Entity

A player standing in front of a large group of entities

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

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

General behavior

All entities have these properties:

• A position, rotation, and velocity (as according to Newtonian mechanics).
• A specific volume they occupy, which consists of multiple 3-dimensional boxes with fixed height and width (rectangle 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.
• Status 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

Falling sand that collapsed into a dungeon.

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

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 and dragon eggs in lazy chunks will delete the block below it when they fall. This glitch can be used to break bedrock, and other blocks that cannot be mined in survival mode.

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). In Pocket Edition, they will despawn after 5 seconds regardless. This means that if a block is dropped from 128 blocks, it will despawn before hitting bedrock after falling 100 blocks if there are no obstructions.

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. In Pocket Edition, any gravity-affected block (sand, gravel, red sand) generated over a cave, dungeon, or under an overhang will remain floating until it receives a block update.

Right-clicking

Entities with use interactions (such as boats, minecarts, cats, villagers, tamed parrots, 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

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, baby zombies riding chickens, and skeletons riding horses/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, or llama.
• Any type of skeleton on a spider; also known as a spider jockey.
• Any type of baby zombie or zombie pigman on a chicken; also known as a chicken jockey.
• Skeleton traps; Skeletons riding Skeleton horses.

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.

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	Network ID	Savegame ID	Notes
Players	Yes	Their inventory	No	20 () (Varies with attributes)	0.6×1.8	-	-	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	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	41	boat	Recovers health quickly over time. Takes damage from colliding with blocks or other entities at high speed.
Minecart	Yes (to projectiles and other minecarts)	1 minecart	No	6 ()	0.98×0.7	42	minecart	Recovers health quickly over time. Snaps to rails if in a block occupied by them.
Minecart with Chest	Yes (to projectiles and other minecarts)	1 minecart, 1 chest, contents of chest	No	6 ()	0.98×0.7	43	chest_minecart
Minecart with Furnace	Yes (to projectiles and other minecarts)	1 minecart, 1 furnace	No	6 ()	0.98×0.7	44	furnace_minecart
Minecart with TNT	Yes (to projectiles and other minecarts)	1 minecart, 1 TNT (unless exploded)	No	6 ()	0.98×0.7	45	tnt_minecart
Minecart with Hopper	Yes (to projectiles and other minecarts)	1 minecart, 1 hopper, contents of hopper	No	6 ()	0.98×0.7	46	hopper_minecart
Minecart with Spawner	Yes (to projectiles and other minecarts)	1 minecart	No	6 ()	0.98×0.7	47	spawner_minecart
Minecart with Command Block	Yes (to projectiles and other minecarts)	1 minecart	No	6 ()	0.98×0.7	40	commandblock_minecart
Items	Only to boats and minecarts	None	5 minutes	5 ()	0.25×0.25	1	item	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	2	xp_orb	Same behaviors as dropped items; also attracted to the player.
Arrows	Yes (to boats and minecarts)	N/A	1 minute	∞	0.5×0.5	10	arrow	Damages other entities if moving; harmless when stuck in a block (but will be launched again and can do damage if that block is destroyed). If fired by a player, can be picked up by that player or another player. Cannot be picked up if arrow is shot by skeletons, players with infinity bows, or creative players.
Snowball	Breaks on impact	N/A	No	∞	0.25×0.25	11	snowball
Egg	Breaks on impact	N/A	No	∞	0.25×0.25	7	egg	12.5% chance to spawn a baby chicken on impact.
Ender pearls	Breaks on impact	N/A	No	∞	0.25×0.25	14	ender_pearl	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	15	eye_of_ender_signal	Floats towards the end portal in the closest stronghold.
Firework rocket	No	N/A	Varies (explodes)	∞	?	22	fireworks_rocket
Primed TNT	No	N/A	4 seconds or fewer (Explodes)	∞	0.98×0.98	20	tnt
Falling sand	No	Itself as an item if hits a non-solid block, or unless hits ground	Once entity hits ground or ~4 seconds	∞	0.98×0.98	21	falling_block	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	∞	?	-	-
Lightning bolts	No	N/A	1-3 ticks	∞	?	-	-
Lead knot	No	1 Lead	No	∞	?	8	leash_knot	Drops as an item when struck
Painting	No	1 painting	No	∞	Varies	9	painting	Drops as an item when struck
Item frame	No	1 item frame plus displayed item (if displaying)	No	∞	?	10	item_frame	Drops as an item when struck
Armor stand	No	1 armor stand plus displayed items (if displaying)	No	∞	?	30	armor_stand	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)	12, 13, 19, 26	fireball, small_fireball, wither_skull, dragon_fireball
Ender crystals	Yes	N/A	No	5 ()	1.0x1.0 solid(the bedrock part) and 2.0x2.0 textured	200	ender_crystal	Explodes when damage is done in any form

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	0.03	12	0.01	3.00	60.0
Fired arrows	0.05	20	0.01	5.00	100.0
Fireballs, Wither skulls, and ender charges	0	0	0	1.90	38.0

Data values

Main article: Chunk format

Entity format

Main article: Chunk format/Entity

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History

Official release
1.1					Players can not interact with entities from far away in Creative mode.
1.4.2			12w34a		Entities can use portals.
1.9			15w36a		Most entities (exceptions being items and xp orbs) can now be pushed by other entities.
			15w45a		Entities bunched up in a 1x1 hole together no longer push away entities touching adjacent corners.
1.11			16w32a		Entity IDs are now changed to have underscores and no capital letters. They can also be used by typing minecraft: before the IDs, similar to block IDs.
					The ID for humans (Monster), Rana, Steve (mob), Black Steve, and Beast Boy (Mob) were removed.

Issues

Issues relating to “Entity” are maintained on the issue tracker. Report issues there.

See also

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

Entities

View at: Template:Entities/content [edit]

Environment

View at: Template:Environment/content [edit]