1.6 - Item Model

This tutorial assumes you have already

• Read the Pre-requisites
• Downloaded the latest Forge MDK
• Setup your mod folder as described at the top of the main Forge 1.15.1 tutorials page
• Read and followed 1.0 - Gradle Configuration
• Read and followed 1.1 - Importing the project into your IDE
• Read and followed 1.2 - Basic Mod
• Read and followed 1.3 - Doing Something
• Read and followed 1.4 - Proxies
• Read and followed 1.5 - First Item

Our item currently doesn’t have a model. This is evidenced by its having the missing model when you look at it in-game and there being a FileNotFoundException error in your logs.
Your logs will contain something very similar to

[minecraft/ModelBakery]: Unable to load model: 'examplemod:example_item#inventory' referenced from: examplemod:example_item#inventory: {}
[minecraft/ModelBakery]: java.io.FileNotFoundException: examplemod:models/item/example_item.json

This tells us that the game tried to find our model at models/item/example_item.json but couldn’t find it.
We are going to fix this and add a model and texture for our Item.
First of all, make a file called “example_item.json” in src/main/resources/assets/examplemod/models/item/.

Resources
A resource is data (images, audio, text, and so on) inside a program (this data isn’t code though) that is used by that program. Resources are located in the assets directory (at src/main/resources/assets/). Mods contains resources including images, obj or b3d (advanced model) files and json files (like recipes, json models, blockstate json files and localisation files). More info

Item Models Item Model files are a specific subtype of json file. More info

Inside the new example_item.json file paste the following text.

{
	"parent": "item/generated",
	"textures": {
		"layer0": "examplemod:item/example_item"
	}
}

This text defines our example item’s model.
The "parent" of "item/generated" means that this model is an item and uses the normal flat model.
The texture "examplemod:item/example_item" of "layer0" in the "textures" tag makes the model’s texture be our example item’s texture (which we haven’t created yet).
The texture "layer0" is defined in the model "item/generated" so it will be rendered. More info

Finally, download this texture (or make your own) and put it at src/main/resources/assets/examplemod/textures/item/ with the name “example_item.png”

Important: Texture files must be .png files

Your item should now have a model and a texture. If anything goes wrong, check your logs, they’re usually very descriptive.

1.7 - ItemGroup