How to make a PvP texture pack for Minecraft

What a PvP pack changes

Most PvP and FPS packs, from Bedwars packs to “FPS boost” packs, are a mix of the same few changes. Each one below is a switch in the editor’s PvP tab:

Each switch writes normal pack files, so you can still paint over them. Switching one off puts back the files it changed, apart from any you painted or edited since. The table at the end lists the exact files for each version.

Make a PvP pack step by step

1. Open the Texture Pack Maker, name your pack and pick PvP / FPS pack. Turn on Also an FPS pack for 8× textures and no animations.
2. Choose Java or Bedrock and the version you play, for example Java 1.8.9 for 1.8 PvP servers, then press Create PvP pack.
3. The editor loads that version’s textures and switches on the PvP preset: low fire, clear glass, no pumpkin blur, a cleaner crosshair, smaller swords and a lower shield, where the version has them.
4. In the PvP tab, change what you like: the fire height, the crosshair design, the sword size, the shield height. Every change can be undone from its message.
5. Optional: paint anything else, such as clearer wool colours or a shorter sword texture.
6. Press Export, put the pack in Minecraft and select it above your other packs.

Low fire

Java draws the burning overlay with one texture: textures/block/fire_1.png (textures/blocks/fire_layer_1.png before 1.13). It is an animated strip of 32 frames, and Low fire moves the flames in every frame down by 5, 8 or 11 pixels of 16 (Low, Lower, Lowest), so the top of your screen stays clear. The animation keeps playing.

Fire blocks use the same texture, so a plain low fire pack also makes fire in the world look cut off. With Keep fire blocks as they are (Java 1.8 and newer), the pack gets a copy of the original texture, fire_1_world.png, and the fire block models are pointed at it. Players and mobs on fire still show the lower flames.

Clear glass and no pumpkin blur

Clear glass keeps the outer ring of pixels, one pixel at 16× and two at 32×, and makes everything inside it clear. That covers glass.png and the 16 stained glass textures (red_stained_glass.png and so on; before 1.13 glass_red.png, with glass_silver.png for light grey). Glass panes use the same textures, so they turn clear too. Pick Light tint to keep a faint colour in stained glass, so teams can still tell the colours apart.

No pumpkin blur replaces textures/misc/pumpkinblur.png, the picture the game lays over your view while you wear a carved pumpkin, with a fully clear one of the same size. On Bedrock the file is textures/misc/pumpkinblur.png too.

Custom crosshair

Where the crosshair lives depends on the version:

• Java 1.20.1 and older, and Bedrock: the top-left 16 × 16 square of textures/gui/icons.png, a sheet that also holds the hearts, hunger and armour icons. Only that square changes.
• Java 1.20.2 and newer: its own 15 × 15 file, textures/gui/sprites/hud/crosshair.png.

Pick one of five designs, drawn for the editor, or press Draw your own: the editor opens the crosshair texture and, on a sheet, selects the crosshair square for you. Java draws the crosshair inverted over what is behind it, so paint it white or grey; other colours come out changed. The game centres it on the middle pixel, (7, 7).

Smaller swords and a lower shield

How an item sits in your hand comes from the display part of its model file: a rotation, a position and a size for each place it is shown. Smaller swords sets only the first-person slots, to 80, 65 or 50 % of the size and a little lower, so the grip stays near your hand. Other players, third person and the inventory still show the normal sword. All weapons does the same for axes, the mace and spears, where your version has them.

Java 1.8 has one slot, firstperson, in each sword’s own file. This is the diamond sword at Smaller:

{
  "parent": "builtin/generated",
  "textures": {
    "layer0": "items/diamond_sword"
  },
  "display": {
    "thirdperson": {
      "rotation": [0, 90, -35],
      "translation": [0, 1.25, -3.5],
      "scale": [0.85, 0.85, 0.85]
    },
    "firstperson": {
      "rotation": [0, -135, 25],
      "translation": [0, 2.6, 2],
      "scale": [1.105, 1.105, 1.105]
    }
  }
}

From 1.9 there are two slots, firstperson_righthand and firstperson_lefthand, and swords borrow them from item/handheld. The file keeps its parent, so the sword stays a flat item, and gets both slots:

{
  "parent": "minecraft:item/handheld",
  "textures": {
    "layer0": "minecraft:item/diamond_sword"
  },
  "display": {
    "firstperson_righthand": {
      "rotation": [0, -90, 25],
      "translation": [1.13, 1.8, 1.13],
      "scale": [0.442, 0.442, 0.442]
    },
    "firstperson_lefthand": {
      "rotation": [0, 90, -25],
      "translation": [1.13, 1.8, 1.13],
      "scale": [0.442, 0.442, 0.442]
    }
  }
}

Lower shield moves the shield down by 3 or 6 pixels in models/item/shield.json and shield_blocking.json (Java 1.9 and newer; from 1.21.4 the game still reads the shield’s hand pose from these files). If you made your own sword or shield model in the model editor, only its first-person slots change and your shape stays.

FPS boost: 8× textures and no animations

8× textures shrinks block textures, and items if you like, to 8 × 8 pixels when you export. Leaves, glass and plants keep hard edges. No animations keeps only the first frame of animated textures and drops their animation from the .mcmeta file, so the game no longer updates them every tick (Java; compasses and clocks keep working). Both are effect layers, listed in the Effects tab too, so your own textures are not changed.

Which files go in the pack

Glass stands for every glass texture next to it, and the sword for every sword. The editor works out the paths for the version of your pack, so you do not have to.

Bedrock Edition

Clear glass, no pumpkin blur, the crosshair and 8× textures work in a Bedrock pack. The others are switched off there, with the reason:

• Low fire: Bedrock draws the fire on your screen in its own way, which a texture pack cannot lower reliably.
• Swords and shield: Bedrock poses held items with attachable files, as add-ons do, which the editor does not make.
• No animations: Bedrock plays animated textures from a frame list in flipbook_textures.json that a pack cannot take away.

Install and test it

1. Press Export and download the .zip (Java) or .mcpack (Bedrock).
2. Java: open Options… > Resource Packs… > Open Pack Folder, drop the zip in and move the pack to the top of Selected. Bedrock: open the .mcpack and turn the pack on under Settings > Global Resources.
3. Set yourself on fire, look through glass, wear a pumpkin and hold a sword and shield to check every change.

Not what you expected? Another pack above yours may replace the same files. More help: How to install resource packs and Texture pack not working.

Questions