Litematica layer mode

Layer mode hides every Y level of a Litematica hologram except the one you are building. Houses, towers, and castles from this generator are much easier to follow that way than as a solid ghost.

1. Place the hologram and leave rendering on.
2. Open that placement’s configuration and set render layers to a single layer.
3. Set the layer to the bottom Y of the build and place those blocks.
4. Raise the layer by one and repeat until the roof or parapet is done.
5. Switch render layers back to all when you want to check the finished shell.

Single layer versus the whole ghost

After you load the .litematic and place it, the default render is the entire region. A 9×18×9 lookout is a column of walls, floors, and a parapet stacked in the same view. You can still build it, but you will mis-click floors that sit five blocks apart. Single-layer rendering draws one horizontal slice. You place that slice in the world, then move the layer up.

The control lives in the configuration for that placement. Look for render layers and switch from all layers to a single layer. There is also a layer range if you want a band of levels instead of one. The Y value is the layer inside the schematic region. These files put the region position at 0,0,0 and the size at the build’s width, height, and depth, so layer 0 is the floor of the file, not “sea level” in your world. If you moved the placement up onto a hill, layer 0 is still the bottom of the hologram, wherever you set the origin.

How these builds are sliced

The house kernel puts the floor on the bottom layer, walls above it, and a gable of stairs and slabs on top. A loft floor appears only when the wall is tall enough (the wall top is at least 6). Build layer 0 completely, including the footprint, before you go up. The door is two blocks tall on the front, so you will see the lower half on one layer and the upper half on the next. Glass panes sit on the window row, not on every course.

The tower kernel is the reason this mode exists. It stacks floor discs about every five blocks, with a lantern near the middle of each disc, a door at the bottom, and a fence parapet on the top layer. Set the single layer to each disc, place the floor, then do the wall courses between discs. The parapet is the last layer, not a separate download.

Castles are wider than they are tricky: a courtyard floor, curtain walls, four corner turrets, and a keep. Single-layer mode lets you run the wall course all the way around before the turrets visually bury it. Farms are short. You rarely need the mode except to separate the farmland layer from the wheat and fence layer above it. Bridges put the deck halfway up the box, with air underneath except the arch and the end piers, so a single layer at deck height is the one you walk.

Material list while a layer is hidden

Hiding a layer does not delete those blocks from the file. The material list on this site is the full recipe, and Litematica’s in-game list is still “what is missing versus the placement”, not “what is on the visible layer”, unless you have turned on a count filter inside the mod yourself. Use the hologram to see the slice. Use the list to know what to carry. Easy place only acts on positions you can look at, so a single visible layer also stops it from grabbing a block five floors up.

When the picture looks wrong

If the build is a one-block sheet and you expected a house, layer mode is on. Set render layers back to all before you decide the file is broken. If the sheet is empty, you are on a Y that is air in that kernel, such as the space under a bridge deck or the interior of a house. Step the layer until blocks appear. If nothing appears on any layer, the schematic never loaded. Check the folder and the extension on the not working page.

Layer mode does not rotate the build. If the door faces the wrong way, change rotation in the same placement menu, described in move and rotate. Generate the file on the schematic generator first; layer mode has nothing to read until that hologram exists.

Reviewed 2026-09-23. Not affiliated with Mojang or Microsoft.