The editor
Blockbench with the Armor Pieces plugin: in your browser at /editor/, or on your desktop.
The mod’s plugin turns Blockbench into an editor for pieces. A piece opens on the player figure in armor, with the walk cycle; its master, static layer and fitting masks are painted in place; any trim material previews live, fittings filled or empty; the name, sockets, fittings, effects and loot are a dialog; and Save writes every file the pack needs into your own datapack and resource pack, which it makes, finds and zips for you. Skins have a workspace of their own on the same figure.
In your browser
/editor/ is a hosted Blockbench running the same plugin against the mod’s own Python toolchain under Pyodide. Nothing is reimplemented for the web: the rigs, the geometry conversion, the material ramps and the skin baker are the repository’s own scripts, running in your tab.
- Your packs stay in your browser (IndexedDB) and are there on the next visit; the example pack resets. Nothing reaches a disk unless you link a folder, and a pack can always leave as a zip.
- Link a folder (Chromium) makes a pack be a real folder on your disk, read on link and written back on every save, so the pack the game loads and the pack you edit are the same thing.
- The figure wears the studio set by default: the mod’s own plate skin, in iron, on the game’s exact boxes. The game’s own textures are Mojang’s and this site does not serve them. Use my game… points the editor at your own copy, the launcher’s jar (
.minecraft/versions/<version>/<version>.jar) or any resource pack; it is read into your browser and nowhere else, and from then on the figure wears real armor, a new skin can start from vanilla’s outlines, and every material previews in its own colours. - The start page has three views. Pieces is everything you hold - the pieces in your library on the site and the ones in this browser, one card each, filtered by socket, kind, pack or collection. Packs is the pack manager: your packs on the site above, the packs in this browser below, each with New piece in it, Export zip… and the way to the site. Library is this site’s catalogue; a card installs the pack under Packs. + New piece is the page’s one primary button, and New piece on your library’s Pieces tab opens the editor on the same dialog.
- A pack of yours on the site opens here as its working copy - Open on its card, or Edit in the editor on the site - and the folder remembers whose it is: the card says working copy of …, Save to site sends it back, and so does saving a piece in it (the Save to the site after saving here setting, on by default). Upload to your library… on a pack made here makes a new pack on the site and marks the folder as its working copy; Upload as a new version… cuts a version with a changelog. Each ends with a link to the pack’s page, where the pack is offered to the gallery.
The first load fetches Pyodide and the pack, about ten megabytes, once; your browser caches it.
On the desktop
Install Blockbench, clone the mod repository, and load tools/blockbench_plugin/armorpieces.js through File › Plugins › Load Plugin from File. It needs Python 3 with Pillow. Set Armor Pieces repository to the clone if it is not found. The plugin adds an Armor Pieces section to Blockbench’s start screen - New piece…, Open piece…, Packs…, Open skin… - and the same verbs under Tools › Armor Pieces; Open piece… is the same card list the hosted start page draws, with a search box. The desktop plugin reads the same catalogue as the hosted one: its Armor Pieces library setting names this site’s catalogue index by default, and that setting’s origin is the site it signs in to.
Without a game jar on the machine the desktop figure wears the studio set too, and Use my game… takes a jar, a .minecraft folder or a resource pack.
Your library, from the desktop
Tools › Armor Pieces › Sign in to the site… shows an eight-character code and opens the site’s approval page; signed in there, you confirm the code, and the plugin keeps a token of its own for this computer. From then on Packs… lists your packs on the site above the ones on this computer - Open brings one down as its working copy, Save to site sends it back - and offers Upload to your library… on a pack made here. The token is listed under Devices on your account’s Connectors page, where it can be revoked; Sign out of the site forgets it on this computer. In the hosted editor the same entries use the page’s own sign-in and need no code.
The reference
The authoring guide is the full reference for what the editor writes, and for making pieces by hand.