I don't believe you can change the model of an item depending on the name, in vanilla Minecraft.
I think the main/only way to change the model of one specific item is via damage values. Each damage value can have a different model.
Sorry I can't help more.
Mihro
I appreciate the reply, and forgot about that. That would definitely work, however I'd have to make the armor not take damage. Is that possible that you know of?
There's a little trick that I like to use in resource packs for items that have durability.
If you "/give @p minecraft:leather_chestplate 1 5 {Unbreakable:1}" then you will get an unbreakable chestplate with 5 points of damage. It won't show the durability bar but definitely has 5 points of damage and that won't change. This item can only be gotten via commands so you're safe.
Then in the leather_<armor>.json you can add predicates for each damage value and change the model used accordingly with the code for each being:
{ "predicate": { "damaged": 0, "damage": <damage divided by total health> }, "model": "item/<your model>" },
"damaged": 0 means that the item hasn't taken any damage points. This could be a new item or an unbreakable item.
IMPORTANT: I forgot to mention. All of this will only change the item model of the armor (the little 16x16 sprite). This will not change how the armor looks on the player.
Hope this helps.
Mihro
Unfortunately that doesn't help me in this case. I guess I'll have to use Optifine, or go without armor variants. Hmmm
Don't know if this should be in Command Blocks or Resource Packs so I'm putting it here.
Hey there, I am working on a Halo 3 project, and right now I am looking to make armors.
In the game there are 12 armors, + a couple of extra bits.
I want to make all of those out of Leather Armor for my resource pack so they can be dyed.
I understand that with Optifine you can rename and item using an anvil, and it will change the texture and/or model of the item.
But is this possible without Optifine? I'd like to not have to rely on external mods but I will use it if I need to.
I appreciate the reply, and forgot about that. That would definitely work, however I'd have to make the armor not take damage. Is that possible that you know of?
Unfortunately that doesn't help me in this case. I guess I'll have to use Optifine, or go without armor variants. Hmmm