Minecraft Forums

If you are here, then you are here to either:
1) Learn about how to make a Texture/Resource Pack
2) Learn how the texturing system in Minecraft works
3) OR came from Steelfeathers's old Texturing Guide page

This post will included an updated version of everything from Steelfeathers's Guide, and will have more stuff too. It will include also everything that deals with the Texturing System that wasn't in Steelfeathers's Guide and more.
So basically, it's an updated version

NOTE: This guide will (for the most part) be updated to the most RECENT version of Minecraft. It might include information about previous versions of Minecraft, but it might not be the correct way to create a pack in your selected version of Minecraft. If you need help in your version of Minecraft (that is after 1.5) then just ask for help.

Steelfeathers's old guide is available by clicking the link below. It still works for Minecraft versions before 1.5.

Note: Do you see a problem with this guide or see incorrect information? PLEASE post it in the comment section, with an example on how I should change it, and I will change it.
Note: I do know some sections are missing, not complete, or not started. If you would like to help and contriubte then post in the comment section the section you want to edit and the information for that section, and I'll add it.
Note: If you see this:
Need help with this section!
then it means I need help.
Any and all help will be appreciated for those following sections. Just post a comment saying which section(s) you want to help with and post the information. If it's good and helpful, then I'll add it.
Any and ALL feedback (good or bad) is appreciated!
'Special Thanks' and 'Why I Decided to Update Steelfeathers' Guide'

Welcome to the world of possibilities. Welcome to the world of Texturing/Resource Packs.

This guide is to serve as a quick reference that helps answer any and all questions you may have about texturing, from the simple mundane questions to the most complex questions ever. If you have any questions or have something that you want to add to this guide to make it more complete, please feel free to leave a comment.

Are you completely new to this world of possibilities, called Texture Packs or Resource Pack? Then the sections below will help explain to you everything about Texture/Resource Pack.

A texture pack is a zip file containing a series of special images that can be used by Minecraft to change the appearance of almost every aspect of the game, from blocks and water to weapons and mobs.

The core of a texture pack is a series of images in the folder /blocks. This folder has all the images that are the block's texture. These images determines how the blocks that make up the majority of the Minecraft world look. Almost all texture packs you will find have edited the images in this folder. Some texture packs, however, only edit mobs or items, and are called 'Mob packs' and 'Item packs,' respectively.

A resource pack is, basically, the same as a texture pack. The only difference is that a resource pack has the ability to change more things in Minecraft. A resource pack can do the same thing a texture pack can do, but the resource pack can also change, add, and/or remove sounds, block models(for 1.8+), and item models(for 1.9+). It can also change existing languages or even add new languages into Minecraft.

Technically, resource pack have completely replaced texture packs ever since Minecraft version 1.5.

In this tutorial, resource packs and texture packs are referring to Resource Packs.

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The possible things you can do in resource packs can be a lot of stuff. The stuff you can do in resource packs with MCPatcher, Optifine, and Shaders become also endless, if not infinite.

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I'm ready to create a resource pack, but how does everything work? Well, in the world of Minecraft everything has this 'old school' look to it. Unlike most of today's video games, Minecraft's graphics are simplistic and pixelated. Let's take a look at why that is:

Here is an example of a common Minecraft block texture. As you can see, this block is 16 pixels wide by 16 pixels high. This is what is referred to as 16x resolution. A texture pack where all the block textures are 16 pixels wide is called a 16x pack. Here's what a 16x texture looks like at it's normal size:

Pretty tiny, right? The default Minecraft textures are created from blocks with only 256 pixels each in order to reduce the amount of memory your computer needs to devote to running the game, allowing you to have nearly infinite worlds. With 16x textures, the game only has to render 256 pixels per block. This gives most operating systems a significant speed boost.

If, however, you are not a fan of the small space provided by 16x textures, it is possible to increase the size of the texture file in order to have more pixels per block to work with. Here is that same dirt block, only now its size has been increased by 200% so that it is 32 pixels wide instead of only 16 pixels wide:

This increase in block dimension allows you to put much more detail into your textures. Here is an example of a detailed 32x side dirt block, taken from Vattic's Faithful pack.

Because of the wide-spread desire to bring more detail into Minecraft textures, there are many different HD resolution packs. The defining characteristic of all HD packs is that their blocks are more than 16 pixels wide. The most common HD resolutions are 32x (200%), 64x (400%), 128x (800%), 256x (1600%), and 512x (3200%). Although it is possible to have blocks that are 43 pixels wide or 15 pixels wide, there are many downsides to increasing or decreasing the size of a block to unusual resolutions, which will be touched on later.

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• 'How do I make an HD pack? Do I need a template?'
Although there are many templates available, the process of creating the base for an HD pack is so simple that there is no reason to rely on templates. Just follow these three easy steps:

1. Open the texture file you want to edit in an image editing program. (Where do I find the texture files?)
2. Go to 'resize image'.
3. Resize the image to 200% (for 32x), 400% (for 64x), 800% (128x), 1600% (256x), or 3200% (512x). Make sure the box that says and 'Preserve hard edges/nearest neighbor' is checked! This will keep the image from becoming blurry. Also, do not attempt to resize beyond 3200%-- Minecraft cannot run textures larger than 512x (unless you have a Quantum Supercomputer that has a virtual world malignant artificial intelligence known as X.A.N.A inside of it). (Any one get the reference?)

• 'Great! Now I'm going to go make a hyper-realistic 512x pack!'
Before you run off on your grand texturing adventure, keep in mind that the more pixels Minecraft has to load, the more memory it will take to play the game. The best advice here is to know your operating system. If you have a top-of-the-line, cutting edge super computer, you probably won't have any trouble using that 512x pack to your heart's content. If, on the other hand, you're still using that boxy desktop you got back in 1998, be aware that trying to run your 512x masterpiece may cause extreme lag and/or crash the game.

• 'I have a really slow computer. Should I try making each block only one color to reduce lag?'
No matter how many or how few colors you use in your texture pack, if the underlying blocks are still 16 pixels wide Minecraft will still have to load 256 pixels for each block. Or, in other words, how smooth or how grainy a texture pack is has no effect on the performance of the game. The only way to reduce the lag caused by the texture files is to resize it to less than 16x!

• 'Okay then, I'll reduce the texture files to 8x. But I really like having realistic water, so I'll make a 512x water animation! (How do I make water animations?)
Beware! Animations are even bigger memory hogs than the texture files! The best way to reduce lag is to have no animations. Barring that, make sure the resolution of your animations is no greater than the resolution of your pack, i.e. have 16x animations for a 16x pack to limit the amount of lag they cause.

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The first hurdle all beginning texture pack makers have to overcome is actually finding the files they want to edit. For those new to the Minecraft world (or to computers in general) this may seem like a daunting task. But with the aid of a simple program and a few short steps, the process is actually ridiculously easy. Never fear! It will become routine in no time.

Are you done editing you texture pack and want to give out to the world for people and players to use?
Here is how you turn your folder into a zip file.

Warning: Only include files in your pack that you have changed. Including vanilla files is not only not needed (as the game will happily use vanilla assets), it adds bloat (definitely do not include vanilla files!!!) and is a bad practice in 1.7+, as it breaks ''pack stacking'' ability, because assets won't be missing in your pack to be filled in by other packs.
Warning 2: Also adding vanilla files breaks International Copyright laws. So best not to add anything that you did not make!

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''I have an idea for a resource pack, but I have no idea how to make one!''

Don't worry, you're not alone. We've all been there at one point or another. So take a deep breath, relax, and read over the following sections to see where to get started on your artistic journey, into the World of Possibilities.


We are going to go throught this folder by folder so lets start.

In the base of your new pack, we have 3 items: the pack.png, the pack.mcmeta, and the /assets folder.

The pack.png is a .png image that is used as an icon for the resource pack in the resource pack selection menu.

The pack.mcmeta is the file that tells Minecraft ''this is a resource pack.'' The default pack.mcmeta is very cluttered, so it is advised you use this template when creating your texture pack.

{
"pack": {
"pack_format": 1,
"description": "-Insert a description, example \"By Bob version 1.13.2\""
}
}

Change the "description" line to change your pack's description. The description is mapped onto two lines below your pack's name. Each line cannot be more than 32 characters in length. Extra characters on the first line will overflow to the second line, however you can force a new line with the code "\n". Any text past 64 characters will not be used. As well, any quotation marks will need to be "escaped" by typing a backslash (\) before it.

The other lines in the default pack.mcmeta are for the many languages added in the game. *(outdated, kept for legacy support)*

You can include new languages by adding the appropriate lines to your pack.mcmeta.

(More explanation about the pack.mcmeta)

First we have the /assets folder which holds everything that deals with Textures inside it. Inside this folder there is a single folder, /minecraft. This is Minecraft's "namespace". Most mods will have their own "namespace" folder that contains the mod's resources, such as /nei for the NEI mod.

Next we have the /minecraft folder. In this folder we have all of Minecraft's textures

After that we have a lot of folders. I'll explain what each one does.

First, we have the /blockstates folder (Added in 1.8). Inside the folder we have multiple .JSON files that help determine what model to use when the a block has a certain blockstate (like if a jukebox has a record in it or not).

Second, we have the /font folder. Inside the folder we have a .bin file call 'glyph_sizes'. This file controls the unicode font spacing. Just leave this alone.

Third, we have the /lang folder. Inside it will have a .lang folder. Inside it will be the file "en_US". This is the default language. Other languages can also be placed into this folder. Custom languages will be placed here too. (Custom Languages are here)

Third, we have the /models folder (Added in 1.8). This folder and the /blockstates folder are used to create the Block & Item models. More information about Custom Model can be found here.

Fourth, we have the /shaders folder. Inside the folder there are multiple .json and .fsh file which are to help
render the shaders in-game. To change the shaders, you can press F4 or you click on the 'Super Secret Settings...' button in the 'Options' menu (removed in 1.9). These shaders are the same as for example the GLSL shaders, but they are just an extremely limited implementation of shaders. More information about the Vanilla Shaders are listed here.

Fifth, we have the /texts folder. Inside the folder there are three .txt files which are for the credits, the main menu splash messages, and the End Poem.

The Sixth and last folder we have is the /textures folder. This folder holds all of the textures inside it.

Inside the /texture folder we have multiple folders. Each folder is detail below:

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One of the questions frequently asked by new texture pack artists is, ''Where is the oak fence/stair/wooden pressure plate texture, and how do I edit it?''

The answer to this question is two-fold:

First and foremost, there are no stand-alone textures for fences, stairs, half slabs, or pressure plates. These items are are made from derivative textures-- they have no separate file all to themselves, but instead are made from the texture of another block.

Let's use the texture for oak wooden planks as an example. As every Minecrafter knows, planks can be crafted into oak stairs, oak slabs, oak pressure plates, and oak fences. As shown in the image below, the oak plank texture found in the /blocks ('/block' in 1.13+) folder is recycled to make each of these items. They themselves do not have unique textures, but are rather pieced together from the oak plank texture, which is 'wrapped' around the model. Let's take a look:

This principle also applies to cobble stairs/slabs, nether brick stairs/fences, and stone brick stairs/slabs, which take their textures from cobblestone, nether brick, and stone brick from their respective textures, respectively. Except for smooth stone slabs, every derivative item uses derivative textures. The image below shows this process for stone plates, buttons, and levers. As you can see from the image, the lever takes its base from the cobble used in its crafting recipe.

Although it is not possible to directly edit the textures on these items without changing the models, they can be indirectly edited by changing the texture from which they are made. To observe how the textures fold around the items, let's first take the wooden plank and make a 2px wide line down it's center:

With this red line serving as a guide, we are now able to observe exactly how the square textures are pieced together into complex 3D shapes:

From looking at the top image, it's clear that the center post of the fence is made from a 4px wide vertical strip taken from the center of the texture (this is true for nether brick fences as well). This means that in order to have a clean vertical fence post, you would need to have a 4px wide vertical wood grain texture running down the center of the planks. From looking at B, you can also see that each step of the stairs is 8px high-- in order to avoid having a joint between the planks land on or near the edge of the step, be sure to keep this 8px spacing in mind.

But fences and pressure plates are not the only items guilty of borrowing textures-- many blocks in the /blocks folder also share textures with each other, and some even reuse parts of their own textures to fill in their 3D models.

First let's take a look at an example of texture sharing between different blocks:

As you can see from the image above, the furnace side texture and the furnace top texture are shared between the lit furnace, unlit furnace, dropper, and dispenser. This can sometimes cause the furnace or dispenser to appear strange if careful planning is not done in advance to ensure that the side/top texture is not too dissimilar from the furnace/dispenser texture.

Another common question sometimes asked by first-time texture artists is, ''Where do I find the texture for the side of the door?''

The answer to this is very similar to the one above for fences: the texture for the side of the door is found on the door itself. In the image below, you can see how the edge of the door appears to have hinges, an effect that is caused by a strip of the original texture being mapped onto the edge:

By drawing several multicolored lines on the edges of the door texture, we can map out exactly where this strip is taken from and how it is wrapped around the model of the door:

From this image you can see how a 16x by 3x wide rectangle is taken from the left side of the door and repeated end to end along the edge of the door. The opposite edge of the door is given the same treatment with the same strip of texture. Redstone repeaters, traps doors, and pistons also employ texture reuse to fill in 'missing' parts of their model.

Another block which reuses parts of its own texture is the piston. The arm of the piston takes its texture from the wooden part of the side texture, as shown in the image below.

Texture reuse on the piston arm

For more information on which blocks share/reuse which textures, take a look at the section on texture wrapping.

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Texture Wrapping is how the textures are put on the blocks.

As most of Minecraft blocks are, well ... blocks. Most of them are the standard 6-faced cube, and usually it applies it texture to all 6 sides. But there are some blocks that have an exception to this.
You can edit how the textures are wrapped around blocks by editing their models directly, here.

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''I'm ready to start making a texture pack, but how do I edit the textures?''

So you're ready to make a texture pack, but you don't know how to edit the images. Well luckily for you, we are here to help you.

There are a lot of programs that you can use to edit textures. Some popular ones are Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, GIMP, and Paint.NET.

While Photoshop & Illustrator you have to pay to use, GIMP and Paint.NET are both free to use.

You could also use NovaSkin. It's a browser based texture editing site, made to edit Minecraft's textures and create a texture pack of all of your edited textures. NovaSkin has some of its bugs, so I recommend using NovaSkin to only help you determine to see how textures are placed on blocks or mobs, but don't use NovaSkin to create textures. I recommend you use one of the editing programs listed above.

You could also try a free program named Krita. It is a painting software. "It can do painting+graphics+photo+vector work, it's close to Photoshop feature wise and is actually a few steps above GIMP." is what insomniac_lemon said on this thread here. Insomniac_lemon has made explained more about the program in the thread I just linked to.

You can basically use any image editor, as long as it can handle .PNG files and supports transparency.

The best program to use to help you edit textures is based on solely which program is easier for you to use. GIMP might be the best program for some people, while for others Paint.NET is better. It depends solely on you(the user), and how easy it is for you to use it.

Note: I personally prefer to use Photoshop and sometimes After Effects(which is a post-production video editor). I use Photoshop, because I have self-taught myself Photoshop and know how to use it. I also use After Effects because I use some of the plugins (both internal plugins and external 3rd party plugins) to create effects I can't in Photoshop. But I also sometimes use GIMP for simple small things or edits.
Yes, you can use Adobe After Effects to create images. Just make a comp that's one frame long, and when you're done making the texture, just go to 'Comp' then 'Save Frame As...'.

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''Ok, I have everything to start making the textures. Any tips or tricks?''

This section will help you turn your ideas into textures. This is NOT a step-by-step instructions on how to make each different kind of block or achieve a certain 'look'. Why? Because there are countless styles and techniques for making grass look like grass, and telling you to use one (or even a handful) would limit you from experimenting and finding new ways of making grass.

This section will, however, cover some of the basic artistic rules for shading, creating depth, choosing color, and using space (and pixels) effectively. It will also cover some of the issues specific to making texture art, such as the importance of tiling, and how to avoid the most common pitfalls.

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From Alvoria:

Quote from Alvoria

Just choose where your light source is and then stick with it throughout the pack. I recommend above and a little to the left since that's where people are conditioned (ironically by 2d NES/SNES-era games) to thinking light comes from in situations like this. Pretty much anywhere other than directly in front of the tile (pillow-shaded) or below (which will make the shading seem inverted to most people) will work though.

Try not to think of your lighting as a 3d in-world thing, but rather that each tile is lit individually from the same relative location. That's how most packs do it. Remember: you're always going to have something a little off because of the nature of Minecraft. Don't fight this imperfection, but rather embrace it.

Or just build your pack around SEUS shaders and let the lighting engine do all the heavy lifting.

Now, that's only the advice for blocks. For mobs, I recommend hanging the light right above their heads since that's the usual direction they'll be lit from anyway... and because it looks the best.

Items you can light however you want. Again, though, try to keep it somewhat consistent.

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One of the biggest issues all texture artists face is the concept of tiling. 'Tiling' refers to the appearance of your block textures when viewed in a large grouping. For example, what your cobblestone texture looks like when part of a large castle wall.

Oftentimes textures that look good as single blocks create distracting patterns when placed together into groups, which makes them unsuitable for large projects. These 'tiling issues' are notoriously hard to spot, and frequently even harder to get rid of. Luckily, there are a few tricks you can learn for how to anticipate tiling problems and eliminate them from your textures.

This type of error occurs when the lines or patterns in a texture (such as the cracks between cobblestones) do not match up from one side of the block to the other. Below is an example of a simple brick texture in which the lines between the bricks are drawn incorrectly and do not form whole bricks.

Outlined brick texture

At first glance you might think that this is a pretty good base for a brick texture. But when the block is copied and pasted into a 2x2 square, a match-up error appears:

Match-up error: The lines do not connect where they should

As you practice texturing you will learn to mentally trace the path of your patterns/cracks to make sure that everything connects where it should.

Always copy and paste your textures to check for tiling as you go along! Periodically tiling your textures as you work on them will save you a lot of trouble in the long run and help you to spot small tiling issues before they become big ones.

Pattern errors occur when slight variations in the color, shading, or size of a texture create unwanted patterns when the block is tiled over a large area. An example would be a dark spot on a block that looks like a face from a distance. Pattern errors are not quite as dramatic as match-up errors, but they will severely decrease the appeal of your pack depending on how annoying the pattern is (no one wants a bunch of faces in their castle wall, for instance).

Below is an example of a 16x cobblestone texture that has a pattern error.

Cobblestone texture

At first glance this texture appears to be error-free. But once again, when the block is tiled a previously unseen pattern appears:

Example of a pattern error

The cobblestone circled is far larger than the others, and thus stands out from the texture, creating a visible pattern.

Again, the best way to spot tiling errors is to copy and paste your textures into a square.

Very similar to the pattern error, a grid error is caused when bands of lighter/darker areas cut through the texture (typically along the edges) creating a grid when tiled.

A stone texture

Left: Tiled, Right: Errors highlighted

When the texture is tiled, it become obvious that the strips of light and dark running through the texture form a grid. A method for fixing both pattern errors and grid errors are detailed below.

For blocks that do not have definite edges, use the following technique to isolate areas of bad tiling. NOTE: This method will not work for logs, cacti, or any texture where an edge of that texture must always be on the outside!

Tiling issues that occur at the corners or along the edges of the block tend to be very difficult to fix due to the fact that the edges have to mesh together. Below is a method for bringing those edge problems into the center of the block where they are much easier to get rid of.

First, divide the texture in half down the center and switch the two halves:

The result can be seen below. The two vertical edges have now been brought into the center.

Next, divide the texture in half again through the middle and switch the two halves:

And voila, the single large stone that caused the tiling problems demonstrated above is now in the center of the block where it can easily be broken into smaller stones.

---

For textures where the above method cannot be used, arrange copies of the target texture in the pattern shown to help simplify the editing process:


This arrangement allows you to see how all the edges connect, giving you the ability to modify the edges of the center texture to match the edges of the textures around it. Only edit two adjacent edges at once! If you try to do all four edges without re-copying the modified texture, you will be undoing all the corrections you made.

MinecraftForum user, loki_of_sassard has posted a video showing how to tile textures. In the video he is making a Cobblestone Variant texture. It's part of a 3 part series. Forgive the 360p video quality & the bluriness. Video is here.

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''What are some other texturing techniques I could use?''

There are tons of other techniques for texturing. The list of Texturing Techniques can be considered almost endless.

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There are few ways to create animated textures. In Minecraft you can animate all block and item textures.
Alvoria has made a GREAT tutorial on how to make animations in Minecraft. His tutorial page is here.

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Minecraft has some special animated textures. These texture are animated textures that are either harder to make or act differently than other animated textures. These special animated textures are the water animations, lava animations, compass, and the clock. Again Alvoria's Animation in Resource Packs page explains more about this and explains everything in detail too.

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You can create a '.png.mcmeta' file for any textures in Minecraft. While '.png.mcmeta' files are required for all animated textures. It can also help be used with animations or with non-animated textures.

The '.png.mcmeta' file can have 3 optional properties in it.

{
"texture":{
"blur":false,
"<code>interpolate</code>":true
"clamp":true
}
}

These 3 properties can be added to the '.png.mcmeta' file to add special properties to the texture.
The 'blur' property will allow the texture to blur when viewed close-up.

The 'interpolate" property will allow a slow smooth transition between each frame of the animation. (This can most easily be seen in the prismarine texture.)
The 'clamp' property will prevent the texture from repeating in situations where it otherwise might. (This can most easily be seen when setting 'clamp' to false in shadow.png.mcmeta - multiple shadows will appear under some mobs.)

You don't need to have anyone of them to work. For example, if I want to blur a certain texture, I can have this in the texture's '.png.mcmeta' file and it will work.

{
"texture":{
"blur":true
}
}

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''Let's get to some of the advanced, weird, cool, and/or odd texturing ways of Minecraft!''

While we all know Minecraft act weird sometimes. This especially includes Minecraft's Texturing System. But the weirdest thing about Minecraft's Texturing System, is mainly ... well nothing in-game, but mainly its users and players.
Everyone has their own preference in style and look that they prefer to play in. To some, they prefer just plain Vanilla or something that looks close to it, while others prefer to play with hyper-realistic texture packs.

Some advanced topics are Style and Theme. There are a few more, but we won't cover them(yet, maybe later on).
We will also cover some advanced stuff like Biome Shading, Clouds, Font, Rain and Snow, Enchantment Glint, and a few others.

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''How does the gray shaded textures turn into color?''

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Rain and snow in Minecraft might be a hard thing to do if you don't know how it works, but it's actually extremely simple once you understand it.

Rain (left), Snow (right)

The two images above are used by Minecraft to determine the appearance of falling rain and snow. Both will be turned upside down in-game.

The rain will move quickly downwards, and will create water splash particles on top of every block exposed to the rain. The snow will move slowly downwards and slightly to the right.

Both snow.png and rain.png support semi-transparency, which means that you can create rain drops and snowflakes that are partially clear.

The images for rain and snow are repeated in a pattern and arranged as shown below around the player:

Showing the actual pattern in game:

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'Font', in the Minecraft world, refers to the appearance of all letters and numbers within the game, both in single-player and in multi-player. While the color of the font CAN be changed, it's best if you didn't change the color. Changing the color of the text to something besides white, does messed up colored text. It's also possible to edit the basic shape of the font and even create HD fonts. When editing the font for a texture pack, it is advisable to increase the size of the font file (i.e. create an HD font) so that there is more pixel space available for smoother and/or more detailed letters.

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clouds.png is an image that modifies the appearance of the clouds seen within Minecraft. The pattern, color, and transparency can all be changed to achieve the effect you want. This means that you can have anything from smogy clouds to pink clouds (shown below).

Pink clouds, created by changing the color of clouds.png

If playing with your graphics mode set to 'fancy', the clouds will be blocky. If playing with your graphics mode set to 'fast', the clouds will be flat. You can even turn clouds off by making clouds.png totally transparent, or by having the 'Clouds' setting in the 'Video Settings' set to 'Off'.

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This is the file that alters the "enchanted glow" seen over top of enchanted weapons, tools, and armor. It is 64 by 64 pixels.

In game it is tilted 45 degrees in 2 directions and turns semitransparent and purple. It cycles over and over, in the shown direction:

The 1st direction it applies the enchantment glow is like this:

Then it applies the 2nd enchantment glow like this:


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While this isn't an Advanced Texturing Topic that is commonly used, it is a good idea and is a semi-advanced texturing idea.
MinecraftForum user, eleazzaar, made a page that talked about how some mods that have the same ore have different textures for the ore. So Eleazzaar talked about how he made all the ores in the 20 most popular mods use the same color scheme.

While it is a new topic, it is a good idea and may also be a good idea for other texture pack artist to do too.
Eleazzaar's Universal Ore Color Scheme page is here. More information about it can be find there.

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Color Vision Deficiency, or as some people refer to it as "Colorblindness", is commonly referring to some people's inability to not see every color in the usual way. 99.5% of females & 92% of males have Trichromatic Color Vision, or normal human vision. Everyone else has a form of Color Vision Deficiency, meaning that they see some colors in a different way. The main reason why I have a section dedicated to Color Vision Deficiency is because it affects how your textures look to someone with a form of Color Vision Deficiency. Your textures might look good to someone with normal human vision, but it might not look good to someone without normal human vision.

MinecraftForum user Alvoria has created a Resource Pack that changes some of the shaders so that they mimic the effects of some forms of Colorblindness. That resource pack can be found here: Click Here

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''Is there other ways to expand my resource pack?''

Yes, there is. There are TONS of ways to expand your texture pack. You can expand it adding texture changes for other mods, or add support to Optifine or MCPatcher features, or maybe have support for Shader mods.

We will cover how to add Mod Support to your texture pack, and how to use Optifine and MCPatcher features. We will also talk about Shaders too.

I will start off by saying, first hand, it might seem like Optifine has all the features of MCPatcher, but it DOESN'T have all the abilities and features of MCPatcher. Optifine is designed for reducing lag and mainly not texturing. It does include texturing options, but it's not the same as MCPatcher's features. MCPatcher is much better (texturing wise) than Optifine.

NOTE: Well Optifine has been updated more often than MCPatcher (MCPatcher is not being updated anymore). Optifine now has all the features (besides just a few) that MCPatcher has. Making this section about MCPatcher & Optifine pointless. I will create a guide about all the MCPatcher/Optifine features at a later date. (I just have been real busy). You can just skip to Shader Support for now.

You can talk about Optifine vs. MCPatcher here. Please don't talk 'Optifine vs. MCPatcher here. Your comments will be ignored.

We will start off by listing off all of MCPatcher's features. MCPatcher currently have these features:
1)Extended HD
2)Random Mobs
3)Custom Colors
4)Connected Textures (aka CTM)
5)Better Glass
6)Better Skies
7)Custom Item Textures (aka CIT)
8)Better Grass (under Options tab)

Lets start off by saying what each one does.

Extended HD allows a Texture Pack Artist to:
1)Enable custom animations for other textures besides just blocks and items
2)Enable custom compass textures
3)Enable custom clock textures
4)Enable HD fonts
5)Use HD font siing for non-HD fonts

Random Mobs allows a Texture Pack Artist to:
1)Enable mobs to use a random set of textures
2)Enable mobs to use a random set of textures based off a certain conditions

Custom Colors allows a Texture Pack Artist to:
1)Customize the colors of Water
2)Customize the colors of Swamp grass and foliage
3)Customize the colors of Pine(Spruce) and brich trees
4)Customize the colors of Potions
5)Customize the colors of Particle Effects
6)Customize the colors of Lighting
7)Customize the colors of Cloud type
8)Customize the colors of Redstone wiring and particle effects
9)Customize the colors of Pumpkin and melon stems
10)Customize the colors of Creative Mode spawn eggs
11)Customize the colors of Held maps
12)Customize the colors of Sheep and dyes
13)Customize the colors of Text
14)Customize the colors of XP Orbs
15)Customize the colors of Fog and sky
16)Customize the colors of other blocks that don't use Biome shading
17)Enable Smooth Biome colors

Connected Texture allows a Texture Pack Artist to:
1)Apply replacement textures to Standard blocks
2)Apply replacement textures to Non-Standard blocks
3)Apply replacement textures to Glass Panes
4)Enable Better Grass

Better Glass allows a Texture Pack Artist to:
1)Adds 2 new render passes for blocks
2)Adds full alpha channel support to glass blocks and panes

Better Skies allows a Texture Pack Artist to:
1)Fully customizable skyboxes
2)Brighten fireworks particles

Custom Item Textures allows a Texture Pack Artist to:
1)Customize item appearance by damage value, stack size, and NBT data (Basically, it's CTM but for items in a way)
2)Customize item enchantments appearance by damage value, stack size, and NBT data
3)Customize worn armor appearance by damage value, stack size, and NBT data

Now that we have said what each feature does, we can now explain how they work, and how you add them into your pack.

If you want to make a Custom Lightmap using MCPatcher, Alvoria has made an amazing tutorial on how to make Custom Lightmaps. His tutorial is here.

MinecraftForum user, Deonyi, made a great guide that explains everything about CTM & Connected Textures. His guide is here.

(To start learning about MCPatcher's features, you can check out the information in the Original Post (OP) of the MCPatcher thread which is here. It's listed under the "Information for Texture Pack Authors" section.)

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The only feature that Optifine has that MCPatcher doesn't is that Optifine has "Natural Textures". Natural Textures removes the gridlike pattern created by repeating blocks of the same type. Uses rotated and flipped variants of the base block texture.

While this can be recreated in MCPatcher real easily, all you have to do for this is copy a template and edit the template.

(NOT FINISHED, Coming Soon)

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For your texture pack to support shaders, you don't have to do anything actually. But if you want to use Normal maps, Spectular maps, and/or Parallax maps, you need to do some special stuff.

Quote from emx2000»

Section 5.3, shader texture maps section:

for the resource pack to support shaders, you need to add specular maps and/or normal maps.

Normal maps are textures that has the same shape as the original textures, but with custom colours that the shaders can detect to add depth to the face of the texture. To generate normal maps, you can download a photoshop plugin "nVidia texture tools" here for free if you use photoshop, or you can use the paid version (trial version available) of "crazybump". Another choice is to use the online normal map generator here. After generating the normal map, add "_n" to the texture name (without quotes), so for example "grass_top.png" has a normal map of "grass_top_n.png".

Specular maps are textures that also has the same texture like the original textures, but with a desaturated colours (black and white), with white representing more light getting bounced. Generating specular maps are a bit more difficult because it completely depends on the material, e.g. iron blocks reflect light more, while coal blocks reflect less. The best way to start is to desaturate the generated normal map texture, and then tweaking it to your liking. For the specular maps, name the files with a suffix "_s", so for "dirt.png", it will be "dirt_s.png" (without quotes)

Normal and specular maps don't typically look as good if not used on a HD texture pack, preferably 64x or more.

Need help with this section!
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What to change the texture in your favorite mod? Well here is how you do it.

(Not Finished, Coming Soon)

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There are some more features that Resource Packs can have that can help improve your Resource Pack. These feature range from something small to very large features.

You can create custom languages for you texture pack. This feature can be use to rename a few things or can be used to rename everything!
Does your Emeralds use a Ruby texture, but they still stay 'Emerald' and you want to change it? Just create a custom language and change the default Emerald item name to Ruby, and then all your Emerald are now called Ruby.

The top is just a small example for what you can use a Custom Language for.

''How do I start to make a Custom Language?''

Well to start you need to have the following in your pack.mcmeta:

{
"pack": {
"pack_format": 1,
"description": "-Your Packs Description"
},
"language":{
"Lang_Country":{
"name":"YourLanguageName",
"region":"LanguageRegion",
"bidirectional":false
}
}
}

Lang_Country is the file name in your Resource Pack. (Example: en_EX can be used for example.)
YourLanguageName is the name of the Language that will appear in the Language Selection Screen.
LanguageRegion is the Country/Region where your Language is mainly located.

Lang_Country is used so that Minecraft can tell what the Language file is named. So if you named the language file 'Test.lang' then you will replace 'Lang_Country' with 'Test'
YourLanguageName and LanguageRegion are used for the Language Selection Screen.

Here is an example:

{
"pack": {
"pack_format": 1,
"description": "This is an example description"
},
"language":{
"Example":{
"name":"Test",
"region":"Worldwide",
"bidirectional":false
}
}
}

The file in the /assets/minecraft/lang folder will be called 'Example.lang', and in the Language Selection Screen it will look like this 'Test (Worldwide)'.

Here is how you create a custom Language.
First you need to have the default Minecraft language file. It will have everything in that you can translate. To get the default Minecraft language file do it the same way as if you were getting the texture. It's in the /assets/minecraft/lang folder inside the .jar file. The file is called 'en_US.lang'.
NOTE: Do note that using 'en_US.lang' will result in American English text string results being used by default. If you want to change/edit another language, then you will have to name your .lang file to match the one that's used for that language that's in Minecraft's .jar files. To find what the name of the .lang file for your language, go here (click here) which will show what the .lang file name is under the "Locale Code" column.

Open the .lang file with any text editor. Notepad or Notepad++ work just fine.

Edit the lines that you want to edit. Edit everything pass the equal sign (=).
For example, if you want to rename Emerald to Ruby, you need to find the line that has the Emerald item name.

item.emerald.name=Emerald

Then change the Emerald to Ruby:

item.emerald.name=Ruby

NOTE: Don't change what is before the equal sign. If you change what's before the equal sign then Minecraft won't recongize the line.

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The pack.mcmeta is a CRUCIAL part of your texture pack. With out that (and your pack.png) then Minecraft won't recognize your Resource Pack.

To create a pack.mcmeta for your texture pack, you can get the default one that's used by Minecraft. To find the default Minecraft one, follow these instructions:

You copy that to the base of your pack (where the /assets folder is and the pack.png too), then open it up with any text opener (Notepad or Notepad++ work just fine). You will see a lot languages in this pack.mcmeta. Just delete those languages. *(outdated, kept here for legacy support)*

For the pack.mcmeta to work, you just need to have at least this:

{
"pack": {
"pack_format": 1,
"description": "Insert your texture pack description here"
}
}

If you want to have the description of your pack to have color, then you will need to some special Unicode magic, (not really magic).
Lets say, for the sake of example, you want your pack's description to look like this: This text is RED!!!
To make it look like that you need to do this:

{
"pack": {
"pack_format": 1,
"description": "\u00A74This text is RED!!!"
}
}

This works because the '\u00A7' is Unicode for the Section Sign (§). The section sign is used in Minecraft to help make fonts change colors and add certain formatting options (like bold text).
More on the Formatting and Color codes are listed here.

You can also add custom languages with the pack.mcmeta, more info on that is here.

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You can also customize the 3D block models of every block.

MinecraftForum user, insomniac_lemon, made a page that talks about how to do Custom Block Models and even has examples too.
His page is here.
MinecraftForum user, XSSheep, made a page that talks about how to do Alternate Textures & Custom Models.
His page is here.

MinecraftForum user, opl, has made his own program that helps with lots of thing from block models to item models. His page can be found here.

(Not Finished, Coming Soon)
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Since Mincraft version 1.7.2, there have been shaders that have been added to Vanilla Minecraft. You can access the shaders by clicking on the "Super Secret Settings" button that's in the Options menu. Clicking the button will cycle through all the available built-in shaders in Minecraft. This will only work if you PC has OpenGL 2.1 or higher. If at any point you want to turn off the shaders, just press F4. You can go to the Minecraft Wiki to view a whole list of possible shaders.

The Minecraft shaders can be acessed by pressing F4 to cycle between them

The reason that this is in this Guide is because you can edit these shaders from your Resource Pack. MinecraftForum user, grar has made a guide that explains all about the Vanilla Shaders & how to edit them. His page can be found here.

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Whenever you have finished creating your pack & you want other people to see it/want to release it to the public. There are a few things that you can do to help get people to download it. For the sack of this Guide, I will only tell you how to do this for the MinecraftForums, as I prefer that this is the best site to download texture packs from.

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There are a few things you have to understand about posting your pack here. There a Pinned Thread that is called "A word about texturepacks" which is by MinecraftForum user 42and19. It talks all about the Myths & Facts that people have about Resource/Texture Packs.
There are some more ideas/tips for creating a good Page for your pack.
Here are some:

• Keep your page neat, easy to navigate & easily readable
• Make sure you have screenshots. Your pack is a visual medium, which means you have to see the work not just describe it. (Also it's a rule on the MinecraftForum Site that all Resource Pack & Map pages have screenshots of the work.)
• Don't put your work behind an ad.fly link or any link that is used to help get money. It's considered generally rude.

There are a lot more ideas/tips that other Texture Pack artist can give you too.

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There are some tips you can do for other people to stop stealing your ideas. Here is one of them: MinecraftForum user Ringoster made a page that talks briefly about Piracy of packs from site to site, & some tips to help other people know that it's stolen. Here is that page: Click here.
(More Updates Coming Soon!!!)

The Torch Levers Mod adds several security themed blocks to the game. Whether you want to keep a room hidden by illusions and secret levers, or place deadly traps in your fortress -- the Torch Levers Mod has something for you.

Spotlight thanks to captainsparklez (Version 1.3.3)

Hello everybody,

This mod adds support for HD textures and a lot of options for better looks and performance.

Doubling the FPS is common.

You can follow the OptiFine development here: reddit.com/r/OptiFine, [email protected] or http://optifog.blogspot.com.

Resources: translations, documentation, issue tracker.

Get the Magic Launcher for easy mod installation, compatibility checking and more.

Donate to OptiFine and receive the OptiFine cape as a sign of your awesomeness.

The cape is visible to everyone using OptiFine. Thank you for being awsome.

Download OptiFine

Get all OptiFine versions here: optifine.net

Features

Editions

Even Older Versions

If you have previously used MCPatcher for HD Textures, HD Fonts or Better Grass (important)

Compatibility with other mods

Installation

For Minecraft 1.6.2 and newer

For Minecraft up to 1.5.2

Please test and report back, include CPU, GPU and FPS before/after. Feedback is always welcome.

Copyright