4x4x4 Centres

REMEMBER: Before starting any algorithm, make sure that the front (dark grey) face is facing you and the top layer is on the top.

The aim of this section is to take you from this

to this

completing the centre sets.

Before you can get started you need to know

Because there are no actual centres, the first thing we need to do is to determine which centre colour set belongs where.

The colour pattern on a standard cube is, red opposite orange, white opposite yellow and blue opposite green, with a three face rotation of red, white and blue.

If you do not have a standard cube simply solve four corners with the same colour on the up face. This will display which colours are opposite each other and of course the missing colour is the colour opposite the up face is the colour you chose.

Any of the corners can be used to determine a three face rotation, or;

You can solve the corners as if this is a 2x2x2 cube and all will be revealed, or is that doing a lot more than what is needed.

Solving the centres is more about seeing what is happening rather than learning algorithms.

Start by solving any centre any way you like, then solve the next five in their correct positions according to the colour configuration you determined above, using the algorithms below.

You can safely rotate the up face and front face to create any of the starting configurations.

The algorithms are all simple, in the main three rotations, a side face rotation away from the up face, a front face rotation of 90 or 180 degrees and the same side face rotated back toward the up face. The first rotation in each algorithm may seem to be unnecessary, however, it has the purpose of splitting solved centres so they are rejoined when the new element is merged into the centre you are solving.

If you need to move a centre element to an adjacent face to create one of the starting configurations use any of the algorithms below to ensure that you do not split an already solved centre.

If the element you want to merge is on the opposite side of your cube you can line it up as you would on the front face and rotate your side face 180 degrees instead of 90 and rotate the down face as you would have the front face then rotate your side face back 180 degrees.

The following algorithms merge one centre element on the front face with one, two or three elements on the up face. If there are two elements placed diagonally on either or both faces, then merge them one by one, you can look for short cuts like using the merge one with three configuration to merge one of the diagonal front face elements with the two diagonal up face elements.

Up face