[1.14.2] Dynamic Textures during Runtime

[GenreShinobi]

So i've been trying to figure this out for a couple days now and it's probably time I ask for help. Reverse engineering other mods like TCon and SGems, and understanding the Forge Documentation, has been a great learning experience but I'm still not fully grasping how to accomplish what I'm trying to do. 

What I've Learned: 

* How to define layers of textures to a model so I can reuse the textures and combine them differently to create different items. 

* How to override the model so I can swap the model out based on criteria using Properties
 

What I don't know how to do: 

Assign a different texture to each layer of the model during runtime.

Originally, I followed the most vanilla tutorial way. and had individual textures for each version but that meant I was on a path to have a million different textures, models, and items. I found the Layers system and Overrides so now I've cut down the number of textures I'm using significantly, but I still have a million models and items.

I feel like i'm the right path, and clearly registering the way I currently am (1 register per item combination) isn't going to work long term. So I think I want to register a base model and then swap the textures out during runtime. That is where I'm getting stuck. I'm not sure how to accomplish this. I could use the property overrides but I'd still end up with way more model jsons than I feel is reasonable.. there has to be a more efficient way.

Anyone know a smaller mod that does this this sort of thing that don't have all the extra stuff? I want to take a peek to see how it all fits together, the mods I've been looking at are large and unraveling how the do what they do has been incredibly difficult to understand and I want to avoid blindly copying things. I don't mind doing legwork if someone could help point me in the right direction of how to learn this.

Edited August 15, 2019 by GenreShinobi