paint tab, pick your blocks and style.
Switch to Place mode and click in the region to fill it.

Both keybinds are rebindable under Options → Controls → Key Binds → MISC.

Build / install

./gradlew build       # -> build/libs/gradient-1.0.0.jar  (also runs tests)
./gradlew runClient   # dev Minecraft 26.2 with the mod loaded
./gradlew test        # unit tests

Requires JDK 25 (Minecraft 26.2). To install into a real instance, drop build/libs/gradient-1.0.0.jar into a 26.2 Fabric instance's mods/ folder (it must already contain Fabric API for 26.2). See fabric-26.2-mod-starter.md for the 26.2 API notes.

Get a pre-built jar

Attached to each GitHub Release, and to every CI run under the Actions tab (download the gradient-jar artifact).
Releases are automated: every push builds + tests, and pushing a tag like v1.0.0 publishes a Release with the jar attached (.github/workflows/build.yml).

Settings reference

The block list (left) shows your inventory blocks coloured by role: white = used, blue = not picked, green = must-use, red = excluded. The four buttons assign those roles: [S] start, [E] end, ✓ must-use, ✗ exclude. (In Pick mode they become + / − / ✗.)

Setting	What it does
Source	Where palette blocks come from: Hotbar / Inventory / both
Gradient / Order	How blocks are ordered: Colour, Brightness, Top-% Dark/Light (Colour or Brightness), B&W/Colour Diff, or Pick
Curve	Easing of the blend: Linear / Ease In / Ease Out / Ease In-Out / Step
Deviation	Gradient: how far a block may stray from the gradient. Noise: chance a placed block varies to a close neighbour
Chaos	Chance a placement repeats or skips a step (a hand-made, less-perfect look)
Max steps	Cap on the number of distinct blocks used
Pixel %	(Top-% modes) the fraction of each texture's pixels analysed
Noise / Scale / Seed / Lock	(Noise tool) the noise type, feature size per axis, seed, and axis lock

Markers are saved per world + dimension; Clear Markers (Settings) wipes them.

Notes

Placement is multiplayer-safe — it selects/swaps the block into your hand and sends a normal "use on block" interaction, so the server validates it (Litematica-style). A server with anti-cheat may rate-limit very fast fills.
The gradient/noise/texture maths is pure and unit-tested (./gradlew test).

FW Paint Fabric