Model Editing

[Lethosos]

As a fun question, what would be the best way to pull a model out of the MC files, edit it, then cram it back into its (more or less) original place? I've always been bothered that our local Testificates have hoods in the texture files, yet the MC coders are too lazy/ignorant to consider adding the mesh for it on the villager model. So, I figure I might try and do that for fun--who knows, it might also give me a way to code that player model modification setup that I've had brewing in my head for months...