How to Make a Living Entity

How to create a new Minecraft mob / living entity

On this page, we will go through each step of making a new mob in MCreator.

Things you will need

• You will need a mob texture for this tutorial. If you need help making one, go to Making a New Texture.

Creating a mob

• Click on "New Mod"
• Click on "Mob" and name your mod. Names mustn't be repeated. Make it something you understand, the end-user won't see this name. One way you can prevent your block name from being repeated is to put the mod type before your mod name (e.g. MobMyMod).

Visual

These are the settings for visual and sound settings for the entity.

• Name of entity: Supply a name for your mob here. Multiple mobs can have the same name.
• Entity model: Select a model to use here for your mob. You may want to import a custom model instead.
• Entity model bounding box: This represents the size of your mob's hitbox in blocks, as well as the size of its shadow.
  • The first option sets the width and depth.
  • The second option sets the height.
  • The box after that sets the size in blocks for the radius of the mob's shadow.
  • The last box on the right-hand side controls the Y coordinate location where the player sits when riding the entity.
  • Disable collision: This disables collision for the entity.
  • Solid bounding box condition: This makes the entity solid like a boat. Use a logic return block and return true to enable this feature.
  • Transparent model condition: The condition when the entity should be transparent. Use a logic return block and return true to enable this feature.
  • Entity shake condition: This makes the entity shake similar to zombie villagers when they are being cured. Use a logic return block and return true to enable this feature.
• Texture of entity: Select a texture to map onto your mob's model. This can be a custom texture for a custom model or a retexture of a vanilla model. Figure out how to get Minecraft's texture files here.
• Glow texture of entity: This is an optional texture map that allows you to make the entity glow similar to how spider eyes glow. Use your texture map as a guide to making your glow map.
• Spawn egg options: Untick the box to remove a mob's spawn egg. This also allows you to set the colors used for the spawn egg.
  • The left is the primary color. 
  • The right is the color of its spots.
  • Creative tab: The dropdown box on the right is the creative tab which the egg should be placed into.
• Boss health bar: This option adds the boss health bar used for the Ender Dragon and Wither to your mob. You can also select a color and bar style for this bar.
• Entity label: This allows you to set a name for your mob that will show above their head.

Sound

Leave any input blank to make the sound silent. You can also import your own sounds, provided that they are .ogg files.

• Living sound: This is the ambient sound that plays randomly for the entity. 
• Step sound: This is the sound made by the entity when it steps on blocks. 
• Hurt sound: This is the sound made by the entity when it takes damage to its health. 
• Death sound: This is the sound that plays when the entity dies.

Behaviour

There are the settings for the entity behaviour.

• Behavioural characteristics: A mob set to Mob will be able to attack, while a mob set to Animal cannot attack even if its AI tells it to. A WaterMob is able to attack, and will not drown in water whilst dying out of it.
• Mob default drop: the item dropped when the entity is killed. Leave this empty to disable drops.
• Creature type: This allows you to set a creature's type, causing certain changes. 
  • Undead take extra damage from the Smite enchantment, are healed by Harming and harmed by Healing, and are unaffected by Poison or Regeneration. 
  • Arthropods take extra damage from the Bane of Arthropods enchantment. 
  • Illager does not seem to have any effect.
• Movement speed: Sets the movement speed of the mob in some unknown measurement. Most normal mobs move at around 0.25, while faster ones such as spiders and wolves move at 0.3.
• Step height: Sets the step height of the entity. Most normal living entities have a step height of 0.6, while rideable entities such as horses have a step height of 1.
• Mob health: Sets the health of the mob. 2 health = 1 heart
• Experience amount: Sets the amount of experience earned from killing the mob. This is usually 1-3 for an animal and 5 for a monster.
• Follow range: Follow range defines the distance the mob will notice/continue chasing the player/target
• Tracking range: This controls how far the entity can be seen by the player (e.g. render distance).
• Attack strength: Sets the amount of damage the mob deals when attacking.
• Armor protection base value: Sets the number of built-in armor points the mob has. Zombies by default have 4 armor points.
• Attack knockback: This is how much the entity deals with knockback.
• Attack knockback resistance: This is how much the entity can resist knockback effects.
• Equipment: Allows a Biped/zombie-modelled mob to have the equipment. From left to right the slots represent the right hand, then the left, then the head, chestplate, leggings, and boots.
• Rideable: This allows a player to mount this mob. It will not be controllable
• Forward movement control: This allows the player to direct the entity forward, similar to how pigs work.
• Strafe movement control: This allows the player to move the entity in the left or right directions, similar to horses.
• Is water entity: This makes the entity breathe liquid rather than air, and is not pushed by liquid flowing blocks.
• Is flying entity: This disables gravity for the entity and disables fall damage.
• Mob immunities: Any attack types you choose here will not affect the mob.
  • Fire: This blocks all fire damage.
  • Arrows: This will block all damage from arrows. 
  • Fall damage: This blocks all fall damage for the entity.
  • Cactus: This blocks all damage from the cactus block.
  • Drowning: This blocks all damage from drowning when under liquid sources.
  • Lightning: This blocks all damage from the entity being struck by lighting.
  • Potions: This blocks all damage from potions.
  • Direct player attack: This blocks all damage from the player.

Inventory

These are the settings for the entity inventory, these settings are optional, but require a GUI element to work.

• Bind this entity to GUI: This is the GUI you wish to bind to the entity for inventories or other graphical displays.
• Size of inventory: This is the slot count of the GUI you are linking, set this to 0 if your GUI has no slots.
• Max stack size: This controls how many items can fit in one stack for the slot. The default is 64.

Triggers

Mobs can have procedures for being struck by lightning, taking fall damage, dying, being damaged, being right-clicked by a player, killing another mob, bumping into a player, spawning, or a procedure that runs each tick. View this tutorial for how the procedure system works. Entities have a number of triggers that can be used to expand the mechanics of the entity a list of them is below.

• When it is struck by lightning: Runs a procedure when the entity is struck by lighting.
• When entity falls: Runs a procedure when the entity is falling.
• When entity dies: Runs a procedure when the entity dies.
• When entity is hurt: Runs a procedure when the entity takes damage.
• When right-clicked on entity: Runs a procedure when the player right-clicks on the entity.
• When this entity kills another one: Runs a procedure when the entity kills another kind of entity.
• On entity tick update: Runs a procedure every tick (20 times per second).
• When player collides with this entity: Runs a procedure for every tick the player collides with the entity.
• On internal entity spawn: This will run a procedure when the entity spawns for the first time, but not after.

AI and goals

View this page for a detailed guide on Mob AI.

Spawning

• Enable entity spawning: When this is checked entities will spawn in the world naturally without the need for procedures.
• Despawn when idle: If ticked, this mob will despawn upon the player moving far away enough. Turn this off for bosses and summonable mobs to stop them from despawning.
• Spawn weight: This is the priority that the mob has over others when the game is choosing what mob to spawn. A higher weight means more mob spawns in the game will create this mob. Make this lower for animals, compared to monsters. A detailed explanation of mob spawn weight is available here.
• Mob natural spawning type: A mob marked as Monster will only spawn in the dark or at night. A mob marked as Creature will spawn under any conditions. A mob marked as Ambient also spawns under any conditions, but this category should be used for mobs with no gameplay effect such as bats. WaterCreature will spawn in water but with no other limitations.
• Number of entities in spawn group: Be warned that mobs that try to spawn in groups of over 20 will struggle to do so.
  • Min: The minimum size of the group that the mob will spawn in.
  • Max: The maximum size of the group that the mob will spawn in.
• Biomes where the entity spawns: Check this if you want to make mobs spawn in certain biomes. Hell represents the Nether and Sky represents the End.
• Does this mob spawn in dungeons?: If you check this, your mob may show up in dungeon spawners.
• Custom spawning conditions: A procedure that controls additional spawning conditions. The condition must use a logic return block and return true for the condition to allow the entity to spawn.

Video tutorials

Making a passive land creature

Making a monster living entity - mob

Making a boss mob

AI task conditions