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MiscEntities

A player standing infront of a large group of entities

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

General behavior

All entities have these properties:

  • A position, velocity, and rotation (as according to Newtonian mechanics).
  • A specific volume they occupy, which is a 3-dimensional box with a fixed height and width (square when viewed from the top, and not rotating).
  • Current health.
  • Whether they are on fire. Fire reduces health gradually and displays flames covering the entity.
  • Active effects, caused mainly by potions. Spiders can also spawn with effects when playing on Hard mode.

Most entities can be pushed around by water currents. Some entities can be renamed by using a name tag on them.

Entities cannot pass through solid blocks. 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. Also, if an entity does overlap a block, (due to falling sand or a door being swung), 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 will turn black (since 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, armor stands, ender crystals and lead knots are unique in that, although they are entities, they align to the block grid and are completely immobile.

Arrows, TNT and falling sand (and its variants) are assumed to have infinite health because they are not destroyed by explosions (they can 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 /kill command.

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.

Gravity-affected blocks

File:2012-02-01 16.44.23.png

Falling sand that collapsed into a dungeon.

Gravity-affected blocks include sand, gravel, anvils, red sand and dragon eggs.

They normally exist as a block, but when their support is removed, they turn into a Falling(object) entity and fall down until they hit another object, at which point it places itself as a block in the nearest on-grid position, or turns into an item if that position is occupied by a non-solid block (for instance, a torch). The only exceptions are anvils, which will delete any non-solid block it falls onto.

While these blocks ordinarily fall straight down, their trajectory can be redirected by explosions, and pistons with slime blocks. It is also possible to modify the velocity and direction of falling sand by using commands, or third-party programs. Gravity-affected blocks will despawn or drop as an item if they do not land after 30 seconds of falling (decreasing to 5 seconds if it is in the Void).

If, when the world is created, a cave is generated underneath sand, Minecraft will fail to update the sand (which is purposefully coded by the game) and the sand will remain floating until it receives a block update. This latter fact means that a single falling sand block can trigger the collapse of an entire region of sand.

Right-clicking

Entities with use interactions (such as boats, minecarts, cats, villagers and tamed wolves) do not stop the use action of a tool you are holding. For example, if you press use on a tamed wolf with a water bucket in your hand, the wolf will sit, but you will also empty the bucket near or onto the wolf.

Riding

Skeleton-spider-desert

A spider jockey.

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. But there are exceptions: Players riding minecarts/boats/saddled horses; and baby zombies riding chickens. The only current legitimate combinations of riding entities are:

It is possible to have multiple levels, such as a player on a pig in a minecart.

Entities can also be stacked on top of each other with the use of the /summon and /entitydata commands. For example, using /summon Spider ~ ~ ~ {Passengers:[{id:Skeleton}] will summon 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.

EntitiesHitboxes

The hitboxes of several entities. Note the blue line which points to the direction the entity is "facing."

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 Data values.

Type Solid Drops Despawns Health Width × Height ID Notes
Players Yes Contents of their inventory No 20♥ × 10 (Varies with attributes) 0.6×1.8 Player Special case: Notch also drops an apple.

Note: Players will also become un-rendered around 64 blocks away

Mobs Yes see Drops see Spawn Varies Varies see Entity IDs

Boats
Yes Sticks and wood planks if broken with fall damage, boat if hit by a player No 6♥♥♥ 1.5×0.6 Boat (41) Recovers health quickly over time.
Takes damage from colliding with blocks or other entities at high speed.

Minecarts
Yes (to projectiles and other minecarts) 1 minecart No 6♥♥♥ 0.98×0.7 MinecartRideable (42), MinecartChest (43), MinecartFurnace (44), MinecartTNT (45), MinecartHopper (46), MinecartSpawner (47), MinecartCommandBlock (40) Recovers health quickly over time.
Snaps to rails if in a block occupied by them.
Items Only to boats and minecarts None 5 minutes 5♥♥♥ 0.25×0.25 Item (1) Destroyed by explosions, fire, lava, cacti, and falling anvils, but cannot be struck. The only exception is the Nether Star, which cannot be blown up.
Experience orbs No None 5 minutes 5♥♥♥ 0.3×0.3 XPOrb (2) Same behaviors as dropped items; also attracted to the player.
Arrows Yes (to boats and minecarts) n/a 1 minute 0.5×0.5 Arrow (10) Damages other entities if moving; harmless when stuck in a block.
Snowballs
Eggs
Breaks on impact n/a No 0.25×0.25 Snowball (11), ThrownEgg (7) Eggs may spawn a chicken on impact. (1/8 chance)
Ender pearls Breaks on impact n/a No 0.25×0.25 ThrownEnderpearl (14) Teleports player on impact and deals 5♥♥♥ of fall damage
Eye of ender No Eye of ender after flight (1:5 chance of shattering) No 0.25×0.25 EyeOfEnderSignal (15) Floats towards the end portal in the closest stronghold.
Firework rocket No n/a Varies (explodes) ? FireworksRocketEntity (22)
Primed TNT No n/a 4 seconds or fewer
(Explodes)
0.98×0.98 PrimedTnt (20)
Falling sand No Itself as an item (unless hits ground) Once entity hits ground or ~4 seconds 0.98×0.98 FallingSand (21) Drops itself when landing in a non-solid block such as a torch.
Fishing rod bobbers Only to boats and minecarts n/a 1 minute ? unknown This entity has a different name for different languages, unknown being the name in English.
Lightning bolts No n/a 1-3 ticks ? LightningBolt
Lead knots
Paintings
Item frames
Armor stands
No 1 Lead, 1 painting, 1 item frame or 1 armor stand (item frames will drop item inside; armor stand will drop armor/equipment on it) No Varies LeashKnot (8), Painting (9), ItemFrame (18), ArmorStand (30) Drops as an item when struck
Fireballs
Wither skulls
Ender charges
Explodes on impact/deflected on hit n/a 1 minute 1.0×1.0 (Ghast), 0.3125×0.3125 (Blaze) Fireball (12), SmallFireball (13), WitherSkull (19), DragonFireball (26) Only ghast fireballs can be deflected.
Ender crystals Yes n/a No 5♥♥♥ 1.0x1.0 solid(the bedrock part) and 2.0x2.0 textured EnderCrystal (200) Explodes when struck by anything, regardless of damage inflicted

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.

Kind Acceleration
blocks/tick2
Acceleration
m/s2
Drag
1/tick
Terminal velocity
blocks/tick
Terminal velocity
m/s
Players and other living entities 0.08 32 0.02 3.92 78.4
Items, falling blocks, and TNT 0.04 16 0.02 1.96 39.2
Boats and minecarts 0.04 16 0.05 0.76 15.2
Thrown eggs, snowballs, potions, and ender pearls [note 1] 0.03 12 0.01 3.00 60.0
Fired arrows[note 1] 0.05 20 0.01 5.00 100.0
Fireballs, Wither skulls, and ender charges 0 0 0 1.90 38.0
  1. a b Note that when thrown objects and arrows are simulated, the drag is applied before the acceleration, rather than after; this is why their terminal velocities are whole numbers while the others aren't.

Data values

Main article: Chunk format

Entity format

Main article: Chunk format/Entity
[edit]

Video

Entity/video

History

release
1.1Players can not interact with entities from far away in Creative mode.
1.4.212w34aEntities can use portals.
1.915w36aMost entities (exceptions being items and xp orbs) can now be pushed by other entities.
15w45aEntities bunched up in a 1x1 hole together no longer push away entities touching adjacent corners.

Issues

Issues relating to "Entity" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.

See also

  • Block entity - unlike the entities mentioned above, these are simply blocks which store additional pieces of data.


Entities 

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