Getting Started with Litematica

First of all, the Litematica main menu opens by default with M and the config GUI opens with M + C (unless you are for example on the AZERTY keyboard layout, then M will be , instead and M + C will become , + C). There is also a button to open the config GUI in the main menu.

If you have Optifine installed, then there are some options that you most likely will need to disable in Optifine, or otherwise it will break the schematic rendering:

• If you get glitchy weird triangles, then in 1.16+ first try updating to the latest Litematica version. If that doesn’t work, then set shaders to OFF (not Internal) and restart the game.
• Render Regions probably needs to be disabled to prevent weird rendering issues (the schematic (partially?) rendering in weird places)
• Fast Render might also need to be disabled if there are still some weird HUD/GUI rendering issues

To create a new schematic:

• First switch to the Area Selection mode, as it will make things easier/faster.
• You can change the mode either with the bottom left button in the Litematica main menu, or using holding Ctrl and scrolling with the mouse wheel while you are holding the “tool item”, which by default is a stick (it can be changed on the Generic config GUI tab).
• Now if you only need one box, you can switch to the Simple area selection mode in the Litematica menu (it’s by default on Normal mode).
• If you need multiple boxes (sub-regions), then stay in the Normal mode, and create a new selection in the Area Selection Browser and make sure it’s selected (hilighted in white). It’s selected automatically when you create it, so don’t click on it (once) or you will unselect it.
• After you have the selection to work with, you can left and right click while holding the “tool” to select the first and second corners respectively. You can sneak while clicking to put the corner next to the block you point at, instead of inside it.
• You can middle click to select a corner or a sub-region box to work with in the Normal mode. You can Alt + scroll to nudge around the currently selected corner or box.
• Often it’s easier/faster to use the Expand mode instead of the Corners mode. You can switch between them with Ctrl + M or on the Generic config tab. In the Expand mode you first right click to move and reset the selection to the clicked block, and then you left click a block at the edges of your build, to expand the selection box around all of those clicked positions.
• In the Normal mode you can create and rename as many sub-region boxes as you need in the Area Editor GUI (default hotkey to open that should be numpad multiply, or use the button in the main menu).
• After your selection is done, you can use a hotkey to save it as a schematic, or use the button in the Area Editor GUI.

To work with loaded schematics:

• To later on use the saved schematic, you go to the main menu -> Load Schematics, keep the Create Placement checkmark enabled, select your schematic and click Load.
• It’s helpful to switch to the Schematic Placement tool mode when working with the loaded schematic, as you can then use the “tool” to move and position the placement, by clicking or Alt + scrolling.
• To rotate or mirror it, you can go via the main menu -> Schematic Placements -> Configure, or use the hotkey numpad minus to open that placement config GUI.
• Once the placement is in the correct position, I recommend locking it on the placement config GUI so that you won’t accidentally move it anymore.
• So one thing to notice here is that you can load a schematic once, and create any number of placements of it (from the Loaded Schematics menu -> Create placement). Thus the placement is basically the position, rotation etc. data for a given “visible schematic copy”.
• To only render for example one layer at a time, you can change the rendering settings on the Render Layers config tab. There are also hotkey to cycle the mode, move the layer to the player’s position, and nudge the layer. By default the cycle keys are M + Page Up/Down, to move the layer is M + Home and to nudge the layer is Page Up/Down.

Other things:

• All hotkeys can be changed, or the default keys seen, on the Hotkeys tab in the config menu.
• If you need to change some blocks in a schematic, you can use the Schematic Rebuild mode. Basically the Rebuild mode allows you to break, add, and replace blocks. Without any modifier keys held, you can punch out/break blocks in the schematic, and if you right click on a schematic block with a block in hand, you will place that block there just like it was actual blocks.
• And then you have a few “modifier keys”, which allow you to break or place or replace blocks in continuous lines, or all identical blocks at once. Currently you basically have two variants of those modifier hotkeys: the “direction” variant gives you a Tweakeroo-like 5-way overlay which indicates in which direction you want to break or place or replace blocks in a straight continuous line. And then the “all” variant of modifier keys allows you to break or replace all identical blocks in the schematic. That can however be limited using the Render Layers and also by selecting a sub-region instead of having the entire placement selected.
• So to replace all blocks of a given type with another block, you would set a key for the schematicRebuildReplaceAll hotkey, then hold that down while right clicking with the new block on the block to replace.