ModelEngine

Server-side 3D models and animation for Minecraft, driven by Blockbench files and delivered through a generated resource pack — no client mod required. This page covers the bone/cube model, the full bone-tag vocabulary, importing, mounts, the meg mechanic and condition indexes, and configuration.

How it works

ModelEngine takes a Blockbench Generic or Bedrock model and splits it into multiple resource-pack item models, one per bone. In-game each bone is represented by a display entity wearing its piece on its head, and the plugin animates those pieces every tick. Because everything is expressed as vanilla item models plus entity transforms, an unmodified client renders it.

Two consequences follow, and both matter constantly:

• Each bone that holds geometry costs an entity — so bone count is a performance budget, not a free abstraction.
• Cubes must obey Minecraft's item-model restrictions, while bones need not (see below).

Bones vs cubes

A cube is an individual box. A bone is a folder (a group in the Blockbench outliner) that contains cubes. The distinction drives what you can and cannot animate:

A bone with no cubes in it is a virtual bone and costs no entity — which is why mount points, seats and leash anchors are all cube-less bones.

Bone tags & behaviors

Special behaviour is requested by naming, not configuration. A bone name is <tag><id> — for phead_playerhead, the tag is phead_ and the bone's id is playerhead. ModelEngine strips the tag when generating the pack.

Player limb bones

Player-limb bones render regions of a player skin instead of your own texture, so a model can wear someone's skin. Cubes inside these bones are ignored. Apply a skin with the modelPlayerSkin mechanic.

Importing a model

1. Save the model as .bbmodel. Geometry, textures and animations all live inside that one file — no separate exports needed.
2. Drop it into plugins/ModelEngine/blueprints/. Sub-folders are fine and are recursed.
3. Start the server, or run /meg reload models.

With MythicMobs installed, models can instead live inside a Mythic pack, which keeps a themed content set together:

plugins/MythicMobs/packs/<YourPack>/models/

MythicMobs
  |-- packs
      |-- YourPackName
          |-- models
              |-- YourModel.bbmodel
              |-- otherDirectory
                  |-- AnotherModel.bbmodel

Driving models from MythicMobs

Apply a model to a Mythic mob with the model mechanic, then animate it with state:

plugins/MythicMobs/Mobs/capybara.yml

Capybara:
  Type: PIG
  Display: 'Capybara'
  Health: 40
  Options:
    Silent: true
  Skills:
  - model{mid=capybara} ~onSpawn
  - state{mid=capybara;s=attack} @self ~onAttack

For a rideable model, the mount point must exist in the model as a cube-less bone named mount, the spawning mechanic must opt in with drive=true, and mounting is performed with ModelEngine's mountModel — not MythicMobs' own mount mechanic:

plugins/MythicMobs/Mobs/mount.yml

RideableCapybara:
  Type: PIG
  Health: 40
  Skills:
  - model{mid=capybara;drive=true} ~onSpawn
  - mountModel{mid=capybara} @trigger ~onInteract

Passenger seats work the same way but use ride=true and mountModel{driver=false}.

Disambiguating a shadowed mechanic

Skills:
# The Crucible mechanic
- setitemmodel{m=3} @self

# The Model Engine mechanic
- meg:setitemmodel{mid=testmodel;bone=examplebone;i=STONE} @self

Mechanic index

ModelEngine's mechanics become available to any MythicMobs skill once the plugin is installed. They are grouped by what they act on — the base entity, a model on that entity, an individual bone, mounting, or the movement controller.

Condition index

Commands

summon and disguise share a set of key value model options; anything omitted keeps the model's default:

disguise adds three of its own:

Configuration

plugins/ModelEngine/config.yml splits into three areas. The options most likely to matter:

Version notes

Gotchas

• Cube rotations are quantised. 90° and 67.5° are simply not expressible on a cube — move the rotation onto the bone.
• Every geometry bone is an entity. Bone count is the main driver of both server tick cost and client packet volume.
• The pack is generated, not delivered. ModelEngine never sends the resource pack.
• Use mountModel, not mount, for model mounts, and remember drive=true / ride=true on the spawning mechanic.
• create-shader conflicts with MythicArmors.
• Model faces North. A model built facing another direction will appear rotated in-game.

Sources

• ModelEngine 4 Wiki — Home
• ModelEngine 4 Wiki — Creating a Model
• ModelEngine 4 Wiki — Bone Behaviors
• ModelEngine 4 Wiki — Importing a Model
• ModelEngine 4 Wiki — MythicMobs integration
• ModelEngine 4 Wiki — Mechanics
• ModelEngine 4 Wiki — Conditions
• ModelEngine 4 Wiki — Commands & Permissions
• ModelEngine 4 Wiki — Configuration
• Blockbench