Minecraft Atlas

Texture Atlas

Texture atlases merge many textures into one large texture for rendering efficiency; the individual textures are called sprites. Java Edition only (current dynamic-atlas mechanism).

Usage

• An atlas itself can be referenced by namespace ID: atlas minecraft:<id> → assets/minecraft/textures/atlas/<id>.png = minecraft:atlas/<id>.
• F3+S dumps all atlases plus a mapping file of sprite IDs → atlas locations.
• Atlas dimensions are always powers of two, square or 2:1, max 16384×16384 (precision-safe rendering).
• A texture that fails to load is still recorded but mapped to a random sprite slot; a texture whose metadata fails is not recorded (references become the missing texture).

Definition Format

New atlases cannot be defined — only vanilla atlases can be modified. Files live in assets/minecraft/atlases/ (JSON). Sprites resolve to assets/<namespace>/textures/<id>.png. Duplicate sprites across atlases warn (Duplicate sprite <id> from atlas <a>, already defined in atlas <b>. This will be rejected in a future version; sprite IDs are the criterion, not file content).

Root: sources (required) — list of atlas sources, executed in resource pack order and per-pack order:

• directory — adds all .png files under a textures subdirectory: source (path from textures/), prefix (namespace path prefix added to the sprite ID; e.g. source s, prefix p, file textures/s/foo/abc.png in namespace x → sprite x:p/foo/abc).
• filter — removes already-added sprites by regex: pattern with namespace (regex, required) and path (regex, required); matching sprites are removed.
• paletted_permutations — generates textures in memory by palette replacement: textures (original textures; they may only use the RGB colors defined by the palette key, alpha is kept), palette_key (original palette texture; from 26.3 resolved as assets/<ns>/textures/palettes/<path>.png), permutations (map of permutation name → palette texture, same dimensions as the palette key, per-pixel color correspondence), separator (default _; sprite ID = <original><separator><permutation>).
• single — adds one texture: resource (texture location), sprite (default = resource ID).
• unstitch — cuts regions out of one texture as sprites: resource (source texture), divisor_x/divisor_y (default 1; region coordinates are multiplied by texture size / divisor), regions (≥1 of {sprite (sprite ID), x, y, width, height}).

Vanilla Atlases

Definitions in assets/minecraft/atlases/:

• armor_trims.json — entity-model armor trims (removed in 26.3 dev; pre-26.3 sources: textures/trims/color_palettes/trim_palette.png + material palettes, textures/entity/humanoid[_leggings]/<pattern>.png; sprite IDs trims/entity/<equipment model>/<pattern>_<material>).
• banner_patterns.json — banner patterns (entity/banner_base.png + all entity/banner/ pngs).
• blocks.json — most block textures (block/ pngs, entity/conduit/, entity/bell/bell_body.png, entity/decorated_pot/decorated_pot_side.png, entity/enchantment/enchanting_table_book.png); has a mipmap version.
• celestials.json — celestial textures (environment/celestial/ pngs; stars are hardcoded; sprite IDs <ns>:<name>).
• chests.json — chest textures (entity/chest/).
• decorated_pot.json — decorated pot sherd pattern textures (entity/decorated_pot/).
• gui.json — GUI textures (gui/sprites/ → sprite <ns>:<name>, gui/mob_effect/).
• items.json — item textures (item/ pngs; plus trims/ — color_palettes/trim_palette.png + material palettes and trims/items/helmet_trim.png/chestplate_trim.png/leggings_trim.png/boots_trim.png → sprite IDs minecraft:trims/items/<armor type>_trim_<material>).
• map_decorations.json — map icons (map/map/decorations/ pngs; sprite <ns>:<file name>).
• paintings.json — painting textures (painting/; sprite <ns>:<file name>).
• particles.json — particle textures (particle/; sprite <ns>:<file name>).
• shield_patterns.json — shield pattern textures (entity/shield/).
• shulker_boxes.json — shulker box/shulker textures (entity/shulker/).