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. Load content straight from a URL, control playback like a media player (pause, resume, seek, loop, volume), and pick how many colors the screen can show.

Features

• Images, GIFs, and video - any file FFmpeg/Java's image libraries can read.
• Audio - video playback can stream synced audio to players' game clients (no resource pack needed), with per-command volume control.
• Load directly from a URL - /cushionscreens url <link> downloads and displays an image or GIF straight from the web.
• 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. Every screen glows at night by default, even without this.
• Playback controls - pause/resume freeze and continue exactly where you left off (no reloading), loop repeats video/GIF (and audio) forever instead of stopping on a blank screen, seek jumps partway into a video.
• Three scaling modes - stretch to fill exactly, crop to fill without distortion, or fit with letterboxed black bars.
• Survives restarts - a built screen is remembered across server restarts and rejoining; no need to rebuild it.
• 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 its audio - must be installed and available on PATH. Images, GIFs, and URLs 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 (created automatically on first use), then:

/cushionscreens image cat.png
/cushionscreens gif dance.gif
/cushionscreens video 20 trailer.mp4
/cushionscreens url https://i.imgur.com/abc123.png

Full command list

Command	Description
/cushionscreens build <width> <height>	Create a screen in front of you
/cushionscreens image <file> [{attrs}]	Show an image
/cushionscreens gif <file> [{attrs}]	Play a GIF
/cushionscreens url <link> [{attrs}]	Show an image or GIF from a direct http(s) link
/cushionscreens video <fps> <file> [{attrs}]	Play a video (needs FFmpeg)
/cushionscreens video <fps> <file> audio [targets] [{attrs}]	Play with sound, optionally only for @a/@p/a player
/cushionscreens play <pattern> <speed>	Play a generated animation: plasma, rainbow, bars, or noise
/cushionscreens pause	Freeze the current frame/pattern (and audio)
/cushionscreens resume	Continue exactly where it was paused
/cushionscreens stop	Stop whatever is currently playing
/cushionscreens clear	Remove the screen entirely
/cushionscreens range <chunks>	Set how far away the screen renders from, then rebuild to apply
/cushionscreens maxframes <number>	Max video frames to decode (default 2000)
/cushionscreens help	In-game command reference

Attributes

Attributes go after the file/URL (and after audio/targets for video), written as an NBT compound - the same style Minecraft uses for item components:

/cushionscreens video 20 clip.mp4 audio @a {colors:176,loop:true,volume:75,seek:30,scaling:fit}

Key	Values	Applies to	Description
colors	16 (default), 17, 64, 80, 176	image, gif, video, url	How many color combinations to use - see below
bake	true	image only	Show it, then stop managing it as a screen (see below)
loop	true	gif, video, url (gif)	Repeat forever (audio too) instead of stopping on a blank screen
volume	0-100	video (with audio)	Playback volume, independent of Minecraft's own sound sliders
seek	seconds	video	Start playback (and audio) partway into the file
scaling	stretch (default), crop, fit	image, gif, video, url	How to fit content that doesn't match the screen's aspect ratio

Colors

Every screen always sits on a lit waxed copper bulb by default (16 colors, glows at night). Higher values trade performance for a wider color range - changing the block under a cushion is much more expensive than just changing its color, so expect more lag at higher color counts, especially on /video and /gif with large screens. Static /image is far less affected since it's a one-time change.

• 16 - default, just the cushion colors.
• 17 - the 16 default colors plus one true black (a black cushion on a non-glowing block, since black on a lit block isn't fully black).
• 64 - adds the 4 copper bulb oxidation stages under each cushion.
• 80 - the 64 above, plus a non-glowing variant for each color.
• 176 - all 11 supported light-level blocks under each cushion.

Scaling

• stretch - fills the screen exactly, may distort the image if its aspect ratio doesn't match the screen.
• crop - scales to fill the screen completely without distortion, cropping whichever edge overflows.
• fit - scales to fit entirely within the screen without distortion or cropping; leftover space is filled with black bars (letterbox/pillarbox).

Bake

/cushionscreens image cat.png {bake:true}

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.

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

• Only one screen is tracked at a time.
• The color values used for colors:64/80/176/17 are based on real in-game measurements, but may still be refined in future updates.
• Looped audio runs independently from the video loop and isn't explicitly resynced, so very long loops may drift slightly out of sync over time.
• 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).
• /cushionscreens url supports images and GIFs only, not video/live streams.

License

MIT