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What are all the blocks that can face a specific direction in vanilla Minecraft?

Arqade Asked by It'sNotALie. on June 11, 2021

I know for a fact that you can make Hay Bales, Wood blocks, and Pillar Quartz face a specific direction, but are there any more blocks with this capability? If so, what are they?

4 Answers

In Minecraft, block orientation can be saved as a block's metadata value or some sort of additional data inside a tile entity. There is no standard method to do so, though most blocks use some bits of their metadata value for their orientation. Some of them have different orientations, but it is calculated automatically.

A full list of such data is available at the Minecraft wiki in the "Data Values" article. From the article, the following blocks can have a specific orientation:

  • flowing water and lava (the orientation is automatically calculated by the game). Stationary water and lava have no orientation.
  • Anvils (orientation in the lowest bit of the metadata value)
  • Beds (orientation in the lowest two bits of the metadata value)
  • Buttons (orientation in the lowest two bits of the metadata value)
  • Chests (orientation in the metadata value)
  • Cocoas (orientation in the lowest two bits of the metadata value)
  • Dispensers (orientation in the lowest three bits of the metadata value)
  • Doors (orientation in the lowest two bits of the metadata value of the bottom part and the lowest one bit of the upper part)
  • Droppers (orientation in the lowest three bits of the metadata value)
  • End Portal Blocks (orientation in the lowest two bits of the metadata value)
  • Fence Gates (orientation in the lowest two bits of the metadata value)
  • Fences (orientation calculated automatically)
  • Furnaces (orientation in the metadata value)
  • Glass Panes (orientation calculated automatically)
  • Hay Bales (orientation in the metadata value)
  • Heads (orientation in the metadata value if on the wall, in the tile entity if on the floor)
  • Hoppers (orientation in the lowest three bits of the metadata value)
  • Huge Mushroom blocks (orientation in the metadata value)
  • Iron Bars (orientation calculated automatically)
  • Ladders (orientation in the metadata value)
  • Levers (orientation in the lowest three bits of the metadata value)
  • Pillar Blocks of Quartz (orientation in the metadata value; the three possible ones correspond to values 2, 3 and 4; values of 0 and 1 create non-orientated different blocks of quartz)
  • Pistons and Piston Extensions (orientation in the lowest three bits of the metadata value)
  • Pumpkins and Jack'o'Lanterns (orientation in the lowest two bits of the metadata value, with a special case of metadata = 4 meaning "no face/orientation")
  • Pumpkin Stems and Melon Stems (orientation automatically calculated)
  • Rails (orientation in the lowest three bits of the metadata value for special rails, in all the bits of the metadata value for regular rails - that's why powered rails are always straight or angled, never making a turn)
  • Redstone Repeaters (orientation in the lowest two bits of the metadata value)
  • Redstone Wire (orientation calculated at runtime)
  • Single Slabs orientation - upper or lower part of a block - in the highest bit of the metadata value)
  • free-standing Sign Posts (orientation in the metadata value)
  • Stairs (orientation partially in the metadata value; connecting "corner" stairs' orientation calculated automatically)
  • Torches and Redstone Torches (orientation in the metadata value)
  • Trapdoors (orientation in the lowest two bits of the metadata value)
  • Tripwire (orientation automatically calculated)
  • Tripwire Hooks (orientation in the lowest two bits of the metadata value)
  • Vines (orientation in the metadata value)
  • Wall Signs (orientation in the metadata value)
  • Wood (orientation in the highest-order two bits of the metadata value)

Answer written for version: 1.6.2

Correct answer by Martin Sojka on June 11, 2021

This is the list of blocks that can be placed in different directions:

  • *Hay Bale
  • Jack-o-Lantern/Pumpkin
  • *Stairs
  • Rail (Activator/Booster/Normal)
  • Button
  • *Lever
  • Redstone Comparator/Repeater
  • *Wood Logs
  • Chest (Ender/Trapped/Normal)
  • *Dispenser/Dropper
  • *Piston / Sticky Piston
  • Door
  • Sign
  • Ladder/Vines
  • Anvil
  • Bed
  • Fence gate
  • Tripwire Hook
  • *Nether Quartz Pillar
  • Cocoa
  • Portal Block

The ones marked with a "*" can be turned in all six directions.

Answered by Lars on June 11, 2021

Martin Sojka's list is good and very inclusive, but i would also add string.

If you want 1.9, you have the dragon head, end rods, purpur pillers, etc.

Answered by hiaiden2 on June 11, 2021

Things have changed a little bit since Minecraft 1.6, the version the accepted answer was written for. Minecraft 1.8 introduced block states and replaced tile entities with block entities, then the "Flattening" in 1.13 changed a lot of block states to make them more consistent. You can find a full list of block states and the blocks that use them in the Minecraft wiki's article on Java edition data values.

There's still a few different block states used for direction, which matters for making custom block models. Here's the relevant states used for some form of direction, as of one of the 1.17 snapshots:

State Allowed Values Blocks
axis: axis of alignment x, y, z basalt, bone block, chain, deepslate, hay bale, log, purpur pillar, quartz pillar, wood
axis x, z nether portal
facing: direction the block is facing up, down, east, north, south, west amethyst cluster, barrel, command block, dispenser, dropper, end rod, lightning rod, observer, piston, shulker box
facing: direction the output points down, east, north, south, west hopper
facing east, north, south, west anvil, banner (wall), bed, beehive/bee nest, bell, big dripleaf (and stem), button, campfire, carved pumpkin, chest/ender chest/trapped chest, cocoa pod, coral fan (wall), door, end portal frame, fence gate, furnace/blast furnace/smoker, glazed terracotta, grindstone, head (wall), jack o'lantern, ladder, lectern, lever, loom, melon/pumpkin stem (attached), redstone comparator, redstone repeater, sign (wall), stairs, stonecutter, torch/soul torch/redstone torch (wall), trapdoor, tripwire hook
open: only changes direction for doors/trapdoors false, true barrel, door, fence gate, trapdoor
rotation: granular direction 015 banner (floor), head (floor), sign (floor)
shape: how to connect with neighbor blocks north_east, north_west, south_east, south_west, ascending_east, ascending_north, ascending_south, ascending_west, east_west, north_south rail
shape ascending_east, ascending_north, ascending_south, ascending_west, east_west, north_south activator rail, detector rail, powered rail
shape inner_left, inner_right, outer_left, outer_right, straight stairs
orientation: direction of arrows, then line face down_east, down_north, down_south, down_west, east_up, north_up, south_up, up_east, up_north, up_south, up_west, west_up jigsaw block
vertical_direction up, down pointed dripstone
down, up, east, north, south, west: indicates where neighboring blocks are false, true chorus plant (how the block extends from the center),
glow lichen (which sides have lichen),
mushroom block/stem (which sides don't show spores)
up, east, north, south, west false, true fire (which sides have fire),
vines (which sides have vines),
wall (how the block extends from the center)
east, north, south, west: how the block extends from the center false, true fence, glass pane, iron bars, tripwire
east, north, south, west none, side, up redstone wire

Answered by jkmartindale on June 11, 2021

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