CushionScreens

Turn a wall of cushions into a working screen. Show static images, animated GIFs, and videos — with synced audio — directly inside your Minecraft world.

Beta. This is an early release. Commands, defaults, and the exact color values may still change between versions. Feedback and bug reports are very welcome.

Features

• Images — any PNG/JPG, dithered down to the cushion color palette.
• GIFs — full animation support, frame timing preserved.
• Video — plays any video file FFmpeg can decode, at a frame rate you choose.
• Audio — video playback can stream synced audio to players' game clients (no resource pack needed).
• Up to 176 colors — instead of just the 16 cushion dye colors, the mod can place a different light-emitting block underneath each cushion (copper bulbs in various oxidation stages, a lit furnace, a respawn anchor, crying obsidian, a sculk catalyst, a magma block...) to get extra brightness levels per color. All screens glow at night by default, even without this.
• Survives restarts — a built screen is remembered across server restarts and rejoining; no need to rebuild it every time.
• Bake — turn a specific image into a permanent, un-managed picture, then build a new screen somewhere else.
• Command hook — other commands/datapacks can check whether something is currently playing via a scoreboard value, e.g. for /execute if score.

Requirements

Minecraft	26.3-snapshot-3
Fabric Loader	>=0.19.3
Fabric API	Required
Java	25+
Environment	Client AND server both required (audio playback and a render-distance fix run on the client)
FFmpeg	Required only for /video and audio extraction — must be installed and available on PATH. Images and GIFs don't need it.

Getting started

/cushionscreens build <width> <height>

Builds a screen directly in front of you. Put your images/GIFs/videos in the cushionscreens/ folder inside your game/server directory (it's created automatically the first time you use a command), then:

/cushionscreens image cat.png
/cushionscreens gif dance.gif
/cushionscreens video 20 trailer.mp4

Full command list

Command	Description
/cushionscreens build <width> <height>	Create a screen in front of you
/cushionscreens image <file> [colors=64|176] [bake]	Show an image
/cushionscreens gif <file> [colors=64|176]	Play a GIF
/cushionscreens video <fps> <file> [colors=64|176]	Play a video (needs FFmpeg)
/cushionscreens video <fps> <file> [colors=64|176] audio [targets]	Play a video with synced audio, optionally only for specific players/selectors (@a, @p, a player name...)
/cushionscreens play <pattern> <speed>	Play a generated animation: plasma, rainbow, bars, or noise
/cushionscreens range <chunks>	Set how far away the screen renders from, then rebuild to apply
/cushionscreens stop	Stop whatever is currently playing
/cushionscreens clear	Remove the screen entirely
/cushionscreens help	In-game command reference

Colors

By default every screen uses all 16 cushion colors, sitting on a lit copper bulb (so it glows at night). Two optional upgrades trade performance for a bigger color range:

• colors=64 — adds the 4 copper bulb oxidation stages under each cushion (64 total combinations).
• colors=176 — adds all 11 supported light-level blocks under each cushion (176 total combinations).

Higher color counts look noticeably better for photos/video, but changing the block under a cushion is much more expensive than just changing its color — expect more lag on /video and /gif at colors=176, especially on large screens. Static /image is unaffected by this since it's a one-time change.

Bake

/cushionscreens image cat.png bake

Shows the image like normal, then the mod "forgets" that spot is a screen — the cushions and blocks stay exactly as they are forever, unaffected by /stop, /clear, or future /image//video//gif calls, and aren't tracked for restart persistence. Use this to permanently commit a picture and free up the screen for something else.

Playing sound with video

/cushionscreens video 24 trailer.mp4 audio
/cushionscreens video 24 trailer.mp4 colors=176 audio @a

Audio is extracted from the video and streamed to players over the network — it plays through their own game client, so it works even on a dedicated server with players far from each other. Without a target selector, audio plays for every player on the server.

Checking playback state from other commands/datapacks

The mod keeps a scoreboard value in sync with whether anything is currently playing:

/execute if score CushionScreens cc_playing matches 1 run say something is playing!

Known limitations (beta)

• Only one screen is tracked at a time.
• The color values used for colors=64/colors=176 are based on real in-game measurements, but may still be refined in future updates.
• After a server restart, restoring a saved screen can take a little while if the area isn't already loaded (up to ~60 seconds before it gives up).

License

MIT