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Thanks for using Polytone. If you enjoy this mod, please remember to add Polytone to your pack Optional Dependency section or use the provided banner.
Polytone is a Forge, Fabric and Quilt client side customization mod that allows you to add many new cool features with texture packs.
Having trouble following this wiki? Check out the mod example pack HERE(WIP)
Polytone is a Mod that allows you to tweak many visual aspects of the game.
To do so it expands the Resource Pack system.
If you are not familiar with it, you can read about it on the Official Minecraft Wiki.
The mod not only offers backwards compatibility with old concepts originating from McPatcher such as Colormaps, Lightmaps and Custom Colors but also adds a bunch of its owns like Biome Variant Textures, Biome Properties, Block Sounds, Gui Modifiers, Particle Modifiers and more!
You can find all the WIKI pages on your right ----->
The mod makes extensive use of Json files. These is what the game already uses for the entire data and resource system, for example when adding models or recipes.
If you are however not accustomed to datapacks or resource packs be sure you are using a TEXT EDITOR with JSON SYNTAX HIGHLIGHT.
Some of these are:
- Atom
- VsCode
- Notepad++ with Json syntax plugin
- Sublime Text
The mod works by creating .json files that define speicfic behaviors. These can be nested in specific ways as explained in each section. In many of these cases a second option is also available that allows to EXTRACT commonly used Json "pieces" into their own separate folder.
See more here
For example you can assing AND create a colormap in a Block Property Modifier directly or extract it into the separate colormaps folder to be reused in other places. This applies to many objects that the mod defines. Here's an example:
Block Property Modifier with inlined colormap
{
"colormap":{
"[colormap definition]"
}
}Colormap extracted and defined into its own colormap folder. Note that their content are the same.
{
"[colormap definition]"
}And here is that same block modifier using that colormap
{
"colormap": "my_namespace:my_colormap"
}If you ever find yourself wanting to reference an object from another mod in these .json files you will NEED to add the require_mods field like so:
{
"require_mods": [
"create"
]
}No time to read? Here's a map explaining how to do the most common things you might want to do with Polytone
| I Want To Change... | Which Pages | TLDR on What To Do |
|---|---|---|
| Water Color | Colormaps, Fluid Properties & Biome Effects | Want to change single biome Color? Go to Biome Effects. Want to use colormap? Add a file named water.png in polytone/fluid_properties. More info in Fluid Properties page |
| A Block's Colormap | Colormaps, Block Properties | Add a colormap png in polytone/block_properties named like your block |
| A GUI's Visuals | Gui Modifiers | Follow the instructions on the page (Sprites and Slot Modifiers section) |
| Lightmaps | Lightmaps | Add a texture in polytone/lightmaps/overworld.png
|
| Block Sounds | Block Properties, Custom Sound Events | Use a block property json to specify a new Sound Type |
| Particle Color | Custom Colors, Particle Modifiers | Add a single line in color.properties for static colors or use Particle Modifiers for more control |
| Fog Color | Biome Modifiers | Use biome modifiers to change a biome fog color |
| Dye/Map Colors | Custom Colors | Add a line in there such as dye.black = ff00ff00
|
| Fog Color/ Sky Color | Biome Effects | You cant use colormaps textures here yet. |
| Make Hotbar bigger | Overlay Modifiers | Follow the example there. |
Q: Does this support old Optifine packs?
A: Yes, mostly. Concepts like Lightmaps, Block colors will work just the same.
Q: Does this have performance impact?
A: No, the mod is designed to directly change the color value the game ises, no lookup used! This means theres no downsides in using it. Experimental systems like Biome Variant Textures however do not follow this hence why they are experimental.
Q: Does this support Optifine grid biome colormap?
A: Yes*. That system had terrible compatibility as numerical IDs are not only no loner a thing since 1.12 but also dont work at all in the modded scenarios where one could exceed the number or have them in a non predictable manner when biomes are added. Use Biome Effects instead!
If you really want to use it you can but its recommended you also add a biome_id_mapper to your colormap to specify the id mapping.
Q: I get a Resource Reload Failed when using my texture pack. What do I do?
A: This means you did something wrong with the configuration jsons. Check your latest.log, in your /log/ folder it will say exactly what.
Q: I want to tweak Sky colors and Sky boxes.
A: If you want to do anything more than statically tweaking biome sky color, you should use a dedicated mod like Celestial
Q: Same question but for Fog colors.
A: Here too there are dedicated mods just for this. One of them is Fog Looks Good