Hytale model limits and rules

The Hytale Models plugin has two formats, and the choice sets the pixel density of the whole model. Hytale’s modelling post puts it this way:

• Hytale Character: characters and attachments, meaning cosmetics, tools, weapons and food items. 64 pixels per block.
• Hytale Prop: props and blocks, “anything else from cubes to furniture”. 32 pixels per block.

The post adds that the engine scales characters and attachments down to match the world size. Some guides file weapons under Prop; the official post counts them as attachments.

When the plugin opens a .blockymodel, it uses Prop if the file says "format": "prop", or, for a file without a format field, if it sits in a folder named Blocks. Anything else opens as Character. If a model looks the wrong size against its texture, check which format it opened in.

Hytale models use two shapes: cubes and two-sided flat quads. “No spheres allowed!”, as the modelling post says; there are no triangles or edge loops either.

Cube sizes are whole numbers by default. The plugin allows fractions but recommends stretch instead, because fractions make UV mapping harder. Hytale’s artists keep stretch between 0.7 and 1.3 on each axis: “we avoid going under 0.7X and over 1.3X the stretch for a node in one axis”. The post calls its rules best practices, not hard limits.

The number comes from the official Hytale Models plugin; we did not find it in Hytale’s posts or docs. The plugin’s format page says models can have a maximum of 255 nodes, and its check warns that a bigger model “exceeds the maximum of 255 that Hytale will display”. The wording suggests extra nodes are not shown in the game rather than the file being refused; test before relying on either.

Nodes are not the same as Blockbench elements. Per the plugin’s notes:

• Every group is a node.
• Every cube or quad is a node too, except the first cube placed directly inside a group with no rotation of its own, which merges into the group’s node.
• Cubes at the root count as well (fixed in plugin 0.10.0).

To see the real count, click the element counter above the Outliner; the plugin then shows the Hytale node count. The Blockbench walkthrough shows where.

• Size: “Textures can be non-square and must be multiples of 32px (32, 64, 96, 128, etc.).” They do not have to be a power of two. Like the rest of that post, this is stated as a best practice; the plugin itself checks density, not the size.
• One texture per model at a time, says the plugin’s format page; a project with attachments can hold more than one.
• UVs follow the faces: the area a face takes on the texture always equals the face’s size. To change a cube’s size without changing its UVs, use stretch.
• Density: the plugin’s UV size check asks for a pixel density of 64 on characters and 32 on props, and offers to fix faces that do not match.
• Paint: Hytale bakes shadows, ambient occlusion and highlights into the texture, avoids noise, heavy grain and perfectly flat surfaces, and avoids pure white and pure black, which “will break lighting ingame”. There are no normal or roughness maps.

Each node can use its own shading mode: flat, standard, fullbright or reflective. The modelling post notes that you can set them in Blockbench and export them “for each node of your model”. Fullbright is the mode to try for parts that should glow.

On the Blockbench grid, one block in the game is 32 pixels for a Prop and 64 for a Character, per the plugin’s notes. Definitions can scale a model further: a block’s CustomModelScale and an item’s Scale both default to 1.0, and model assets for creatures have MinScale and MaxScale. See the blocks, items and models references for 0.7.2.

From Hytale’s modder-facing notes for Update 7 (12 October 2026):

• Most food models were rebuilt for the new eating animations, and “Custom animations that reference the old node names may break.”
• Some model files were renamed, for example Hookshot_Goblin.blockymodel became Scrap.blockymodel.
• Custom content that overflows a texture atlas now falls back to the missing texture and logs a warning, instead of disappearing. Atlases pack across up to 16 pages for blocks and 4 for everything else.