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Can one create a fully functional 3x3 portal? (That's 3x3 on the inside, and 5x5 on the outside)

If you're wondering why I would want to do such a thing, it's purely for aesthetic reasons. I have a room with a wall 3 wide built deep within my base and it would be more trouble than it is worth to resize the room. Hence a 3x3 portal would be perfect.

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Portals to nether are 2x3, but if you have the Enhanced Portals mod, you can make portals of any size; i.e. 1x1, 5x10, 1x2, and so on. – supadude20 Feb 6 at 1:48

3 Answers

up vote 12 down vote accepted

While you can't make a portal any other size except 2x3, if you have one block of space behind the portal, you can fake a 1x3 portal, which will fit inside a 3-wide wall:

Legend:

  • - Surrounding wall
  • + Floor
  • X Obsidian block
  • . Open space (or portal goo)

Main layer

This is what you'll see on the wall:

-XXX-
-X.X-
-X.X-
+++++

Portal layer

Built directly behind the main layer, this is the actual portal:

--XX-
-X..X
-X..X
-X..X
++XX+

I used this effect in to build a portal in the back of a template I built, which only had a 3-wide space. Here's the episode that illustrates it:

(If the timecode doesn't work, I start work on the portal at 2:40)

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3  
Word of warning - if you accidentally extinguish the portal, you may have trouble re-lighting it until you remove the extra obsidian. (I had a netherportal blocked up on one side with obsidian (so that you could only approach the portal from one way), and after a ghast cannonball unlit the portal, I had to remove the extra obsidian blocks to be able to relight it. – Raven Dreamer♦ May 15 '11 at 0:28
1  
Despite the potential problem that @Raven points out, I rather like this idea! I'm going to choose this as the checkmarked answer as this actually serves my purpose better. thanks @Mark Trapp! – chandsie May 15 '11 at 3:04
up vote 7 down vote

You can use inventory hackers to give yourself some portal blocks (data value 90) to place down, seeing as it gives you no advantage as such it's not really cheating...

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Portal blocks not inside a frame and not touching other portal blocks will despawn as soon as they receive a block update, apparently. The result is that you can place (and use!) a single portal block just fine, but as soon as you place a second beside it the first despawns (because at least one of its other sides is non-obsidian, non-portal), and the despawning of the first is a block update so the second immediately despawns. Consequently, creative mode and inventory hacks that give you placeable portal blocks only let you create 1x1 portals. – SevenSidedDie Feb 6 at 9:18
up vote 7 down vote

As of Minecraft 1.5_01, only 2x3 portals can be created (via Obsidian frames) to provide transport to the nether.

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1  
darn! I guess I'll just have to go to work remodeling my house. – chandsie May 14 '11 at 23:52

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