Animations

What is an Animation?

An Animation is a timeline that moves a rig’s nodes over time, and can switch Variants and Texture Slots or run commands along the way.

Animations play per rig instance. If you summon the same Blueprint ten times, every instance can play a different animation, or the same one at a different frame. That’s why animation functions must run as the rig’s root entity. See Function API: Animations for how to control them in-game.

Frames and Timing

Animations run at 20 frames per second, one frame per game tick, starting from frame 0. A 1 second animation is 20 frames long, and a 2.5 second animation is 50.

Loop Modes

Each animation’s Loop Mode decides what happens when it reaches the last frame:

• Once plays to the end, then stops and snaps back to its first frame. Good for attacks, gestures, and other one-shot actions.
• Hold plays to the end, then pauses on the last frame. Good for poses like aiming or charging.
• Loop starts over from the first frame, after an optional Loop Delay in ticks. Good for idles, walk cycles, and anything else that repeats.

Set the Loop Mode in the Animation Properties dialog.

Keyframes

Transform Keyframes

Position, rotation, and scale keyframes on Groups and Display nodes. Everything Blockbench offers works, including Molang expressions, Step and Smooth interpolation, and keyframes with separate pre and post values.

Keyframes with Linear interpolation can also use the curves in the Keyframe Easing panel, like Sine, Elastic, or Bounce.

Child bones follow their parent’s interpolation. If a parent snaps to a keyframe with Step interpolation, its children snap with it.

Effect Keyframes

The Effects row of the Timeline holds keyframes that change the rig instead of moving it:

• Variant keyframes apply one or more Variants, in order. Later Variants override earlier ones on the nodes they change.
• Texture Slots keyframes switch Texture Slots to any of their textures. Requires Minecraft 1.21.4 or newer.
• Function keyframes run commands as and at the root entity. They support MC-Build syntax.

When several happen on the same frame, they run in that order: Variants, then Texture Slots, then the Function.

Each effect keyframe has an Execute Condition: the condition part of an execute command, like if score @s my_score matches 1... When it isn’t met, the keyframe is skipped.

Locator and Interaction Keyframes

Locators and Interactions have their own Function keyframes. Their commands run at the node’s position, and as its entity if it has one, so they’re great for particles or sounds that follow a part of the rig.

They also support an Execute Condition, and a Repeat option that runs the commands again every Frequency ticks until the node’s next keyframe.

Previewing Effects

In Animate mode, Variant and Texture Slot keyframes change the editor preview as the animation plays, and every bone shows what the animation has applied to it so far.

The preview starts from the default Variant. If an animation expects the rig to already be in some other state, set Preview Variants and Preview Texture Slots in its Animation Properties. These only affect the editor.

Playing Several Animations at Once

A rig can play several animations at the same time, as long as they move different nodes. Use each animation’s Excluded Nodes list to keep it away from the nodes another animation controls.

For example:

• a walk animation excludes the arms and head,
• an attack animation excludes the legs,
• so both can play together.

If two playing animations move the same node, they overwrite each other every tick, which usually looks like snapping or jitter.

Tweening

Tweening smoothly blends the rig from whatever pose it’s in to a frame of another animation. Use it to switch between animations without the rig snapping into place.

Tips

• Excluded Nodes also save performance: excluded nodes aren’t updated at all.
• Use Hold instead of your own stop logic when you need an animation to end on its final pose.
• Time events with Function keyframes, instead of checking frame numbers in your own tick functions.
• Animation names end up in function paths. Renaming an animation breaks any commands that call it.

Related Reading

• Animation Config
• Function API: Animations
• Rigs