I have a block which I want to render with a TESR (it has a lid opening and closing animation like a vanilla chest). I've figured out roughly how to build a model, but I don't understand how texture maps are defined. I've looked through the vanilla chest rendering code and I can't see how/where it dictates which part of the texture is used for which faces and parts of the model. Is there some secret I'm missing? Are there standard rules about which parts of the texture image the renderer uses for which face?

I have a block which I want to render with a TESR (it has a lid opening and closing animation like a vanilla chest). I've figured out roughly how to build a model, but I don't understand how texture maps are defined. I've looked through the vanilla chest rendering code and I can't see how/where it dictates which part of the texture is used for which faces and parts of the model. Is there some secret I'm missing? Are there standard rules about which parts of the texture image the renderer uses for which face?

Since we are talking about Java models, or whatever they are actually called. You bind a texture to the rendering engine via

Minecraft.getMinecraft().getTextureManager().bindTexture(resourceLocation);

And where on the texture is decided in the code via (basically UV mapping)

ModelRenderer model = new ModelRenderer(this, textureOffsetX, textureOffsetY);
// Or
ModelRenderer model = new ModelRenderer(this);
model.setTextureOffset(textureOffsetX, textureOffsetY);

I see how to get the right part of the texture for each individual model part, but I still don't understand how the texture is applied to the actual faces. For example the vanilla chest has a dark texture on the underside face of the lid, but the sides and top are wood texture. Obviously in the texture file there is a part that has the dark texture and other parts that have the wood texture. But if I'm starting from scratch, how do I know how to lay out my texture to get the right bits of texture applied to the correct faces?

Bump. Can anyone advise me even on where to do some research of my own? I just don't know how to begin.

Before models were introduced, I would use Techne to visualize my models and my texture layout, and then code the model myself, because Techne's model exporting is horrible... But to visualize it it very nice.