Entity



Entities encompass all dynamic, moving objects throughout the Minecraft world.

General behavior
Properties all entities have are:
 * A position, rotation, and velocity, as according to Newtonian mechanics
 * A volume consisting of one or more non-rotating, three-dimensional boxes with a fixed height and width
 * Whether they are on fire, displayed as flames on or around the entity
 * Whether they have any status effect, such as from potions

Most entities can be pushed around by water currents, and some can have their trajectory altered by explosions if already traveling at speed. Some entities can be renamed by a name tag on them. Entity tiles, items, shot or thrown projectiles, area effect clouds, and experience orbs do not have a current health. Entities that do have a health status include mobs, players, boats and minecarts.

Entities cannot pass through solid blocks, excluding vexes. Most types of entities prevent blocks from being placed in the space they occupy, except for resources (dropped items) and experience orbs, which are automatically pushed out of the block to open air. If a solid block enters an entity's space, such as falling sand or a swinging door, then it is free to move out of the solid block but not back in. For example, if a door is closed on you, you can jump up and stand on top of the bottom-half door block, if there is air above the door.

Entities are lit according to the light level of the block their position is in. For example, if a minecart runs over a non-straight track directly into a solid block, it turns black because solid blocks always have a light level of 0; arrows are also sometimes seen to turn black, especially if fired shallowly into the ceiling.

Further notes
Item frames, paintings, and lead knots, unlike most entities, align to the block grid, and are completely immobile.

Arrows, TNT and falling sand (and its variants, including other falling blocks like anvils and dragon eggs) are assumed to have infinite health because they are neither destroyed by explosions (although they can be moved by explosions, and they can also be fired out of TNT cannons), nor by being on fire for long periods. However, they can still be "killed" with the use of the command.

When a block is placed on some entities, the block may disappear but might be restored if placed again.

Boats and minecarts

 * See also: Transportation (contains information about speed)

Boats and minecarts appear to recover health over time. For example, they can be broken by hitting them quickly, but cannot be destroyed by hits with unarmed hand with a pause after each hit. The amount of wobbling displayed by boats and minecarts when struck appears to indicate their current health. All minecart and boat variants have.

Gravity-affected blocks


Gravity-affected blocks include sand, gravel, anvils, red sand, dragon eggs, concrete powder, scaffolding and pointed dripstone, and also snow layers in Bedrock Edition.

A gravity-affected block normally exists as a block, but when its support is removed, it becomes a falling block entity and falls down until hitting the top surface of another block. If there is valid space, it places itself as a block at the nearest on-grid position, or drops as an item if that position is occupied by a block without a solid top surface, such as a torch or a bottom slab.

While a falling block ordinarily fall straight down, its trajectory can be affected by explosions, bubble columns, pistons and moving slime blocks, and can slide down the side of honey blocks. It is also possible to modify the velocity and direction of a falling block by using commands such as or third-party programs, although there are no in-game mechanics that can change a falling block's facing direction. A falling block despawns and drops as an item if it does not land after existing for 600 ticks (30 seconds), or 100 ticks (5 seconds) if falling into the void.

If a cave generates underneath sand, gravel or red sand, the blocks remain stationary until it receives a block update. If a single block is updated and falls down, neighboring blocks will be updated in a chain reaction which can cause the collapse of an entire region of gravity-affected blocks.

Interactions with "use" control
Entities with interactions (such as boats, minecarts, cats, villagers, tamed parrots, and tamed wolves) do not stop the  action of a tool you are holding. For example, a water bucket on a tamed wolf causes the wolf to sit, but also empties the bucket near or onto the wolf.

Riding


Entities may be riding on, or attached to, other entities. When this is the case, only the lower/"outer" entity's volume collides with other things, and only that entity can control movement. However, there are exceptions: players riding minecarts, boats or saddled horses, baby zombies riding chickens, and skeletons riding horses or boats. The only current legitimate combinations of riding entities are:


 * A mob or player in a minecart or boat.
 * A player on a saddled pig, horse, donkey, mule, skeleton horse, llama or Strider.
 * Any type of skeleton on a spider or cave spider; also known as a spider jockey.
 * Parrot on player shoulder.
 * Any type of baby zombie or zombified piglin on a chicken or other mobs; also known as a chicken jockey.
 * Skeleton traps; skeletons riding skeleton horses.
 * Pillager, vindicator, or evoker riding a ravager.
 * Piglin, riding a Hoglin
 * Piglin, riding a Piglin on a Hoglin
 * Piglin, riding a Piglin, riding a Piglin on a Hoglin
 * Baby Strider, riding a grown up Strider
 * Zombified piglin riding a Strider

It is possible to have multiple levels, such as two parrots on the player's shoulder who is riding a horse in a minecart in a boat.

Entities can also be stacked on top of each other with the use of the and  commands. For example, using summons a spider jockey.

If an entity is riding another entity, the top entity cannot teleport because as soon as the teleport is made, the entity is teleported back to riding the other entity. Since Minecraft smooths out movements by showing entities at locations between new and old positions, this may result in seeing the entity at several locations between riding the other entity and their teleport location.

Starting from the Nether Update, entities that are riders or passengers of other entities cannot despawn.

When solid blocks are placed on an entity, they prevent blocks from being placed in the space they occupy.

Types of entities
The table below lists types of entities that currently exist in Minecraft.

Entities listed as "solid" obstruct the passage of other entities.

The size is in block lengths (measured in meters; note that 1 block is 1m3), and is the size of an axis-aligned bounding box with the specified width in both horizontal dimensions (X and Z) and the specified height in the Y dimension. This box does not rotate when the object rotates visually.

For a list of numeric entity IDs, see Java Edition data values.

Motion of entities
Gravity works differently in Minecraft than the real world, as not everything is subject to the same acceleration. Additionally, there is a drag force proportional to velocity, again dependent on the entity.

Starting at an initial upwards velocity $\text{initialVelocity}$, an entity's velocity after falling for a number of ticks $\text{ticksPassed}$ can be given by the formulas:
 * Drag applied before acceleration:
 * $$\text{finalVelocity} = \Bigl( \text{initialVelocity}\times \left(1-\text{drag} \right)^ \text{ticksPassed} \Bigr)

- \left( \text{acceleration} \times \frac{ 1 - \left( 1-\text{drag} \right)^\text{ticksPassed}}{ \text{drag} } \right)$$
 * Drag applied after acceleration :
 * $$\text{finalVelocity} = \Bigl( \text{initialVelocity}\times \left(1-\text{drag}\right)^\text{ticksPassed} \Bigr)

- \left( \text{acceleration} \times \frac{ 1 - \left( 1-\text{drag} \right) ^ \text{ticksPassed} }{ \text{drag} }\times \left(1-\text{drag} \right) \right)$$
 * Note: initialVelocity and finalVelocity are in blocks/tick, and acceleration is in blocks/tick^2.