Best Minecraft Texture Packs and Shader Packs

Tired of looking at default Minecraft everyday? Enhancing your Minecraft experience can be as simple as switching up your visual style or adding dynamic lighting and effects. Whether you’re looking to immerse yourself in a medieval world, enhance your gameplay, or just refresh the game’s look, there are plenty of options to suit your taste. Here are some recommendations for Minecraft texture packs and shader packs that can transform your Minecraft adventure.

Texture Packs (Personal Recommendations)

I have personally used the following texture packs for a long time and can vouch for their quality and immersive experience:

Conquest Reforged Resource Pack: Conquest Reforged Resourcepack – Minecraft Resource Packs – CurseForge

Alacrity: Alacrity – Minecraft Resource Packs – CurseForge

Patrix 32x: Patrix 32x – Minecraft Resource Packs – CurseForge

For Bed wars, Sky wars and Other Game modes

Kaizen [256x] Default Minecraft Texture Pack: Kaizen [256x] Default Minecraft Texture Pack (planetminecraft.com)

Bombies 180k: Bombies 180k Minecraft Texture Pack (planetminecraft.com)

Shader Packs

You need optifine or the iris shaders mod to be able to apply shader packs.

Complementary Shaders – Reimagined: Complementary Shaders – Reimagined – Minecraft Shaders – CurseForge

BSL Shaders – Original: BSL Shaders – Original – Minecraft Shaders – CurseForge

Vanilla Plus Shader: Vanilla Plus Shader – Minecraft Shaders – CurseForge

Sildur’s Vibrant Shaders: Sildur’s Vibrant shaders – Minecraft Shaders – CurseForge

These packs and shaders can significantly enhance your Minecraft experience, making the game visually stunning and more enjoyable. Feel free to explore and find the ones that best fit your personal style and gameplay preferences.

How to Make and Update a Minecraft Texture Pack

Sometimes, the texture packs you like are only available for older versions of Minecraft, or they might not be updated because the creator has discontinued the project. Maybe, you cannot find a texture pack that suits your style. If this happens, you can create your own texture pack.

In this guide, we’ll show you how to create a new texture pack from scratch and how to update an existing one.

The Quick Way

Use websites like TextureMC, which offer a straightforward process to create texture packs with step-by-step guidance.

The Manual Method

Access the Minecraft Folder

Press Windows + R, type %AppData%, and press Enter.

Open the Roaming folder, then go to .minecraft > versions.

Select Your Minecraft Version

Find the folder for the version you want (e.g., “1.8.9”) and open it.

Copy the .jar file (e.g., 1.8.9.jar) and paste it somewhere on your computer.

Extract the JAR File

Use 7-Zip to extract the .jar file.

Inside the extracted folder, navigate to assets > minecraft > textures.

Copy the Textures Folder

Copy the assets folder from the extracted files and paste it into a new folder where you’ll edit the textures.

Edit the Texture Files

Use tools like Paint 3D or Pixel Editor Pixie Engine – Create! To create or edit texture files (usually 16×16 pixels for default packs).

Modify or create new textures (e.g., change apple.png to a custom design).

Save and Replace

After editing, save your texture files as .png with the same resolution and name as the original texture name (e.g., save apple.png as apple.png).

Replace the old textures in your copied texture folder with the new ones.

Create the pack.mcmeta File

Open Notepad and enter this code:

{

  "pack": {

    "pack_format": <version_format>,

    "description": "Your Pack Description"

  }

}

Replace <version_format> with the correct number from the table below for your Minecraft version (e.g., 15 for 1.20.1). Save this file as pack.mcmeta.

Pack.png

Paste any image and rename it as pack.png. This will be your texture pack’s cover image.

Compile the Pack

Select the assets folder, pack.mcmeta file and pack.png, right-click, and compress them into a .zip file.

This .zip is your texture pack.

Updating a Texture Pack (The Quick Way)

Use Itsme64’s Minecraft Texture Pack Updater (convertmcpack.net) to automatically update your texture pack. 

Updating a Texture Pack (The Manual Way)

1. Modify pack.mcmeta: Update the pack_format value according to the target Minecraft version.
2. Check Changed Textures: Load the pack in Minecraft to see which textures have broken. Note any missing textures.
3. Extract the Targeted Version’s JAR: Extract the .jar file of the Targeted Minecraft version and compare file names(of resource pack and versions) in assets > minecraft > textures.
4. Update Textures: Rename or replace textures as needed to match the new version’s naming.
5. Save and Test: Once everything is updated, load the pack in Minecraft to ensure everything works.

Mcmeta values for different Minecraft versions

Value        Version

1                 1.8.9

2                 1.9 to 1.10.2

3                 1.11 to 1.12.2

4                 1.13 to 1.14.4

5                 1.15 to 1.16.1

6                 1.16.2 to 1.16.5

7                 1.17 to 1.17.1

8                 1.18 to 1.18.2

9                 1.19 to 1.19.2

12               1.19.3

13               1.19.4

14               1.20

15               1.20.1

18               1.20.2

22               1.20.3 to 1.20.4

32               1.20.5

34               1.21

Hope this guide helped you!

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