Placeholder texture

Minecraft uses an assortment of different placeholder textures for handling cases where textures cannot be drawn normally.

Missing texture

Main article: Missing textures and models § Missing texture

Perhaps the most famous of all cases, the missing texture, a texture composed of a black and magenta checkerboard, turns up anytime a texture or model reference could not be correctly resolved.

Animation placeholder textures

Main article: Animation placeholder texture

Another type of placeholder texture, these were overwritten by the actual animated textures during gameplay once said textures were generated by the game. They would appear themselves in the event that the associated animation could not be generated for whatever reason.

Texture atlas blank spaces

When predefined texture atlases were used for storing and loading textures, certain patterns were used for marking unused regions on some atlases, where others simply used outright blank spaces.

These texture spots end up being removed as the texture atlases containing them are split up into individual files.

• 

  Nothing:
  items.png
  particles.png

• 

  Purple square:
  terrain.png
  kz.png

• 

  Cyan square:
  Early mapicons.png

Uses

For cases where the placeholder textures were unintentionally used in-game, see Java Edition placeholder texture uses, Bedrock Edition placeholder texture uses, and Legacy Console Edition placeholder texture uses.

History

Blocks

Java Edition pre-Classic
rd-131655					Added terrain.png, with the purple square placeholder.
Java Edition
1.5		13w02a			Deprecated terrain.png, taking the purple placeholder texture for blocks with it. The file remains in the jar, unused, as does results.png, a new file containing textures which were not split.
					The generated texture atlas (stitched_terrain.png) now produces solid yellow squares in empty regions.
		13w02b			terrain.png is now removed from the jar file, resulting in the placeholder block texture being almost fully removed.
		13w03a			results.png has now been removed from the jar file, completely eradicating all block placeholder texture squares.
					The empty spaces in stitched_terrain.png are now blank.
Pocket Edition Alpha
Demo					This version presumably added terrain.png, alongside its placeholder texture.
v0.8.0		build 2			Removed terrain.png, taking the purple placeholder texture for blocks with it. The replacement texture atlas (terrain-atlas.tga) uses blank spaces instead.
Legacy Console Edition
1.66.0016.0					This was presumably the version to add terrain.png, alongside its placeholder texture.
TU19	CU7	1.12			terrain.png has been extended downwards to fit more textures. This is despite the fact that there is still one purple placeholder square remaining.
TU25	CU12	1.17			The last purple placeholder square has been replaced, fully removing them from terrain.png.

Items

Java Edition Indev
0.31		20091231-2			Added items.png, with the blank placeholder.
Java Edition
1.5		13w02a			Deprecated items.png.
					The generated texture atlas (stitched_items.png) now produces solid yellow squares in empty regions.
		13w03a			The empty spaces in stitched_items.png are now blank.
Pocket Edition Alpha
Demo					This version presumably added items.png, alongside its placeholder texture.
v0.8.0		build 1			Removed items.png. The replacement texture atlas (items-opaque.tga) still uses blank spaces.
Legacy Console Edition
1.66.0016.0					This was presumably the version to add items.png, alongside its placeholder texture.

Particles

Java Edition Classic
0.26 SURVIVAL TEST					Added particles.png, with the blank placeholder.
Java Edition
1.14		19w06a			Removed particles.png. The generated atlas, particles.png-atlas, still has blank spaces.
Pocket Edition Alpha
Demo					This version presumably added particles.png, alongside its placeholder texture.
Legacy Console Edition
1.66.0016.0					This was presumably the version to add particles.png, alongside its placeholder texture.

Paintings

Java Edition Indev
Minecraft Indev		20100223			Added kz.png, with the purple square placeholder.
Java Edition
1.14		19w07a			Removed paintings_kristoffer_zetterstrand.png, taking the purple placeholder texture out of the game entirely. The generated atlas, paintings.png-atlas, instead has blank spaces.
Pocket Edition Alpha
v0.5.0					Added kz.png, with the purple square placeholder.
Legacy Console Edition
1.66.0016.0					This was presumably the version to add kz.png, alongside its placeholder texture.

Map icons

Java Edition Beta
1.6		Test Build 3			Added mapicons.png, with the cyan square placeholder.
Java Edition
1.13		18w10a			map_icons.png now uses blank spaces for placeholders instead of blue squares.
Pocket Edition Alpha
v0.14.0		build 1			Added mapicons.png, with the cyan square placeholder.
Bedrock Edition
?					mapicons.png no longer has any placeholder regions, as all 16 spaces now correspond to a map icon.

Unsorted

Java Edition
1.14		19w08a			Split effect icons from inventory.png, taking out some of the placeholder regions, although most were blank to begin with anyway.

Default texture

In some cases where textures were not explicitly defined for certain blocks, the blocks in question would "default" to the texture at position (0,0) of the texture atlas in use. Where terrain.png is used, this was the top of the grass block, however with the deprecation of predefined texture atlases and their replacement with atlases which are generated at runtime, this texture tended to shift with time.

Since 14w25a, the vast majority of such cases are instead directed to the missing texture, however some notable outliers persisted beyond this point.

Uses

For cases where the default texture was unintentionally used in-game, see Java Edition default texture uses, Bedrock Edition default texture uses, and Legacy Console Edition default texture uses.

History

Java Edition pre-Classic
rd-131655					The texture at (0,0) in the current block texture atlas, terrain.png, is the top of the grass block.
rd-20090515					The grass block top texture has changed.
Java Edition Alpha
v1.2.0		preview			The grass block top texture has changed.
Java Edition
1.0.0		Beta 1.9 Prerelease 5			The grass block top texture has changed.
1.5		13w02a			terrain.png has been removed and replaced with texture atlases generated at runtime.
					By default, the texture at (0,0) is the missing texture, meaning that certain things that use this texture in-game actually use it due to it being the texture at (0,0), rather than it being the missing texture and pointing to it in error cases. These cases can be distinguished by applying a texture pack in which one of the blocks is larger than 64x64: blocks which point to the missing texture specifically will still use it, but those that simply point to the default position will use the new, large texture from the texture pack.
1.6.1		13w18a			The missing texture has changed in this version, becoming 16x16 from its previous 64x64 size.
					As such, due to how textures are ordered in atlases the game generates, it is no longer at the top-left of the atlas, instead being replaced by the 32x32 flowing lava texture, which is used in these cases.
		13w18b			The flowing lava particles are now animated.
1.8		14w06a			Unreferenced textures now point to the block of redstone texture instead, likely as a fix to MC-46427.
		14w06b			End portals and moving pistons now have the lava texture again when broken, although barriers still use the redstone block texture. This is likely due to the fix for MC-47482.
		14w25a			Unreferenced textures now point to the missing texture from this point forward. All cases of this happening are now counted as uses of the missing texture.
		14w30a			The default texture appears to be used again in some cases, such as chest item particles (only accessible via commands).
1.13		?			The default texture is no longer referenced for any item, excluding shields.
1.14		18w47a			The default texture is no longer used for shield particles.

Bedrock Edition missing textures

For cases where these placeholder textures were used in-game, see Bedrock Edition missing tile texture uses.

Unlike in Java Edition, which only has a single missing texture which is generated by the game at runtime, Bedrock Edition defines several textures as image files in the game's assets directory. There are two such textures:

	Path	Use case
	textures/blocks/missing_tile.png	Commonly used for blocks and their item forms which have no assigned texture or blocks that are in the game and have their texture, but the texture isn't assigned correctly.
	textures/ui/missing_item.png	Unknown

Debug textures

Main article: History of textures/Unused textures § debug.png and debug2.png

• MC-125280