Corrupt-PNGs

A PowerShell script that applies visual glitch and corruption effects to PNG files recursively.

Originally made to corrupt a Minecraft resource pack for a video, but works on any folder of PNGs.

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Effects

Each image gets 1–3 randomly selected effects applied, scaled by the -Intensity parameter.

Effect	Description
PixelSort	Sorts pixels by brightness along random horizontal spans, creating streaky data-moshing
ChannelShift	Offsets the red channel horizontally to produce RGB chromatic aberration
ScanlineGlitch	Shifts entire horizontal scanlines left or right by random amounts
BlockCorruption	Copies random rectangular chunks of the image onto other random positions
ColorInvert	Inverts colors in random rectangular regions
ChannelDrop	Zeroes out an entire color channel (R, G, or B) on random rows
HorizontalTear	Creates thick horizontal bands that shift sideways, like a VHS tracking error
Pixelate	Applies chunky mosaic pixelation to random regions

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Requirements

• Windows
• PowerShell 5.1 or later (built into Windows 10/11)
• No external dependencies — uses System.Drawing which ships with .NET

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Usage

Basic

.\Corrupt-PNGs.ps1 -Directory "C:\path\to\images"

All parameters

.\Corrupt-PNGs.ps1 -Directory <path> [-Intensity<0.1–1.0>] [-BackupOriginals] [-OutputDirectory<path>]

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
-Directory	string	(required)	Path to the folder containing PNGs. Searched recursively.
-Intensity	double	0.5	How destructive the effects are. Range: 0.1 (subtle) to 1.0 (mayhem). Also controls how many effects are applied per image.
-BackupOriginals	switch	off	Saves a copy of each original file as filename.png.bak next to the source before modifying it.
-OutputDirectory	string	(none)	Write corrupted files here instead of overwriting originals. Preserves the source folder's directory structure.

Examples

# Subtly glitch everything in a folder
.\Corrupt-PNGs.ps1 -Directory "C:\textures"-Intensity 0.2# Maximum chaos
.\Corrupt-PNGs.ps1 -Directory "C:\textures"-Intensity 1.0# Keep originals safe, write glitched copies elsewhere
.\Corrupt-PNGs.ps1 -Directory "C:\textures"-OutputDirectory "C:\textures-glitched"# Modify in-place but back everything up first
.\Corrupt-PNGs.ps1 -Directory "C:\textures"-BackupOriginals
# Combine: max intensity, non-destructive output
.\Corrupt-PNGs.ps1 -Directory "C:\textures"-Intensity 0.9-OutputDirectory "C:\glitched"

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First run: execution policy

Windows blocks unsigned scripts by default. Run this once to allow scripts for the current PowerShell session only (nothing is permanently changed):

Set-ExecutionPolicy-Scope Process-ExecutionPolicy Bypass

Or permanently for your user account:

Set-ExecutionPolicy-Scope CurrentUser -ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned

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Making a corrupted Minecraft texture pack

1. Extract the vanilla assets

Minecraft's textures are stored inside the game's .jar file, which is just a zip archive.

1. Open File Explorer and navigate to:

   %AppData%\.minecraft\versions\<version>\
   

   For example: C:\Users\You\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\versions\1.21.4\

2. Find the file named <version>.jar (e.g. 1.21.4.jar), right-click it, and open it with a zip tool like 7-Zip or WinRAR. Alternatively, rename the extension to .zip temporarily.

3. Inside the archive, navigate to assets\minecraft\textures\ and extract that entire folder somewhere, e.g. C:\mc-textures\.

2. Run the script

Point the script at your extracted textures folder. Using -OutputDirectory is strongly recommended so your originals stay intact:

.\Corrupt-PNGs.ps1 -Directory "C:\mc-textures"-OutputDirectory "C:\mc-textures-glitched"-Intensity 0.5

Adjust -Intensity to taste — 0.3 is unsettling, 0.7+ is barely recognisable.

3. Package it as a resource pack

1. Create a new folder for your pack, e.g. C:\MyCorruptedPack\.

2. Inside it, recreate the following structure:

   MyCorruptedPack\
   ├── pack.mcmeta
   └── assets\
   └── minecraft\
   └── textures\
   └── (your glitched textures go here, preserving subfolders)
   

3. Create pack.mcmeta in a text editor with the following content. Set "pack_format" to match your Minecraft version (format numbers here):

   {
   "pack": {
   "pack_format": 46,
   "description": "Corrupted"
   }
   }

4. Copy the glitched textures from C:\mc-textures-glitched\ into assets\minecraft\textures\, preserving subfolder structure (block, item, entity, etc.).

5. Select pack.mcmeta and the assets folder together, right-click, and compress them into a .zip. The pack.mcmeta file must be at the root of the zip — not inside a subfolder.

4. Install in Minecraft

1. Open Minecraft and go to Options → Resource Packs → Open Pack Folder.
2. Drop your .zip file into that folder.
3. Back in the Resource Packs screen, move your pack to the Selected column and click Done.

The world will reload with your corrupted textures active. To uninstall, deselect the pack the same way.

Tips

• Selective corruption: run the script on specific subfolders only (e.g. just textures\block or textures\item) to leave menus and HUD elements untouched.
• Intensity recommendation:0.4–0.6 gives a good balance — recognisably wrong but still playable. Go higher for something more extreme.
• Re-running: effects are randomised per image every run, so running the script again on the same folder produces a completely different result.
• Pack format: if Minecraft ignores your pack or shows a warning, double-check the pack_format number in pack.mcmeta matches your game version.

Notes

• Handles tiny images — Minecraft particle and UI textures can be as small as 4×8 pixels. The script guards against out-of-bounds errors on images of any size.
• Recursive — all subdirectories are processed.
• Random per image — each file gets a different random combination of effects, so results vary across a run even at the same intensity.
• Effect count — at Intensity 0.5, each image gets ~1–2 effects. At 1.0, up to 3 effects are stacked per image.
• The script uses System.Drawing.Bitmap for pixel manipulation. For very large images or huge folder sets, processing may take a while.

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License

MIT