How to add mob animations to Minecraft

Minecraft has many mobs that spawn in a single world. Every mob is unique in appearance and showcases certain behaviors towards the player and other mobs. While every one of them has special animation, they are quite basic when it comes to hand, face, eye, leg, and body movements. This makes each mob feel robotic.

Over the last 15 years, thousands of mods and custom features have been created for Minecraft. Several of them are focused on improving mob movements. Here is a guide to getting custom mob animation packs for Minecraft.

Note: Some aspects of this article are subjective and rely on the writer's opinions

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Steps to get custom mob animations for Minecraft

1) Search for mob animation resource packs on CurseForge

Search for various mob animation resource packs on CurseForge (Image via CurseForge)

First, head to the CurseForge website to search through thousands of resource packs for Minecraft. This is one of the most famous websites that can be used to search for third-party features made for the sandbox.

Select the game, and type out mob animations in the search bar to get a plethora of mob animations to choose from. You can then select the resource pack category to filter the options.

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2) Download some of the best mob animation resource packs for Minecraft

Fresh Animations and its extended version is the best animation resource pack (Image via CurseForge)

It is safe to say that Fresh Animations and Fresh Animations Extensions, are the two best resource packs for adding mob animations to Minecraft. You will be able to spot both resource packs on CurseForge easily. These are the two best ones to download.

While downloading, make sure to check which game version they support.

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3) Download and install OptiFine or EMF

Download OptiFine or EMF for Fresh Animations to work (Image via CurseForge || OptiFine)

Before installing Fresh Animations, you must make sure that you either have OptiFine or EMF mods installed as well. These mods help the mob animation resource pack to properly work in the game. They contain a custom entity model that allows for more expressive mob movements.

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4) Install and activate mob animation resource packs into Minecraft

Install the resource pack by pasting it in the game's directory. (Image via Sportskeeda)

Once the resource pack is downloaded, you can simply open the game, which will have the OptiFine or EMF mod installed on it. Through the game, you will be able to open the exact folder location where resource packs are stored.

Simply head over to settings and select the resource packs tab. After entering the resource pack tab, you simply need to press the 'open resource pack folder'. This will open a Windows Explorer folder where players can copy and paste the Fresh Animations resource pack.

Fresh Animations listed inside the game (Image via Mojang Studios)

After copy-pasting it, the resource packs will show up inside the game under the resource pack list. Players simply need to press the play button on top of each resource pack's icon to activate it. Once activated, it will shift to the active list on the right side.

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Check out other Minecraft resource pack-related articles:

• 10 best Minecraft 1.21 resource packs
• 10 best Minecraft texture packs to use with shaders
• 10 scary Minecraft texture packs