Mods and Texture Packs

Mods and Texture Packs



There are tons of mods for Minecraft. Most have to do with changing the look
of Minecraft blocks and items. They go in the texturepacks folder within your
.minecraft folder (search for %appdata% on your computer, include the percent
signs, it's in the Roaming folder). They are .zip files. Don't extract, just
stick them in the folder as zip files.
Here are some of my favourites:

The Painterly Pack ( painterlypack.net )

This is the most popular site for Minecraft skin modding. Skin mods change how
in-game stuff looks. You can download the default pack, or make your own
custom one to download. It's got some really neat looking stuff to try out.

The Runescape Pack

I don't know where to get this. Just google it I guess. Anyways, it gives the
game a Runescape look. It doesn't look the greatest, but for MMORPG nerds like
me, it's a nice touch.

INVedit

This program allows you to modify your inventory by adding items, and how much
of each item you hold. The max for one slot is 255, which is great considering
you can only naturally accumulate 64 in one slot at a time.

MCedit

This java-based program allows you to modify your Minecraft world by adding in
all manner of blocks. Currently, I'm not sure if you can do Netherrack,
Lightstone, or Soul Sand (basically anything from the Nether) but it may have
been updated to include these.

There are plenty more mods out there, just search for them. Note that many
will make the game lag more, but not too badly.

You can create your own texture pack by modifying the 'terrain.png' file
located in the Minecraft Java Executable thing. Do extract the data from this
file, you must do the following:

First, download the latest version of WinRAR, it's free. And the best part is,
despite what is says, you don't have to pay after the '40 day trial' period is
over. You just click 'Close' on the window that pops up upon opening, and it
still lets you do stuff. Awesome, I know.

Next, right click on the Minecraft Java program, select 'Extract to...' and
browse to someplace where you want the files to go. The desktop is okay, just
make a folder for all the files there first. You can find the Minecraft Java
file by searching for '%appdata%' in Windows (including the percent signs).
'Roaming' will come up. Double click that, and find '.minecraft'. It's in the
'bin' folder.

Now, with your extracted files, find 'terrain.png' and open it WITH A PROGRAM
THAT CAN SUPPORT TRANSPARENCY. So no using Paint, cause it won't work. Use
Photoshop if you have it and know how to use it. I use GIMP personally. It's a
free Photoshop knockoff that comes with Linux operating systems (yes, I use
Linux as well as Windows, it's great), but it can be downloaded for Windows.

Now you just zoom in until the pixels in the image are larger (probably zoom
to 800% to 1600%), select colours, and go nuts. Remember that the dark purple
lines represent the boundaries of neighbouring blocks. If you go over them
when editing one block, it edits the one next to it. So be wary of that.

I don't yet know how you implement this new 'terrain.png' (remember to save
it as that or the game won't recognize it) into your game, but once I figure
it out I'll put it in here.