Guard Villager Skins

[0.1.0] — August 26th, 2026

Initial release of Guard Villager Skins, a client-side add-on for Guard Villagers on Minecraft 1.20.1 Forge.

Custom Guard Skins

• Added a config/guard_skins/ folder for custom player skins.
• The folder is created automatically with a README explaining how to use it.
• Subfolders can be used freely to organize skins.
• Each Guard receives a stable, randomly selected skin that remains consistent between restarts.
• Adding or removing skins only changes Guards affected by those specific files.

Classic & Slim Skin Support

• Supports standard 64×64 player skins.

• Both classic and slim arm models are supported.

• Arm type can be identified using:

  • _slim or _classic filename suffixes.
  • slim/ or classic/ folders.
  • Automatic detection when no marker is provided.

• Automatic detection behavior can be overridden through configuration.

Reload Skins Without Restarting

Custom skins can be rescanned using:

• F3 + T
• /guardskins reload

Skin loading is handled asynchronously to reduce client-side stuttering.

Client Commands

Added:

• /guardskins reload
• /guardskins status
• /guardskins list [page]
• /guardskins folder

These are entirely client-side and work even when the server does not have Guard Villager Skins installed.

Biome Uniform Support

Guard Villagers' biome-specific uniform overlay is automatically hidden when a custom skin is being used so it does not cover the player skin.

Set:

applyBiomeVariantOverlay = true

to restore the biome uniform overlay on custom-skinned Guards.

Safe Skin Loading

Custom skin files are validated before loading.

The mod rejects:

• Incorrect image dimensions.
• Legacy 64×32 skins.
• Empty or invalid files.
• Oversized skin collections.
• Duplicate normalized paths.

Scan depth, file count, and file size are also limited to prevent problematic skin folders from causing issues.

Compatibility

• Completely client-side — servers do not need the mod installed.
• No network packets, entity data, capabilities, or saved Guard data are used.
• Guard Villagers continues to control animations, armor, AI, poses, and rendering behavior.
• Tested with Guard Villagers 1.6.19.
• Declared compatibility range: 1.6.19 through versions below 1.7.

Known Limitations

• Changing Guard Villagers' Steve-model setting requires a client restart.
• Automatic slim-arm detection is not perfect; filename or folder markers are recommended.
• Capes, custom elytra textures, animated PNGs, HD skins, and legacy 64×32 skins are not supported.