This article is about creating custom texture packs. For programs to simplify the process of creating texture packs, see Programs and editors/Resource Pack Creators

The purpose of this article is to teach you how to create a custom texture pack. It focuses on the extraction of appropriate files from the game Java Archive minecraft.jar , their editing, and packing the newly created textures and putting them back into the game.

Extraction [ edit ]

The original textures are located in the game Java Archive file minecraft.jar . Any zip archiver should be able to extract files from it as the Java Archive format is just a subset of the common zip format. Exact procedure for locating the game archive and extracting the files from it varies by operating system. Below is a list of files and subfolders of interest while creating a new texture pack:

File Description Notes pack.png Thumbnail of pack in texture selection list. Size should be 128×128 pixels. pack.txt Optional description of texture in pack selection list. The text shouldn't be too long or it will not appear. particles.png All particles The redstone particle's color cannot be changed. terrain.png All blocks Since Beta 1.8, the chest has its own texture located in item/chest.png, (and item/largechest.png) similar to that of mobs, however the textures in the terrain file are still used for the particle effects when breaking a chest. The water and lava textures can only be changed with the HD Texture pack patch. > All blocks and items are now individual files found in the "texture" folder instead.[1.5 update] achievement/ The Achievements screen GUI. armor/ All armor in game. This also contains the overlay for a charged creeper and protected Wither. art/ All paintings in game. environment/ Snow, rain and clouds. font/ In-game font. gui/ Item hotbar, inventory screens, item thumbnails, Minecraft logo and menu background. item/ In-game models for items such as signs, minecarts, boats, arrows, and chests. The doors file is used as a template representing the right and left sides of doors placed from right to left.. misc/ Biome grass/foliage color, overlay for pumpkin helmets, the clock dial, footprint, and the Map Background. mob/ All mobs in game. terrain/ Sun and Moon. The image is horizontally flipped in the game. (any words drawn will be backwards) title/ panorama pics, mclogo, black.png, mojang, and splashes. title/bg/ Minecraft main menu background Named panorama0 - panorama5

Windows [ edit ]

To extract the editable files for a texture pack, first download a compression program, such as 7-Zip or WinRAR, and make a folder on your desktop for texture pack storage. For Windows Vista/7, go to the "start" menu on your desktop and do a search for %appdata% . On Windows XP, go to "start" menu, click "run", and type in %appdata% . There may be a file called roaming , if so open it, and one of the folders inside should be called .minecraft , unless the roaming folder was not existent. Open this, and inside open the folder titled bin . (If you have a newer launcher there may not be a bin file. If that is so just open the folder versions and select the newest version's folder) Then go to the minecraft.jar file or a file with the current version with .jar at the end (for example, 1.11.2.jar ) and right click on it. In the menu of options should be either "7-zip" or "WinRAR". Follow the arrow from that option to the menu of actions, and choose "Extract to 'minecraft/'". (It is best that your folder for texture packs have the word minecraft in it. For example, mine is "minecraft-desktop"). Find the extracted files. They should have extracted to your desktop folder and be in a sub-folder titled "minecraft". Open this file, and there will be 1,335 .class files. Delete every one of these. An easy way to select them all is type .class in the search bar and press ctrl+A then delete (be sure not to delete the "splash" file, which will be selected because of the splash 'best in class'). Now you are ready to edit.

Note: Microsoft Paint ("Paint" on the Windows Start menu) does not support saving transparent PNG files, any "blank" areas will simply come out as white, and MS Paint is therefore not recommended for this.

Mac OS [ edit ]

The Mac comes with a program called Archive Utility. First, open Finder and go to Finder>Library>Application Support>minecraft>bin. If the folder is not there, check Finder>(User)>Library>Application Support>minecraft>bin Find minecraft.jar and right click (or control+left click) and click "Open With" and "Archive Utility". Archive Utility will create a new folder called "minecraft". Notice that this is a new folder, and that minecraft.jar is still intact. You can therefore modify and delete the new folder without altering your minecraft.jar . Create a new folder in your desktop, and drag all the necessary files into it. Now you are ready to edit.

If using Archive Utility results in a file called minecraft.jar.cpgz, try instead changing the file extension from .jar to .zip to achieve the desired affect.

On GNU/Linux-based systems, the game archive is usually located at ~/.minecraft/bin/minecraft.jar where "~" is the user's home folder, usually located in /home/ . Many desktop GNU/Linux distributions come with graphical archiver utilities that integrate with the desktop environment. If the zip and unzip command-line programs are available, the files can be simply extracted to a folder on the desktop using the following command in the terminal:

unzip -d ~/Desktop/my_texture_pack ~/.minecraft/bin/minecraft.jar pack.png pack.txt particles.png terrain.png achievement/* armor/* art/* environment/* font/* gui/* item/* misc/* mob/* terrain/* title/*

Editing textures [ edit ]

terrain.png in in 13w01b , the last version to actually use this file.

The textures are in the Portable Network Graphics (PNG) format and can be edited with any image editing program that can handle the format including transparency. There are many different programs that support this, some free ones include Paint.net (Windows) (which even Notch uses), GIMP (Windows, Mac, Linux), Paintbrush (Mac), and many more. Edit each PNG file as desired and save them with 32-bit color depth to preserve transparency.

Although Microsoft Paint does not handle transparency, it can still be used to make/edit textures. Basically, if you open a PNG image in Windows XP, a window should pop up showing transparency as a white and gray checkered pattern [does not work Win7 - no options of this type available]. There is a tool located on the tool bar that should have a screen tip with 'Change to transparent' or something similar. Go into Microsoft Paint and create/edit your texture(s). Find a color not used in the texture, and fill in the white space with it. Then, select the area desired to copy and paste it onto the PNG image. Paste it onto your PNG image and make sure to cover it completely. Simply change your unwanted color to transparent using the tool mentioned earlier, and every last pixel of that color on the current document will be changed to transparent. Beware, make absolutely sure that you do not click the wrong color, as this may mess up all textures in the document.

Packing and installation [ edit ]

Once you are done editing, create a zip file of the files modified (or, in Minecraft 1.3, you can use a folder with the files too), preserving all folder hierarchy. The root folder of the zip must have the files and folders listed below, or else they will not be changed. If you find that nothing changes when you select your texture pack, make sure that the files are in the root of the zip and not one folder in.

Windows [ edit ]

Select all the files (edited or not) Then choose the 7-zip or WinRAR option after right clicking and select "Add to archive...". The archive will open, and you can name the file. Then hit "OK", and the program will make all the files into a zip archive. To put into minecraft, simply start the launcher, log in, and at the title screen go to the button "texture packs". In the lower left, click the Open Folder button and drag your ZIP into the folder. Select your texture pack, and view it on your computer.

Mac OS [ edit ]

Highlight all the files in your folder, right click, and click "compress (#) items". A new file called "Archive.zip" should appear. Rename the file to your liking. Go to Finder>Library>Application Support>minecraft>Texture Packs, and drag your .zip in. Now you can use your texture pack by selecting the button "mods and texture packs" in the main menu of minecraft, and clicking on your pack.

Folder Layout ~/.minecraft/resourcepacks/MyPack/(assets etc.)

In Terminal, run this command...

cd ~/.minecraft/resourcepacks/ && zip -r MyPack.zip MyPack

...then launch Minecraft and enable the resource pack.