Resource packs, also known as texture packs (although they have their differences) can heavily modify how Minecraft looks in-game. You can customize sounds, textures, hotbars, inventories, and more — all enhancing and bringing uniqueness to your Fractal Minecraft server.

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Understanding Size Limits

Before you start, you’ll need to understand the resource pack size limitations. Minecraft versions prior to 1.15 have a maximum automatic download size limit of 50MB, while versions above can accommodate up to 100MB.

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Find or Create Your Resource Pack

Start by choosing a resource pack. Websites like CurseForge offer a vast selection of community-created packs. If you’re crafting your own pack, ensure it’s properly archived using tools like 7zip or WinRAR, leading directly into the /assets folder, pack.mcmeta file and pack.png icon.

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Host Your Resource Pack

To have your players be able to download your resource pack, you’ll need to host it so it can be downloaded by players in-game. Here are two popular ways to host a resource pack.

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Using MCPacks

MCPacks is a tool used by thousands of servers to host their resource packs. Upload your resource pack to the site and take note of the resource-pack= and resource-pack-sha1= fields provided after the upload. MCPacks supports resource packs upto 95MB in size.

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Dropbox Hosting

For Dropbox, sign up and upload your resource pack. Ensure your share link allows anyone with the link to view and change dl=0 to dl=1 for a direct download link. Optionally, you can create a SHA-1 hash with the name of the file or URL to ensure the validity of the resource pack.
You’ll need a direct link to the file in order for the resource pack to work in-game. Test the link and make sure it downloads the resource pack to your computer.

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Configure Your Minecraft Server to Use the Resource Pack

  1. Login to the dashboard and navigate to the file manager. Open the server.properties file and make the following changes:
# Using MCPacks
resource-pack=https://download.mc-packs.net/pack/{ID}.zip

# Using Dropbox
resource-pack=https://www.dropbox.com/s/<ID>/MyCoolResourcePack.zip?dl=1

# Paste the SHA-1 has generated in the above step
resource-pack-sha1=4c82e70abf8cd8bd3ce117fb69ecc3e0c846915b
  1. Save your changes and restart the server to apply the new resource pack.
Once you’ve restarted the server, players who join in will now be prompted to use the custom resource pack! Click “Yes” and Minecraft will automagically download and load the resource pack for you.