Tutorials/Custom texture packs

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, their editing, and packing the newly created textures and putting them back into the game. For a list of completed community texture packs, see the article on Texture Packs.

Extraction
The original textures are located in the game Java Archive file. 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:

Windows
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. On Windows XP, go to "start" menu, click "run", and type in. There may be a file called, if so open it, and one of the folders inside should be called  , unless the   folder was not existant. Open this, and inside open the folder titled. Then go to the  file 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. Now you are ready to edit.

Mac OS
The Mac comes with a program called Archive Utility. First, open Finder and go to Finder>Library>Application Support>minecraft>bin. Find  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. 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.

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

Editing textures


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, two free ones include Paint.net (which even Notch uses) and GIMP. 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 grey 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. [MS Paint does not have this transparency option]

Packing and installation
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
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
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.

Ubuntu/GNOME
In Nautilus (Files), select all of the files and right click. Select "Compress...". On the file extension menu, to the right of the name, select ".zip". Right click again, select "Cut", and navigate to /home/[Insert your user here]/.minecraft/texturepacks/. Right click and select "Paste". Next, go up to your .minecraft, and open options.txt. Look for the line that starts with "skin:". Change the bit that comes after it to the name of the .zip file. For example, if you named the zip "MyPack.zip", change the line to skin:MyPack.

Warning: Instructions may be similar on other distributions and desktops, but have only been verified on Ubuntu with GNOME shell and Ubuntu with Unity.