diff --git a/docs/config.rst b/docs/config.rst
index ebc14cc..a72e5dd 100644
--- a/docs/config.rst
+++ b/docs/config.rst
@@ -540,7 +540,9 @@ values. The valid configuration keys are listed below.
 
 ``texturepath``
     This is a where a specific texture pack can be found to be used during this render.
-    It can be either a folder or a zip file containing the texture pack.
+    It can be either a folder or a zip file containing the texture pack.  If specifying
+    a folder, this option should point to a directory that *contains* the textures/ folder
+    (it should not point to the textures folder directly).
     Its value should be a string.
 
 .. _crop:
diff --git a/docs/design/designdoc.rst b/docs/design/designdoc.rst
index a69a099..31971ae 100644
--- a/docs/design/designdoc.rst
+++ b/docs/design/designdoc.rst
@@ -100,9 +100,10 @@ The first step is rendering the block sprites from the textures. Each block is
 "built" from its textures into an image of a cube and cached in a
 :class:`Textures` object.
 
-Textures come from a terrain.png file in the form of 16 by 16 pixel images.
-(Higher resolution textures are resized and the process remains the same). In
-order to draw a cube out of the textuers, an `affine transformation`_ is applied to
+Textures come from files inside of a "textures" folder.  If the file is square (has equal width
+and height dimensions), it is scaled down to 16 x 16 pixels.  Non-square images are used with animated
+textures.  In this case, the first frame of the animated texture is used, and also scaled to a 16 by 16 image.
+In order to draw a cube out of the textuers, an `affine transformation`_ is applied to
 the images for the top and sides of the cube in order to transform it to the
 appropriate perspective.
 
diff --git a/docs/index.rst b/docs/index.rst
index 5bbac6d..27e7cb6 100644
--- a/docs/index.rst
+++ b/docs/index.rst
@@ -124,7 +124,7 @@ Windows, Mac, and Linux as long as you have these software packages installed:
 
 * Numpy
 
-* Either a Minecraft Client installed or a terrain.png for the textures.
+* Either a Minecraft Client installed or a textures/ folder for the textures (possibly from a texturepack)
 
 The first three are included in the Windows download. Also, there are additional
 requirements for compiling it (like a compiler). More details are available in
diff --git a/docs/running.rst b/docs/running.rst
index 1cc7e86..576b0d1 100644
--- a/docs/running.rst
+++ b/docs/running.rst
@@ -245,12 +245,12 @@ If you want or need to provide your own textures, you have several options:
 
       wget -N http://s3.amazonaws.com/MinecraftDownload/minecraft.jar -P ~/.minecraft/bin/
 
-* You can manually extract the terrain.png from minecraft.jar or your favorite
+* You can manually extract the textures folder from minecraft.jar or your favorite
   texture pack. If you've built the Overviewer from source or are using the
-  windows exe, place the file in the same directory as overviewer.py or
+  windows exe, place the folder in the same directory as overviewer.py or
   overviewer.exe.
 
-* Specify any terrain.png or texture pack you want with the
+* Specify any texture pack you want with the
   :ref:`texturepath<option_texturepath>` option.
 
 If you copy your world before you render it
diff --git a/overviewer.py b/overviewer.py
index 578d7af..ceb3f3d 100755
--- a/overviewer.py
+++ b/overviewer.py
@@ -136,21 +136,24 @@ def main():
             print("(build info not found)")
         return 0
 
-    if options.check_terrain:
+    # if --check-terrain was specified, but we have NO config file, then we cannot
+    # operate on a custom texture path.  we do terrain checking with a custom texture
+    # pack later on, after we've parsed the config file
+    if options.check_terrain and not options.config:
         import hashlib
         from overviewer_core.textures import Textures
-        # TODO custom textures path?
         tex = Textures()
 
+        logging.info("Looking for a few common texture files...")
         try:
-            f = tex.find_file("terrain.png", verbose=True)
+            f = tex.find_file("textures/blocks/stone.png", verbose=True)
+            f = tex.find_file("textures/blocks/tallgrass.png", verbose=True)
+            f = tex.find_file("textures/blocks/oreDiamond.png", verbose=True)
+            f = tex.find_file("textures/blocks/wood.png", verbose=True)
         except IOError:
-            logging.error("Could not find the file terrain.png")
+            logging.error("Could not find the file stone.png")
             return 1
 
-        h = hashlib.sha1()
-        h.update(f.read())
-        logging.info("Hash of terrain.png file is: `%s`", h.hexdigest())
         return 0
 
     # if no arguments are provided, print out a helpful message
@@ -265,7 +268,20 @@ dir but you forgot to put quotes around the directory, since it contains spaces.
             logging.error(str(ex))
         return 1
 
+    if options.check_terrain: # we are already in the "if configfile" branch
+        logging.info("Looking for a few common texture files...")
+        for render_name, render in config['renders'].iteritems():
+            logging.info("Looking at render %r", render_name)
 
+            # find or create the textures object
+            texopts = util.dict_subset(render, ["texturepath"])
+
+            tex = textures.Textures(**texopts)
+            f = tex.find_file("textures/blocks/stone.png", verbose=True)
+            f = tex.find_file("textures/blocks/tallgrass.png", verbose=True)
+            f = tex.find_file("textures/blocks/oreDiamond.png", verbose=True)
+            f = tex.find_file("textures/blocks/wood.png", verbose=True)
+        return 0
 
     ############################################################
     # Final validation steps and creation of the destination directory
diff --git a/overviewer_core/textures.py b/overviewer_core/textures.py
index b352425..33ec396 100644
--- a/overviewer_core/textures.py
+++ b/overviewer_core/textures.py
@@ -159,7 +159,7 @@ class Textures(object):
                     for packfilename in search_zip_paths:
                         try:
                             pack.getinfo(packfilename)
-                            if verbose: logging.info("Found %s in '%s'", packfilename, nery.find_file_local_path)
+                            if verbose: logging.info("Found %s in '%s'", packfilename, self.find_file_local_path)
                             return pack.open(packfilename)
                         except (KeyError, IOError):
                             pass
@@ -220,7 +220,7 @@ class Textures(object):
                 if verbose: logging.info("Found %s in '%s'", filename, path)
                 return open(path, mode)
 
-        raise TextureException("Could not find the file `{0}'. Try specifying the 'texturepath' option in your config file. Set it to the directory where I can find {0}. Also see <http://docs.overviewer.org/en/latest/running/#installing-the-textures>".format(filename))
+        raise TextureException("Could not find the file `{0}'. Try specifying the 'texturepath' option in your config file.\nSet it to the directory where I can find {0}.\nAlso see <http://docs.overviewer.org/en/latest/running/#installing-the-textures>".format(filename))
 
     def load_image_texture(self, filename):
         # Textures may be animated or in a different resolution than 16x16.