I'm currently working on my mods textures and I'm really annoyed with how inefficient this seems, both in terms of time used and file size created. I basically have a default texture for each tool and item, and then just apply coloring layers to that based on the material. What I would like to do is give it just the default textures instead, define the color values and masks in my code and have it parse all the textures during initialization. I know it has to be possible somehow (right?), but I just have no clue where to even start looking.

I'd really appreciate some pointers in the right direction from the pros on here 

in 1.8 there is ISmartItemModel that you can use, in 1.7.1 it was... IItemModel? Im not sure but there was a way to create dynamic textures on the fly

Can't find anything of that name, did you perhaps mean IItemRenderer?

exactly!

alright thanks, I'll have a look at that 

If you have a greyscale texture, you can override

Item#getColorFromItemStack(ItemStack stack, int renderPass)

to colour it at runtime.

Thanks, that definitely looks very useful. Now if I only want to color part of a texture (like color only the tool head, and have the handle stay brown), is there a method for that as well or do I have to implement that myself?

Thanks, that definitely looks very useful. Now if I only want to color part of a texture (like color only the tool head, and have the handle stay brown), is there a method for that as well or do I have to implement that myself?

Second argument is a render pass.

In 1.7.10 items can have multiple passes (layers).

For that, you have to override

requiresMultipleRenderPasses

and

getRenderPassesCount

(or something like that, forgot exact name).

Then, in

getIcon

, use one with integer parameter, corresponding to pass/layer. Return icon based on that layer.

And you already know what to do in

getColorFromItemStack

.

You can try using a single texture with both greyscale and pre-coloured parts, but I'm not sure it would work properly (I don't know much about OpenGL).

 

If that doesn't work, you'll need to separate the greyscale and pre-coloured parts into separate textures and render your item in multiple passes. Override the following methods:

• Item#requiresMultipleRenderPasses

  to return

  true

  
  

• Item#getRenderPasses

  to return the number of render passes you need (only if you need more than 2)
  

• Item#getIconFromDamageForRenderPass

  to return the appropriate

  IIcon

  for the render pass
  

• Item#getColorFromItemStack

  to return the appropriate colour for the render pass (or return the super method's result for no colour)

Use multiple passes and several textures. That's how my artifacts mod does it.

 

https://github.com/Draco18s/Artifacts/tree/master/main/java/com/draco18s/artifacts/