Placeholder texture

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Minecraft uses an assortment of different placeholder textures for handling cases where textures cannot be drawn normally.

Missing texture

The most known, the missing texture, is a texture composed of a black and magenta checkerboard, and turns up anytime a texture or model reference could not be correctly resolved.

Animation placeholder textures

Another type of placeholder texture, these were overwritten by the actual animated textures during gameplay once said textures were generated by the game. They would appear themselves in the event that the associated animation could not be generated for whatever reason.

Texture atlas blank spaces

This section describes content that has been removed from the game.

 

This feature was present in earlier versions of Minecraft, but has since been removed.

When predefined texture atlases were used for storing and loading textures, certain patterns were used for marking unused regions on some atlases, where others simply used outright blank spaces.

These texture spots end up being removed as the texture atlases containing them are split up into individual files.

• 
  Nothing:
  items.png
  particles.png
• 
  Purple square:
  terrain.png
  kz.png
• 
  Blue square:
  Early mapicons.png

Uses

History

Blocks

Java Edition pre-Classic
rd-131655							Added terrain.png, with the purple square placeholder.
Java Edition
1.5			13w02a				Deprecated terrain.png, taking the purple placeholder texture for blocks with it. The file remains in the jar, unused, as does results.png, a new file containing textures that are not split.
							The generated texture atlas (stitched_terrain.png) now produces solid yellow squares in empty regions.
			13w02b				terrain.png is now removed from the jar file, resulting in the placeholder block texture being almost fully removed.
			13w03a				results.png has now been removed from the jar file, completely eradicating all block placeholder texture squares.
							The empty spaces in stitched_terrain.png are now blank, although removing the alpha channel will still show the yellow placeholder texture.
Pocket Edition Alpha
Demo							This version presumably added terrain.png, alongside its placeholder texture.
v0.8.0			build 2				Removed terrain.png, taking the purple placeholder texture for blocks with it. The replacement texture atlas (terrain-atlas.tga) uses blank spaces instead.
Legacy Console Edition
Xbox 360	Xbox One	PS3	PS4	PS Vita	Wii U	Switch
1.66.0016.0							This was presumably the version to add terrain.png, alongside its placeholder texture.
TU19	CU7	1.12	1.12	1.12			terrain.png has been extended downward to fit more textures. This is despite the fact that there is still one purple placeholder square remaining.
TU25	CU12	1.17	1.17	1.17			The last purple placeholder square has been replaced, fully removing them from terrain.png.

Items

This section is missing information about: there were some different placeholder slots up until the end, alongside outright blank areas.

 

Please expand the section to include this information. Further details may exist on the talk page.

Java Edition Indev
0.31			20091231-2255				Added items.png, with the blank placeholder.
Java Edition
1.5			13w02a				Deprecated items.png.
							The generated texture atlas (stitched_items.png) now produces solid yellow squares in empty regions.
			13w03a				The empty spaces in stitched_items.png are now blank.
Pocket Edition Alpha
Demo							This version presumably added items.png, alongside its placeholder texture.
v0.8.0			build 1				Removed items.png. The replacement texture atlas (items-opaque.tga) still uses blank spaces.
Legacy Console Edition
Xbox 360	Xbox One	PS3	PS4	PS Vita	Wii U	Switch
1.66.0016.0							This was presumably the version to add items.png, alongside its placeholder texture.

Particles

Java Edition Classic
0.26 SURVIVAL TEST							Added particles.png, with the blank placeholder.
Java Edition
1.14			19w06a				Removed particles.png. The generated atlas, particles.png-atlas, still has blank spaces.
Pocket Edition Alpha
Demo							This version presumably added particles.png, alongside its placeholder texture.
Legacy Console Edition
Xbox 360	Xbox One	PS3	PS4	PS Vita	Wii U	Switch
1.66.0016.0							This was presumably the version to add particles.png, alongside its placeholder texture.

Paintings

Java Edition Indev
Minecraft Indev			20100223				Added kz.png, with the purple square placeholder.
Java Edition
1.14			19w07a				Removed paintings_kristoffer_zetterstrand.png, taking the purple placeholder texture out of the game entirely. The generated atlas, paintings.png-atlas, instead has blank spaces.
Pocket Edition Alpha
v0.5.0							Added kz.png, with the purple square placeholder.
Legacy Console Edition
Xbox 360	Xbox One	PS3	PS4	PS Vita	Wii U	Switch
1.66.0016.0							This was presumably the version to add kz.png, alongside its placeholder texture.

Effects

Map icons

Java Edition Beta
1.6			Test Build 3				Added mapicons.png, with the cyan square placeholder.
Java Edition
1.13			18w10a				map_icons.png now uses blank spaces for placeholders instead of blue squares.
Pocket Edition Alpha
v0.14.0			build 1				Added mapicons.png, with the cyan square placeholder.
Bedrock Edition
?							mapicons.png no longer has any placeholder regions, as all 16 spaces now correspond to a map icon.

Unsorted

Java Edition
1.14			19w08a				Split effect icons from inventory.png, taking out some of the placeholder regions, although most were blank to begin with anyway.

Default texture

In some cases where textures were not explicitly defined for certain blocks, the blocks in question would "default" to the texture at position (0,0) of the texture atlas in use. Where terrain.png is used, this was the top of the grass block; however, with the deprecation of predefined texture atlases and their replacement with atlases that generate at runtime, this texture tended to shift with time.

Since 14w25a, the majority of such cases are instead directed to the missing texture, although some notable outliers persisted beyond this point.

Uses

History

Java Edition pre-Classic
rd-131655							The texture at (0,0) in the current block texture atlas, terrain.png, is the top of the grass block.
rd-20090515							The grass block top texture has changed.
Java Edition Alpha
v1.2.0			preview				The grass block top texture has changed.
Java Edition
1.0.0			Beta 1.9 Prerelease 5				The grass block top texture has changed.
1.5			13w02a				terrain.png has been removed and replaced with texture atlases generated at runtime.
							By default, the texture at (0,0) is the missing texture, meaning that certain things that use this texture in-game actually use it due to it being the texture at (0,0), rather than it being the missing texture and pointing to it in error cases. It is possible to distinguish default texture uses from true uses of the missing texture by applying a texture pack with a block graphic which is larger than 64x64: blocks that point to the missing texture specifically still use the missing texture and will therefore be unaffected by the texture pack, but those that simply point to the default position use the new, large texture provided by the texture pack.​
1.6.1			13w18a				The missing texture has changed in this version, becoming 16x16 from its previous 64x64 size.
							As such, due to how textures are ordered in atlases the game generates, it is no longer at the top-left of the atlas, instead being replaced by the 32x32 flowing lava texture, which is used in these cases.​
			13w18b				The flowing lava particles are now animated.[1]
1.8			14w06a				Unreferenced textures now point to the block of redstone texture instead, likely as a fix to MC-46427.
			14w06b				End portals and moving pistons now have the lava texture again when broken, although barriers still use the redstone block texture. This is likely due to the fix for MC-47482.
			14w25a				Unreferenced textures now point to the missing texture from this point forward. All cases of this happening are now counted as uses of the missing texture.
			14w30a				The default texture appears to be used again in some cases, such as chest item particles (only accessible via commands).​
1.13			?				The default texture is no longer referenced for any item, excluding shields.
1.14			18w47a				The default texture is no longer used for shield particles.[2]

Bedrock Edition missing textures

Unlike in Java Edition, which has a single missing texture that is generated by the game at runtime, Bedrock Edition defines other textures as image files in the game's assets directory:

	Path	Use case
	textures/blocks/missing_tile.png	Commonly used for blocks and their item forms that have no assigned texture or blocks that are in the game and have their texture, but the texture isn't assigned correctly.
	textures/ui/missing_item.png	Unknown​

Debug textures

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• MC-125280

Default player skins

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References

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