I have a TileEntity that stores several items. I need it to render the item currently in a certain slot to be "placed" just on top of the block model, much like a Thaumcraft wand on an arcane workbench, though it does not need to move. Currently the block model is a simple block with non-animated textures on each side, and I would prefer not to have to change too much of the block model. I need the code to be able to render the item even if it does not use the default layered texture.
As the rendering code has completely changed in 1.8, and the only tutorial I could find works for 1.7, I have no idea how to go about doing this. Where do I start?