Compatibility: works on NeoForge, Forge and Fabric, for Minecraft 1.20.1 and 1.21.1. 100% client-side — install it on your client and join any vanilla server.

In-game config: the NeoForge version has a native config screen and needs nothing extra. For the Forge 1.20.1 and Fabric versions, configuring in-game needs the Cloth Config API (Fabric also uses Mod Menu for the button) — this is optional: the mod works fine without it and falls back to editing the .toml config file.

Add-ons & modded mobs

If you're looking to achieve the same particle effects with mobs as in some popular mods like Born in Chaos, check out my own add-on, which is compatible with many mods.

BloodyParticles Add-ons — drop-in blood definitions that extend BloodyParticles to modded mobs.

BloodyParticles is fully extensible through add-on resource packs — no coding required. A simple blood_definitions/*.json file maps any entity to its own blood and impact particles, so you can add thematic effects for modded mobs with the exact same per-mob control the built-in mobs get. If another mod adds new creatures, an add-on makes them bleed too.

BloodyParticles

Make every hit feel meaningful. Mobs splash thematic blood and impact particles when damaged — different effects per mob, scaling with attack charge and critical hits.

Features

74 vanilla mobs covered out of the box, each with their own thematic effect (zombie redstone-blood, bee honey, blaze flame, axolotl pink-dye, …).
100% client-side — works on any vanilla server, no server install needed.
Runs on NeoForge, Forge and Fabric (Minecraft 1.20.1 and 1.21.1) from a single, unified codebase — same effects on every loader.
Configurable in-game: config GUI with sliders for intensity, view radius, critical multiplier. English / Spanish.
Hit-aware: particle count scales with attack charge and critical hits.
Custom particles: registers its own (e.g. falling feathers for chickens and parrots) with proper sprite-based physics.

This mod is a rework of a datapack that did the same thing but wasn't very user-friendly when it came to scaling the project, nor was it particularly efficient. You can view the datapack here:

BloodyParticles Datapack

This release expands BloodyParticles from a mob-blood mod into a full visual feedback layer for combat, movement, enchantments, and projectiles. Every effect below can be toggled or fine-tuned from the in-game config GUI (Mods → BloodyParticles → Config) — including thresholds, intensities, and texture variants.

Damage Source Variants

Mobs now react to how they're hit, not just that they were hit:

Fire (flame + small_flame), Lava (flame + lava drops), Drowning (bubble pops), Suffocation (stone block crack)
Poison → custom green skull smoke (rising, fading)
Wither → custom black skull smoke
Freezing → custom snowflakes (rotating, drifting)

Defaults apply to every mob automatically. Addon resourcepacks can override per mob.

Animated Custom Particles

Custom particles now support multi-frame animation via standard mcmeta. Drop name_0.png, name_1.png, … and list them in the particles JSON — feather, skulls, snowflake, and ender pearl particles all animate automatically when given multiple frames.

Low-HP Visuals

Red vignette overlay with two texture variants (V1 subtle / V2 bloody) and configurable HP threshold (1–99%).
Blood particles that pulse sparsely below the threshold and become continuous below half-threshold, with adjustable intensity.

Player Movement Effects

Sprint trail — campfire smoke behind you, with configurable warmup time. Works while riding a mount (horse galloping). Auto-skipped on ice and snow.
Falling trail — white smoke streaming behind during freefall.
Landing burst — smoke + dust + stone shards on impact (3+ block falls).
Water entry splash — biome-tinted water chunks + snow foam + dolphin sound on jumping into water.

Each can be toggled independently.

Shield Block

Wood + crit particles project forward in your look direction when blocking an attack — fully reliable even when the shield absorbs 100% of damage, and it works for any item that blocks the vanilla way, including modded shields.

Enchanted Arrows (Bow)

Flame: fire + smoke trail; bigger flame + lava + large_smoke burst on mob impact.
Power: enchanted_hit + witch trail (count scales with level); sweep_attack + dragon_breath burst on impact.
Detection works for any combination of both enchants on the same arrow.

Fire Aspect (Sword)

Melee hits with a Fire-Aspect-enchanted weapon trigger the same flame burst as Flame arrows.

- Knockback / Punch Wave;

Shockwave with swords and a bow, featuring the knockback and punch enchantments.

Boot Enchantments

Feather Falling — 2–5 feathers on landing.
Frost Walker — snowflakes + occasional end_rod sparks at your feet over water.
Soul Speed — soul + dust_plume on soul sand / soul soil. Configurable intensity.
Depth Strider — bubble, fishing, dolphin, and small white air particles around your legs underwater. Configurable intensity.

Ender Pearl

Custom wave_enderpearl anchored at each pearl tick — grows + fades, creating a "tunnel" along the pearl's path.
Custom dot_enderpearl scattering with dispersion.
Portal + occasional dragon_breath as the magical undertone.
Teleport burst of all of the above when the pearl impacts and teleports you.

On-Fire

Any burning mob (or player) emits flames and smoke. Fire-immune mobs (blaze, magma cube, ghast, wither) are skipped automatically. Configurable intensity.

Everything is configurable

The mod ships with an in-game config screen (native on NeoForge; via Cloth Config on Forge and Fabric) — every feature in this list has its own toggle, and many expose sliders for thresholds, frequencies, and intensity.

Don't like an effect? Disable it.
Want it more dramatic? Crank the slider.
Hot-reloadable from the GUI: changes apply instantly without restarting.

v4.0 - What's new

- Now on NeoForge, Forge and Fabric

BloodyParticles used to be NeoForge-only. It now runs on NeoForge, Forge and Fabric, for Minecraft 1.20.1 and 1.21.1 — the same feature set on every combination. The whole mod was reworked onto a single shared codebase (Architectury + Stonecutter), so effects behave identically across loaders and new Minecraft versions are much cheaper to support going forward.

- In-game config on every loader

NeoForge: native config screen, no extra mods.
Forge 1.20.1 / Fabric: in-game config through Cloth Config (Fabric also uses Mod Menu for the button). Optional — without them the mod still works and reads its .toml.

- Reworked shield-block detection

The result is rock-solid in both singleplayer and multiplayer, and it now works automatically with modded shields — any item that blocks the vanilla way triggers the effect, with no per-item setup.

- Multiplayer verified on all loaders

The full client-side multiplayer layer (other players' movement, enchantment, projectile and combat effects) is verified across all four loader/version combinations — still 100% client-side, still compatible with any vanilla server.

BloodyParticles!