2014-11-25



Many people adore Minecraft’s 8-bit chunky appearance, while others can not consider a game would look like that these days. Whether you would like to make Minecraft appear chunkier, smoother, or someplace in between resource packs allow it to be simple to do this in pocket the PC, and games console variants of Minecraft.

For all people with a little bit of video game experience under your belt, you are likely well knowledgeable about the concept of “skin packs,” “texture packs,” and “resource packs” as the matters have always been understood through the last few years and across various video game genres.

Many videos games have places and distinct directories within the resource archives of the game dedicated only to supplying sound and visual assets for the game. Generally, these assets aren’t otherwise confirmed in any manner such as by file size or formation date and are identified by file name.

As such, it is quite simple oftentimes to just swap one advantage file for another advantage file provided that the filename stays the same. Let us say you are playing an old simulation game like Command and Conquer wherein a straightforward file like “completed.wav” declares the conclusion of a brand new base by saying “Base deployed!” or so on. All you had have to do to jazz up your expertise and say, possess the game scream, “Great morning, Vietnam!” in Robin William’s voice, would be to download a .wav file of said clip from the 1987 movie of exactly the same name and rename it “completed.wav” to replace the old game strength. !

Resource packs are, like a number of other games past and current, supported by Minecraft. Let us look at that which we can achieve with them (that is no game mod essential).

Understanding the Language

Before we carry on, let us clear up the various terms used previous and at present, and for distinct versions of Minecraft.

Prior to Minecraft PC Edition 1.6.1, the packs were known as “feel packs” because at the time, they just replaced the surface textures of in-game items. Following the 1.6.1 release they were renamed to “resource packs” because they not only replaced the in-game feels but language packs and audio files as well. In spite of the change many websites that catalog and arrange resource packs however refer to them (both in the website name as well as in the website itself) as “feel packs.”

Bear in mind that resource packs for the PC edition will record not only the version number of the game they need to be paired with but also generally, the resolution of the textures in the pack. The default texture resolution in Minecraft PC Edition is 16*16 pixels per block-face. Feels may be raised from that first 16*16 pixel size all the way up to 512+ pixels on a side.!

It needs to be mentioned that high resolution textures are fairly as they demand more interpretation, but do raise the load on your GPU. The 256x feel back seen below on the left half of the screenshot for instance, took nearly a minute to load on our more-than-strong-enough gaming PC but offers an important measure up the naturalism scale from the fundamental Minecraft look.

Texture packs are supported by the Pocket Edition, but unlike the PC Edition, there’s no means to readily swap them. You’ve got to manually replace the “terrain.png” file in the Minecraft system directory and restart the game to replace the feels. If you would like to return to utilizing the old textures, you should replace the feel that is upgraded together with the original. We advocate making a copy of the original texture named “terrain.old” so you constantly have a local back-up. !

The Games Console Version additionally supports packs, known as “feel packs,” but these are spread through the markets and variety in cost from free to a dollar or two. Be suggested that the Xbox Live market is littered with scummy appearances-like-a-feel-but-is not entries that are really only background sets of feel packages applied shop carefully.

With that clarification out of the way, let us look at where to locate feel packs for the PC. !

Finding Feel Packs for the PC Edition

Since you may remember from our first Minecraft set, version numbers may be very significant when dealing with Minecraft as the game has experienced lots of major overhauls and many small adjustments in the past couple of years.

When browsing resource pack sites or reading newsgroup entries about them, be sure to watch out for what variant of Minecraft the pack is designed for (recall, the pack system was completely passed between 1.6 and 1.6.1.)

Before we begin advocating websites to go to, let us emphasize one of the cardinal rules of downloading any sort of Minecraft mod (even light non-long-term changes like resource packs): never download an .exe file (or the equivalent for your operating system) when hunting for Minecraft stuff.

There’s no cause for a resource pack to be packaged in almost any kind of setup file. Resource packs should be .ZIP archive files which you certainly don’t have to socialize with or install beyond extracting them to your Minecraft folder in order the Minecraft program itself can manage them. It is unlucky, however there are plenty of web sites out there which take advantage of the popularity of Minecraft with youngsters as the youngsters downloading it do not understand any better to serve up viruses, malware, and other ugly content.



That said, there are a few valid and rather amazing resources to locate Minecraft resource packs.

The Official Minecraft Forums: The first and most active spot to locate resource packs is the official Minecraft newsgroups. If you are not active in the newsgroups or quite comfortable with modding, it’s going to take you a little while to get your bearings and learn to read all the shorthand codes in the issue lines, but the newsgroups provide the most varied and frequently updated source of resource bunches about. !

Planet Minecraft: We introduced you to this resource in the preceding guide as an excellent area to locate maps. It is additionally an excellent place to locate resource bunches (tagged as “texture packs” on the website) with a lot of sorting attributes and clear tagging.

MinecraftTexturePacks: More minimalistic in layout and content than Planet Minecraft, it still has an extensive variety of great skins to choose from.

ResourcePack.net: ResourcePack.net’s powerful package is clear groups. Whether you are seeking altered default skins, realistic skins, horror or RPG – or alternative music genres, it is not difficult to locate what you are seeking.

Again, let’s stress that resource packs should be .ZIP files, and in the instance of downloading packs for Minecraft PE, they might merely be a simple .PNG file with no compressed container in any way. Do not download resource packs from sites that need you to download an executable! !

Activating Resource Packs in Minecraft PC Edition

Once you have located a resource pack attempt, just download it and save it to the /resourcepack/ subdirectory of the Minecraft profile you would like to use the resource pack.

Fire Minecraft up and open a world or join a server. Because resource packs are a totally client-side change that do not change any gameplay mechanics resource packs can be used by you on both local and server-established worlds without any problem.



Once you have saved the resource pack .ZIP file to the appropriate folder and began Minecraft, you can load and unload your resource packs on the fly by pressing “ESC” to bring up the in-game menu and choosing “Options.”

Under the Options menu, select “Resource Packs…” at the base of the left hand column. !

The resource packs system is laid out definitely. All packs that were accessible are recorded in the left and all filled packs are recorded in the right. Hover over the pack you would like to load or unload and click the arrow that seems, as seen in the screenshot above. !

The default resource pack is constantly loaded and can’t be unloaded. As of Minecraft 1.7 you can load multiple resource packs but the last filled pack will take precedence in any disagreements that appear. This really is useful when you own a resource pack with feels you actually enjoy, but you have located another resource pack that is only new background music — you can load the very first pack with the feels and then the second pack with all the music to get the very best of both worlds. !

For our demonstration we are using the Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Craft resource pack by Koa_Neuva. Here we’re at a wonderful small desert hamlet before loading the pack:

After loading the pack, the village takes on a significantly darker look with feels greatly affected by the Legend of Zelda game Majora’s Mask.

Not only are the in-game feels changed, but this all-inclusive resource pack also alters the in-game sounds to those from Majora’s Mask and other popular Zelda games. In addition, it alters the menus, on-screen display, and in-game things and resources to match the styling of the Zelda game also. !

Here’s the default option battle menu in a Minecraft creative-style game, for instance.

Here is that same menu with all the resource pack!

Supporters of the Zelda franchise will discover many familiar sights only in all of the music alone in this submenu, in-game sound effects, and other pleasure small Zelda-esque references scattered through the pack. You may notice that a red rupee marks the redstone tablature seen in the screenshot above, as an example, – the heaps of redstone debris change into Hyrulian rupees.

That is all there’s to it! With a resource pack you are able to totally alter the appearance of Minecraft with hardly any effort (and usually little tune on functionality).

HowTo Geek

Show more