It might be because I put them into the actual asset files but I'm not too sure.

under what circumstances does this happen? is that your own, custom tater? do you have any mods that touch rendering (canvas/sodium/etc)?

It's a custom tater, it happens whenever I rename it to the name of the tater and I have sodium. It could also be because I moved the tater one block up.

Side view.

Back view.

Front view.
(he's pretty smexy, isn't he?)

alright, so:

1. try this without sodium
2. if it still doesn't work, something may be off with your modelpath. make sure you put the json model specifically under assets/yourmodid/models/tater/, and there also should be errors in the console and latest.log every time you reload resources (just before you get to the main menu and when you change resourcepacks)

I'll check it out, thanks! I'll edit this when I start it up without Sodium. To be honest though, I got a bit confused on the steps, so that could be a factor too. (I didn't know what it meant by "make a resource pack" so eventually I crammed it all into the assets of the mod itself using 7-zip oops)

Alright, edit, it looks like it's still not working, even without Sodium. I'll look into the 2nd thing now.

you can "make" a resourcepack by creating a folder or zip file under .minecraft/resourcepacks and creating a text file called pack.mcmeta inside that folder with the following json object:

{
  "pack": {
    "pack_format": 6,
    "description": "my cool resourcepack"
  }
}

minecraft will consider it to be a resourcepack and load it automatically. your method should also work just fine, even if it's a hackjob

Ah, well I did this and uh, I got pretty lost hahaha (I struggle at reading and understanding a bit so it's a bit complicated for my brain)

Found it.
[15:27:50] [Worker-Main-12/WARN]: Unable to load model: 'ltr:models/tater/creeper_tater#' referenced from: ltr:models/tater/creeper_tater#: com.google.gson.JsonParseException: assets/creeper tater is not valid resource location
[15:27:50] [Worker-Main-12/WARN]: Unable to load model: 'ltr:tater/creeper_tater' referenced from: ltr:models/tater/creeper_tater#: com.google.gson.JsonParseException: assets/creeper tater is not valid resource location
I think it is the modelpath.

do you have a space in the filename?

I'll check now.

uh, please try removing the creeper_tater line from powertaters/liltaterreloaded/ltr.json and see if it still errors out

also, can you check if the texture references inside your model json refer to assets/creeper tater?

I'll check both.
Result:
[15:39:43] [Worker-Main-9/WARN]: Unable to load model: 'ltr:models/tater/creeper_tater#' referenced from: ltr:models/tater/creeper_tater#: com.google.gson.JsonParseException: assets/creeper tater is not valid resource location
[15:39:43] [Worker-Main-9/WARN]: Unable to load model: 'ltr:tater/creeper_tater' referenced from: ltr:models/tater/creeper_tater#: com.google.gson.JsonParseException: assets/creeper tater is not valid resource location

Might've found the problem here.

There's a space.

OH, I know where that space came from. I mistakenly put my file as "creeper tater" originally, but changed it. I forgot about the texture in the file, oops.

you must put the texture under assets/ltr/textures and reference it with ltr:creeper_tater. in case you care about subfolders, just look at the existing model jsons inside the mod

Alright, thank you. Sorry if it's a stupid issue, I'm just a bit dumb LOL.

it's alright. all of us get brought down by mojang's nondescriptive errors and ass formats

Hahaha and their weird confusing code in general sometimes

Would this work?

of course not, that's not a valid identifier. just copypaste the string above that to the particle definition (ie "particle": "ltr:tater/creeper_tater") and, assuming your texture is in assets/ltr/textures/tater/creeper_tater.png, it should work without further input

Ah alright, thank you.

Hey, it worked! Thank you a lot. I'll remember this for next time.
My little bean child.