Throwable Items

intermediate

PLEASE READ

This page will be part of a rewrite to accomodate for the removal of the Holiday Creator Feature experimental toggle. Expect this page to be rewritten or removed when this happens.

TIP

This tutorial assumes you have a basic understanding of Molang, animation controllers and entity definitions.

Items like the Splash Potion or the Trident are special items that can be thrown. Currently, there are two ways to accomplish something similar in your add-on, one that can be done in the stable release and one that needs the Holiday Creator Features experimental toggle to be enabled.

Stable method

This method lets you detect the usage of an item through the minecraft:food component from an animation controller, and modifying the player.json you can then spawn an entity when that happens.

The Item

First, you'll want to make the actual item:

BP/items/throwable_item.item.jsonCopy
json
{
  "format_version": "1.16.0",
  "minecraft:item": {
    "description": {
      "identifier": "wiki:throwable_item"
    },
    "components": {
      "minecraft:max_stack_size": 16,
      "minecraft:use_duration": 12000,
      "minecraft:food": {
        "can_always_eat": true
      }
    }
  }
}
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We can notice several things here:

  • format_version must be 1.16.0
  • minecraft:use_duration should be a high number, in order to stop the eating sound to play and to prevent the player from eating the item
  • minecraft:food is used to allow player to actually "use" the item, so we can detect it

Because the format version is 1.16.0, your item needs an RP definition too:

RP/items/throwable_item.item.jsonCopy
json
{
  "format_version": "1.16.0",
  "minecraft:item": {
    "description": {
      "identifier": "wiki:throwable_item",
      "category": "Equipment"
    },
    "components": {
      "minecraft:icon": "throwable_item"
    }
  }
}
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The Entity

The entity will be the actual thrown item, and it will behave like a projectile. Make sure to add snowball runtime identifier to make your projectile to actually be shoot, not spawned. You can also experiment with other projectile runtime id's.

BP/entities/throwable_item_entity.se.jsonCopy
json
{
	"format_version": "1.16.0",
	"minecraft:entity": {
		"description": {
			"identifier": "wiki:throwable_item_entity",
			"is_spawnable": false,
			"is_summonable": true,
			"is_experimental": false,
                        "runtime_identifier": "minecraft:snowball"
		},
		"components": {
			"minecraft:collision_box": {
				"width": 0.25,
				"height": 0.25
			},
			"minecraft:projectile": {
				"on_hit": {
					"grant_xp": {
						"minXP": 3,
						"maxXP": 5
					},
					"impact_damage": {
						"damage": 16
					},
					"remove_on_hit": {}
				},
				"power": 0.7,
				"gravity": 0.03,
				"angle_offset": -20.0,
				"hit_sound": "glass"
			},
			"minecraft:physics": {},
			"minecraft:pushable": {
				"is_pushable": true,
				"is_pushable_by_piston": true
			},
			"minecraft:conditional_bandwidth_optimization": {
				"default_values": {
					"max_optimized_distance": 80.0,
					"max_dropped_ticks": 10,
					"use_motion_prediction_hints": true
				}
			}
		}
	}
}
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This entity is based on the Vanilla splash potion.

You can then customize its behavior by editing the minecraft:projectile component, in this case the thrown item will grant some exp and will damage any entity it will hit.

The Animation Controller

The animation controller is responsible for detecting the usage of the item and for telling the player entity to spawn a throwable entity.

BP/animation_controllers/throwables.ac.jsonCopy
json
{
  "format_version": "1.10.0",
  "animation_controllers": {
    "controller.animation.player.throwables": { // The ID we will reference in the player's entity description
      "states": {
        "default": {
          "transitions": [
            {
              // Current "q.is_item_name_any" takes 3 arguments, first is slot name, second is slot id, third is the item we want to check for
              "throw_item": "q.is_item_name_any('slot.weapon.mainhand', 0, 'wiki:throwable_item') && q.is_using_item"
	      // "q.is_using_item" returns 'true' or 'false', in our case if player uses item it is going to return 'true'
            }
          ],
          "on_entry": [
            // Resets the player entity in order to be able to throw another item
            "@s wiki:reset_player"
          ]
        },
        "throw_item": {
          "transitions": [
            {
              "default": "1.0"
            }
          ],
          "on_entry": [
            // Call the event in the player entity responsible of throwing the item
            "@s wiki:throw_item",
            // Remove the item from player's inventory
            "/clear @s wiki:throwable_item -1 1"
          ]
        }
      }
    }
  }
}
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player.json

TIP

Always make sure that your player.json file is updated to the latest version available, depending on the game version you are working on. You can do that here.

WARNING

Do not edit/remove existing parts of the player.json file unless you know what you are doing, as it could (and probably will) break the game.

Now, you have to register the animation controller to the player.json file:

BP/entities/player.jsonCopy
json
{
  "format_version": "1.18.20",
  "minecraft:entity": {
    "description": {
      "identifier": "minecraft:player",
      "is_spawnable": false,
      "is_summonable": false,
      "is_experimental": false,
      "scripts": {
        "animate": [
          "throwables_controller" // This should exactly match the same as the one below
        ]
      },
      "animations": {
        "throwables_controller": "controller.animation.player.throwables" // ID as referenced in animation controller file
      }
    },
    "components": {
        "minecraft:breathable": { // keeps breath timer bubbles from appearing
          "total_supply": 15,
          "suffocate_time": -1,
          "inhale_time": 3.75,
          "generates_bubbles": false
    	}
    },
    ...
  }
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Then, you need to add all the events and component groups to the player.json file:

BP/entities/player.json#minecraft:entityCopy
json
"component_groups": {
  "wiki:throw_entity": { // Contains a component that will spawn the entity
    "minecraft:spawn_entity": {
      "entities": {
        "min_wait_time": 0,
        "max_wait_time": 0,
        "single_use": true,
        "spawn_entity": "wiki:throwable_item_entity",
        "num_to_spawn": 1
      }
    }
  }
},
"events": {
  "wiki:reset_player": {
    "remove": {
      "component_groups": [
        "wiki:throw_entity"
      ]
    }
  },
  "wiki:throw_item": {
    "add": {
      "component_groups": [
        "wiki:throw_entity"
      ]
    }
  }
}
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Experimental method

This method requires the Holiday Creator Features experimental toggle to be enabled.

The Item

BP/items/throwable_item.item.jsonCopy
json
{
    "format_version": "1.16.100",
    "minecraft:item": {
        "description": {
            "identifier": "wiki:throwable_item"
        },
        "components": {
            "minecraft:max_stack_size": 16,
            "minecraft:on_use": {
                "on_use": {
                    "event": "throw"
                }
            },
            "minecraft:icon": {
                "texture": "apple"
            }
        },
        "events": {
            "throw": {
                "shoot": {
                    "projectile": "wiki:throwable_item_entity",
                    "launch_power": 2,
                    "angle_offset": 1
                },
                "swing": {},
                "decrement_stack": {},
                "run_command": {
                    "command": [
                        "playsound fire.ignite",
                        "playsound mob.witch.throw"
                    ]
                }
            }
        }
    }
}
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We can notice several things here:

  • format_version must be 1.16.100
  • minecraft:on_use will call an event every time the item is used (right-clicked)

In the event:

  • shoot will shoot our entity
  • swing will run the swing animation on the player
  • decrement_stack will remove one item from the player's inventory
  • run_command will execute commands when the item is shot, like playing sounds

The Entity

The entity file is the same as the Stable version.

BP/entities/throwable_item_entity.se.json
BP/entities/throwable_item_entity.se.jsonCopy
json
{
	"format_version": "1.16.0",
	"minecraft:entity": {
		"description": {
			"identifier": "wiki:throwable_item_entity",
			"is_spawnable": false,
			"is_summonable": true,
			"is_experimental": false,
                        "runtime_identifier": "minecraft:snowball"
		},
		"components": {
			"minecraft:collision_box": {
				"width": 0.25,
				"height": 0.25
			},
			"minecraft:projectile": {
				"on_hit": {
					"grant_xp": {
						"minXP": 3,
						"maxXP": 5
					},
					"impact_damage": {
						"damage": 16
					},
					"remove_on_hit": {}
				},
				"power": 0.7,
				"gravity": 0.03,
				"angle_offset": -20.0,
				"hit_sound": "glass"
			},
			"minecraft:physics": {},
			"minecraft:pushable": {
				"is_pushable": true,
				"is_pushable_by_piston": true
			},
			"minecraft:conditional_bandwidth_optimization": {
				"default_values": {
					"max_optimized_distance": 80.0,
					"max_dropped_ticks": 10,
					"use_motion_prediction_hints": true
				}
			}
		}
	}
}
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Conclusion

Once you have your throwable item you can start trying several things, like playing with its power, effects, animations or combining it with an AOE Cloud. The only limit is your imagination.

Contributors