Emissive Textures in ETF: Make Mob Eyes and Details Glow

Emissive textures are the second headline feature of ETF Mod. They let parts of a mob, such as eyes, runes or mushrooms, ignore world lighting and glow in the dark. The format is simple: a second image, drawn only where you want light.

Key takeaways

Create name_e.png next to the base texture.
Leave every non-glowing pixel fully transparent.
Works with random variants: cow3_e.png glows only on variant 3.

How emissive layers work

ETF draws the base texture normally, then draws the emissive layer on top at full brightness. The result looks like light coming from the mob itself.

Making your first emissive texture

Copy spider.png and rename the copy spider_e.png.
Erase everything except the eyes, leaving true transparency, not black.
Brighten the remaining pixels slightly, since the glow reads better when saturated.
Save both files in the same folder and reload with F3 + T.

Split image of the same mobs in daylight and at night with emissive eye textures glowing — The same scene by day and by night. Only the pixels on the _e layer stay bright in the dark.

Changing the suffix

Packs made for OptiFine sometimes use a different suffix. Add optifine/emissive.properties containing suffix.emissive=_e (or your own suffix) and ETF follows it.

Emissive textures with shaders

With Iris shader packs the glow can look weaker or overly bright depending on the pack. ETF's settings include an emissive rendering mode; switching it is usually enough. If a shader pack has its own emissive support, test both and keep whichever looks cleaner.

Common mistakes

A black background on the _e file is the classic error; it makes the whole mob glow dark. The other is a mismatched name: the emissive file must match the base texture exactly, variant number included. For more rule-writing tips see the random textures guide.

ETF Mod Editorial Team

We test every guide on a clean Minecraft install for the versions listed. Spotted something outdated? Tell us and we will fix it.