Emote

Thanks to Popular Vibe for allowing us to use their animation!

▶ Watch the full emote demo on YouTube

Join the Discord server to share emotes you have made.

Features

Emote is a server-side emote mod that plays animations with Minecraft display entities. All server features work when the mod is installed only on the server. Installing it on the client is optional and adds an emote wheel and automatic third-person view during playback.

The web converter supports BD Engine, GeckoLib, and Animated Java. Configure skin parts, metadata, playback settings, and commands without editing Animation JSON.

On the server, LuckPerms permissions can assign emotes and idle emotes per player. Sequences can connect multiple animations or coordinate two players in a collaborative emote, with each player's skin applied to compatible animations. A server API is also available for other mods to register emotes, control playback, and receive events.

Commands

Player

Command	Description
/emote	Opens the Emote Menu dialog.
/emote play <id>	Plays an emote by ID.
V	Opens the client emote wheel.

Use the wheel's Edit Wheel button to add, remove, or reorder entries. The order is stored on the client separately for each server. The emote menu and wheel editor can search by name, ID, description, or #tags included in the description. Multiple #tags match emotes containing all specified tags.

Administration

Command	Description
/emote list	Lists loaded emotes with their IDs, durations, and availability.
/emote info	Shows current playback, display-entity capacity, skin-processing queue, and loaded-emote status.
/emote reload	Reloads configuration and animations.
/emote enable/disable <id>	Enables or disables an emote.
/emote stop <player>, /emote stop @a	Stops selected players' emotes; use @a for all players.
/emote stress-test <time> [load] [packets]	Measures server performance with concurrent emotes and configurable packet fanout (default 20). 100 or 100i requests 100 instances; 1000d requests up to 1,000 display entities.
/emote account	Lists registered bake accounts and the selected skin provider.
/emote account login	Connects a Minecraft account using Microsoft device login.
/emote account remove <account>	Removes a bake account by name or UUID.

Administrative commands use the emote.manage permission and are granted to game master operators by default.

Server management

config/emote/
├── config.json
├── emotes.json
├── emote/
└── resource-pack/

The directory and configuration files are created automatically on first startup, with sample emotes included under emote/.

Place JSON exported by the converter under emote/. Subdirectories are loaded as well, and emotes use the id in the JSON rather than the filename. Invalid files are skipped individually, while every file sharing a duplicate ID is rejected.

config.json

{
  "schema_version": 1,
  "menu_page_size": 6,
  "mineskin_api_key": "",
  "mineskin_poll_interval_seconds": 3,
  "mineskin_cache_retention_days": 30,
  "mineskin_cache_max_mib": 256,
  "max_active_display_entities": 512
}

Set mineskin_api_key to generate player skin textures when no bake accounts are registered. Completed cached textures remain usable without either credential.

emotes.json

{
  "schema_version": 3,
  "disabled": ["emote:anvil"],
  "permissions": [
    {
      "permission": "emote.default",
      "emotes": ["emote:hello", "emote:backflip"]
    },
    {
      "permission": "emote.vip",
      "emotes": ["emote:vip\\..*"],
      "idle": {"delay": "300s", "emote": ["emote:idle.sit", 70, "emote:idle.piano", 30]},
      "cooldown": "x0.8"
    },
    {
      "permission": "emote.admin",
      "emotes": ["*"]
    }
  ]
}

disabled turns off emotes, while permissions determines the emotes and idle emotes available to each player. Valid emote IDs in emotes are matched literally; other entries are Java regular expressions matched against the complete emote ID. * is a special value that grants every enabled emote. Regular-expression backslashes must also be escaped for JSON. Every player receives emote.default. emote.bypass is an administrator and development override that ignores standalone, disabled IDs, permissions, and cooldowns.

Web converter

Emote Converter converts and configures projects without requiring direct edits to Animation JSON. All processing happens locally in the browser.

For a step-by-step guide to converting and installing your own emotes, see Adding Custom Emotes.

Use the 3D preview to assign skin parts and coordinate spaces, then configure metadata, playback behavior, stop conditions, and frame commands.

Animation conversion

The web converter recalculates the source animation's easing and interpolation curves for Minecraft ticks. It preserves important points in Bézier, Catmull-Rom, bounce, and elastic motion, then selects the keyframe placement with the lowest position, rotation, and scale error to keep the result as close to the original movement as possible.

Each animation can define a cooldown, player visibility, stop conditions such as movement, jumping, attacking, and taking damage, and frame commands.

• Animation format

Sequence

Connect short animation clips in order and combine waits, weighted random choices, and repeats to create a single emote.

{
  "type": "sequence",
  "schema_version": 4,
  "id": "emote:idle.sit",
  "steps": [
    {"emote": "emote:sit_down"},
    {"wait": "10t"},
    {
      "emote": [
        "emote:idle_sky", 45,
        "emote:idle_butterfly", 45,
        "emote:break", 10
      ],
      "repeat": 3
    },
    {"emote": "emote:stand_up1"}
  ]
}

• Sequence format

Collaborative emotes

Combine animations for two players in a sequence to create a collaborative emote. Nearby players facing each other are connected, then the matched or timeout branch is played. Symmetrical motion is automatically mirrored for the other player, while separate initiator and partner nodes can create asymmetric performances with different motion and skins.

{
  "type": "sequence",
  "schema_version": 4,
  "id": "emote:handshake",
  "participants": {
    "initiator": {"position": "~ ~ ~", "rotation": "~ 0"},
    "partner": {"position": "^ ^ ^1.2", "rotation": "~180 0"}
  },
  "steps": [{
    "await_partner": {"emote": "handshake:offer", "timeout": "10s"},
    "matched": [
      {"emote": "handshake:shake", "repeat": 2},
      {"wait": "1s"},
      {"emote": "handshake:close"}
    ],
    "timeout": [{"emote": "handshake:close"}]
  }]
}

Mod API

EmoteApi.getInstance() provides playback control, runtime registration, state queries, cancellable play listeners, playback lifecycle listeners, and named animation callback listeners. State changes must run on the server thread, and runtime registrations survive reloads.

Troubleshooting

Problem	Check
An emote does not appear	Check the /emote reload result, server log, duplicate IDs, disabled, and whether the animation is sequence-only.
A player skin is not applied	Check the converter's skin part assignments and /emote account as OWNER. Without registered accounts, check mineskin_api_key. Run the emote again after skin processing finishes. Unavailable skin textures use the animation's default texture.
A player skin is applied incorrectly	Reassign each node's skin part and order in the web converter. For two-player animations, also check the initiator and partner coordinate spaces.

If the problem is not covered here, report it on Discord or GitHub Issues.

License

This project is distributed under the Apache License 2.0.