Welcome !

Posted on by HARDTOPnet

Hey all, this is HardTop with HARDTOPnet. Let me briefly introduce myself.
I’m a software engineer and computer nerd at heart, always have been. I
I’ve always been very interested in technology and computers so naturally I wanted to have a carreer in that field. I studied computer science in undergrad college.
I’ve worked around 15 years in the broadcasting industry as a software engineer, but I recently lost my job because of a genetic condition which worsened over time. I’m now partly disabled and have to rely on social security/welfare to afford living and treatments. Those can be expensive so I wanted to find a additional source of income doing something I loved. So i set up this blog and started a Patreon for my projects. And here we are!

I’m currently working on a resource pack for Minecraft 1.12 & 1.13+ called HardTop’s Vanillaccurate Pack.
It aims to look very close to the original while providing very detailed features. It also features PBR and POM resources.

I’m also designing two other packs called Realaccurate and ToonAccurate. Check them out too!

Currently supported features are:

  • PBR – Physically Based Rendering
    • Smoothness (inv. roughness) – most packs use smoothness instead of roughness because shaders will consider a value of 0 if a pack has no “specular” data. Had we used roughness, a value of 0 for all blocks would’ve been perfectly smooth by default.
    • f0 / reflectance with hardcoded metals – see LabPBR documents for more information
    • Porosity – stored in the same channel as SSS
    • Subsurface Scattering – or SSS
    • Emissive
  • Normal Mapping
  • POM – Parallax Occlusion Mapping


All 1.16 blocks/tile entities have been converted. Items and true entities are planned for the next steps, as are 1.17 blocks as soon as Optifine releases.

My pack aims to be LabPBR compliant (see https://github.com/rre36/lab-pbr/wiki/Specular-Texture-Details) but I also provide OldPBR versions so I should be compatible with most shaders.

For more info about what PBR format to use with most shaders, or how to configure shaders, see the instructions on the HARDTOPnet website.

LabPBR implies effects like physically-accurate reflectance (meaning metals reflect light the way they do in real-life), emissive materials (materials emitting light), sub-surface scattering (AKA SSS, defines how non-opaque materials react to light), and porosity (defines how materials look when wet).
Check out what porosity and SSS look like with Vanillaccurate & Kappa shader.

I’ll keep you posted with screenshots & news of the ongoing work as development evolves.

You can reach out to me on the ShaderLabs discord
on my channel #vanillaccurate-realaccurate-hardtop.

You can follow me on my Twitch channel. There I’ll stream from time to time to showcase Vanillaccurate old and new blocks with various shaders. I’ll announce the livestreams on the ShaderLabs discord.

Be sure to check my Patreon and my Facebook page and Instagram feed as well !

19 thoughts on “Welcome !”

  2. I am really enjoying your work. I found an issue with the converter. It generates a grass.json file that should not be there. It happens when I convert to 1.12 format. Removing that file solved the issue which was missing purple textures on grass blocks.

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    1. Hey! Yeeeeah I know, the converter is still a bit bugged. I’m developing a toolbox application that will eventually replace the converter but it’s not ready yet.
      I don’t know what version you’re using though because I though I fixed the grass JSON issue. Anyways the way to fix it is to rename grass.json to grass_block.json in the blockstates folder. Assuming you have latest Vanillaccurate version of course.

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  3. I’m finding your notes on the different shaders really helpful and useful.
    [link to Download Page towards the bottom of this page didn’t work]

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  4. I met you a long time ago on a Reddit post where you were promoting the texture pack.

    Years ago I was looking for a texture pack like this, I went through Faithful in 1.2.5 and then I went through R3D CRAFT, but they were never to my complete taste.

    You got what I was looking for perfectly, VanillAccurate is in that perfect intermediate where you are playing Minecraft but if you pay attention to detail everything looks really beautiful and satisfying.

    With a 4GB RX 580 and R5 3600 I am perfectly playing the 256x version with SEUS Renewed.

    My only doubt and the only thing I miss is that beautiful reflective armor that you once showed. Is it possible to have it with Seus Renewed? If so, what steps should I take to get it?

    Thank you very much HardTop and continue like this because you hit a 2 perfect nails.

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    1. Probably not, unfortunately. Marketplace releases have very strict rules and my packs don’t qualify. Maybe someday but we’re still far off (all items have to be done, all blocks, all entities, all mobs…) I talked with the guy behind the ChromaHills resourcepack and he always said how hard it was to get a pack released on the marketplace.

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  8. I finnaly saved up enough money to get a normal map program but I don’t know which one works best for minecraft and I love your work so I’m just wondering which one to get and what one do you use and personally think is the best?

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      1. Hey I’m sorry if I worded it wrong before but I mean what software do use to MAKE the normal maps for your minecraft pack, like for example the oak__planks_n.png, that normal map looks amazing and I’m wondering what software you use to generate the normal maps for your texture pack?

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      2. Hey I’m sorry if I worded it wrong before but I mean what software do use to MAKE the normal maps for your minecraft pack, like for example the oak__planks_n.png, that normal map looks amazing and I’m wondering what software you use to generate the normal maps for your texture pack?

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