Inventory item shading

3D items in the inventory, i.e. that of blocks, are often displayed as those models rather than as flat graphics. The appearance of these items is affected by shading, which has changed by default throughout game versions, and can be changed inside of the model via the "gui_light" parameter. The default for 3D items is "side", whereas the default for flat items is "front".

The following tables show the results of using a solid white texture, assuming the default windowed resolution of 854x480.

Inventory items

From Beta 1.8 Pre-release to 12w32a, items in the inventory would render darker than they would in the hotbar or in chests. It is not known why this was the case. Both 3D and flat items were affected. This was ultimately fixed in 12w34a.

Rotated block items

In 1.8 snapshots 14w10a to 14w21b, certain items with usually-unattainable damage values (specifically rotated logs, hay bales and quartz pillars) would have their shade intensity per block face cycled around in a different way from other block-items. The level of shading is still the same as typical blocks in this version range, simply with a 90-degree rotation in 3D, manifesting as either a 120-degree reflection alone or one with a horizontal flip in 2D.

Early Indev world loading

When the player first loads up in-20091223-1459 (other versions cannot be checked due to not being archived so far), all three visible sides of blocks in the inventory will appear equally dark (white becomes #666666):

References