.bbmodel. NMEntities plays them automatically or on demand.
[Image here: The Blockbench Animate tab with a walk animation on the timeline]
Making an animation
In Blockbench, switch to the Animate tab, create a new animation, and give it a name. Then move your bones along the timeline: rotate the legs for a walk, bob the head for an idle, collapse everything for a death. Keyframe by keyframe, Blockbench interpolates the rest. Save the file, re-import it (drop inmodels/, /nme reload), and the animations come with it.
Animations that play themselves
Name an animation one of these, and NMEntities runs it at the right moment with zero configuration:
So the recipe for a lively mob is simply: make an
idle and a walk, name them exactly that, done.
[Image here: Side-by-side of a mob standing (idle animation) and moving (walk animation) in-game]
Testing an animation
Preview any animation, including custom-named ones, without touching effects:Animating with math
Keyframe values don’t have to be plain numbers: they can be math expressions (Molang), evaluated live. The variablequery.anim_time gives you the current animation time, so a keyframe like math.sin(query.anim_time * 90) * 3 makes a bone sway continuously without placing dozens of keyframes.
[Image here: A Blockbench keyframe panel with a math expression entered as the value]
Use it for perpetual motion: hovering crystals, swinging lanterns, breathing chests. For the full expression language, see the Molang reference (Minecraft’s official docs cover it well). A few advanced Molang queries aren’t available, if an expression doesn’t work, simplify it.
Custom animations and effects
Animations named anything else (attack, roar, cast) don’t play on their own. They’re yours to trigger from gameplay. That’s a job for the Effects system, which can play animations as part of a mob’s attack sequences.