So, as the title says, I'd like to make a multiblock structure, with many variants, that has a central controlling block. This central controller has 25 possible variants. The rendering I want is a tint representing the variant overlayed on a neutral-toned OBJ model, with the emblem of the variant in question pasted on top. I'd also like to not have to instantiate the controller block twice, which is what I'm currently doing, as it feels really clunky, and requires a lot of book-keeping checks in a lot of the methods. I currently have 16 variants in the first instantiation, and 9 in the second. Is it possible to have all 25 variants of one block that all render slightly differently(but with the same parameters of a color and an overlay image), and all have the same item ID, WITHOUT resorting to a TESR? The render itself isn't animated(yet) and isn't particularly complex, and I'd rather not have to resort to a TESR(because I'd rather not deal with GL1.1 code). Oh, and, the block doesn't actually NEED to drop when the thing is mined, so I don't care about the consistency of behavior there, in case I DO still need to deal with the 4 bits of metadata.
I asked a similar question around the 1.7.10 modding era, and then college ate a bunch of time, and I had to drop working on it for a while. It wasn't possible then, but I'm wondering if the new IBlockState system can let me do this in a way that's not gross.
And for those interested in the code, all of it is present here