Flatter Items: 2D Held Sprites

A resource pack for Minecraft 1.20.1 to 26.3 that flattens the models of held items, removing the vanilla extrusion for a crisp, retro 2D look.

No extra mods required! This pack works entirely using vanilla model overrides. Just drop it into your resource packs folder and enjoy the flatness.

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🧾 Why This Exists

By default, Minecraft takes 2D item textures and extrudes them to give them a 3D blocky thickness when held in the hand. While iconic, this doesn't always fit the aesthetic of certain modpacks, retro-themed playthroughs, or players who simply prefer the aesthetic of classic, flat sprites.

Flatter Items solves this by:

• Compressing the Z-axis scaling of item models to near zero.
• Preserving the vanilla texture layers and mapping logic.
• Keeping every vanilla rotation and position, so items sit exactly where you're used to, just flat.
• Maintaining compatibility with almost any texture pack you layer under it.

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✨ Features

📌 Truly Flat Handheld Models

• Items held in the main hand and offhand are squashed completely flat, removing the chunky pixel extrusion.
• Items dropped on the ground are affected too.
• Shelves and Item Frames: Items displayed on shelves are flat, and so are music discs and amethyst buds in item frames.

🏹 Complete Weapon Support

• Bows and Crossbows: Fully supported, including all drawing animation frames.
• Swords and Tools: Every tier of sword, pickaxe, axe, shovel, and hoe is covered.
• Mace: Flat, in its proper vanilla position.
• Spears: Only their thickness is flattened, so they keep their vanilla pose.

🎣 Everything Else in Hand

• Fishing Rods: Including the carrot and warped fungus on a stick.
• Brush: Including the brushing animation.
• Pointed Dripstone and Sulfur Spike, plus hanging roots and amethyst buds.
• New items are covered automatically: Anything that uses the standard item model, including everything added up to 26.3, comes out flat.

🎭 Smart Layering Preservation

Because this pack scales the model rather than rewriting the texture layers, items with multiple components (like leather armor overlays, potions, or tipped arrows) retain their colors and dynamic textures perfectly.

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🪵 Resourcepack-friendly by design

• This pack does not include textures, only model geometry overrides.
• This means it will automatically apply to any other resource pack you load below it. If you have a pack that changes the diamond sword texture, it will still show up as your custom texture—just flat!

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⚠️ Known Compromises

Excluded Items

Certain items rely heavily on their 3D structure for animations or correct hand placement. Making them 2D completely breaks their visual functionality. For this reason, the following items are intentionally left untouched:

• Tridents
• Shields

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🧩 Compatibility

Minecraft Version	Works?	Notes
26.1 - 26.3	✅	Same setup as 1.21.4+. New 26.x items are flattened automatically.
1.21.4 - 1.21.11	✅	Native support via overlay_1_21_4 directory structure.
1.20.1 - 1.21.3	✅	Standard base model support.
Older Versions	❌	Untested.

Note on 1.21.4+ Changes

In Minecraft 1.21.4, Mojang changed how the game picks an item's model: that now happens in the new item definition files in assets/minecraft/items/, instead of the old overrides lists inside the models. The models themselves still live in models/item, so the same flattened models work on every version. The built-in overlay folder (overlay_1_21_4) only loads on 1.21.4 and newer, and all it does is strip those legacy overrides from the bow, crossbow, brush and goat horn models, so the new item definitions drive their animations without any leftovers from the old system.

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🖇️ Credits

• Pack Creator: HandLock_
• Inspiration: fayer3's Items 2D

"Watch out for papercuts!"