Not Enough Animations Mod (1.21.11) – Smoother and More Realistic

Not Enough Animations is a client-side animation mod that brings missing and improved third-person animations to Minecraft, available for Fabric, Forge, and NeoForge. Created by tr7zw, it overhauls how players look in third-person view by making actions like eating, climbing, rowing, and shield-blocking visually match what you see in first-person.

Anyone who has spent time watching other players in Minecraft knows the frustration: someone eats food and their arm just sits there motionless, a player rows a boat while staring blankly ahead with frozen hands, or a friend blocks with a shield facing the wrong direction entirely. These visual gaps have existed in Minecraft for years, and Not Enough Animations exists to fix every single one of them. With over 55 million downloads, it has become one of the most popular quality-of-life mods in the entire Minecraft ecosystem — and for good reason. Originally built as a companion to the First-Person Model mod, it now stands entirely on its own as an essential visual polish mod that works on any server without requiring server-side installation.

Key Features of Not Enough Animations

• Eating and Drinking Animations — In vanilla Minecraft, other players appear to just hold food near their face with no movement. Not Enough Animations adds proper eating and drinking motions in third-person, so you can actually tell when someone is consuming an item. It is a small detail that makes multiplayer interactions feel significantly more alive.
• Visible Map Holding — When a player holds a map in third-person, you can now see the actual map content rendered on it, provided your client has received the map data. This transforms maps from a static item into a functional visual element, which is especially useful in adventure maps and multiplayer exploration.
• Accurate Shield Blocking — Vanilla Minecraft rotates the shield based on body direction, not where the player is actually looking. This mod fixes that by rotating the body to match the head while blocking, so shields face the correct direction. In PvP situations, this gives you a much better visual read on where your opponent is actually defending.
• Boat Rowing Animation — Players in boats no longer sit motionless while the paddles magically move on their own. The mod adds a proper rowing animation that syncs arm movement with paddle motion, making boat travel look natural instead of eerily robotic.
• Ladder and Climbing Animation — Climbing ladders and vines now features a proper climbing motion instead of the default floating-upward look. The arms and legs move in a realistic climbing pattern, adding a layer of immersion to vertical traversal that vanilla Minecraft completely lacks.
• Crawling Animation — When a player is in a one-block-high space on land, the mod replaces the awkward swimming animation with a proper crawling motion. This is one of those fixes that once you see it, you cannot go back to the original — swimming on dry ground always looked wrong.
• Smooth Arm Transitions — All arm movements between states now blend smoothly instead of snapping from one position to another. Whether switching from holding a sword to eating bread or transitioning between idle and active states, the motion feels fluid and polished.

Screenshots

How to Install Not Enough Animations

1. Install your preferred mod loader: Fabric, Forge, or NeoForge. For the latest Minecraft 26.1 support, Fabric is currently the available option.
2. If using Fabric, also install the Fabric API as it is commonly required for Fabric-based mods to function properly.
3. Download the correct version of Not Enough Animations for your Minecraft version and mod loader from the download section below.
4. Place the downloaded .jar file into your .minecraft/mods folder. If the folder does not exist, launch Minecraft once with your mod loader profile to generate it.
5. Launch Minecraft and open the mod configuration screen through your mod list (ModMenu for Fabric or the built-in mod list for Forge/NeoForge) to customize which animations are enabled or disabled.

Requirements & Compatibility

What's New

• Added Minecraft 26.1 support for Fabric with large build script and library updates.
• Added configurable relative head and body angle, giving players more control over animation rotation behavior.
• Fixed a bug where elytra animations were overwriting vanilla animations like bow and trident throwing.
• Fixed a typo in the German language translations.
• The developer notes that due to significant 26.1 changes, players should report any issues they encounter with this release.

Pros and Cons

Alternatives to Not Enough Animations

• First Person Model — Also by tr7zw, this mod renders your full player model in first-person view and pairs perfectly with Not Enough Animations for the complete visual overhaul experience.
• Emotecraft — Adds custom player emotes and dance animations that you can trigger on demand, expanding social expression beyond the standard action animations that Not Enough Animations covers.
• Player Animator — A library and animation framework that allows other mods and resource packs to add entirely new custom player animations, useful if you want even more animation variety beyond the vanilla action fixes.

Download Not Enough Animations

Always download mods from official sources to stay safe.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Not Enough Animations need to be installed on the server?

No — Not Enough Animations is entirely client-side and does not need to be installed on any server. All animation changes are purely visual and rendered on your local client, so it works seamlessly on vanilla servers, Spigot, Paper, and any modded server without the host needing to add anything.

Is Not Enough Animations compatible with Sodium and OptiFine?

Yes, it is generally compatible with both Sodium and OptiFine since it modifies player animations rather than rendering pipelines. Because the mod only changes how player models animate in third-person, it does not conflict with performance optimization mods that handle chunk rendering and lighting.

Can I disable specific animations I don't like?

Yes — every single animation in the mod can be individually toggled on or off. Open your mod list screen (via ModMenu on Fabric or the built-in mod list on Forge/NeoForge), find Not Enough Animations, and click the config button to access the full settings screen with per-feature toggles.

Do other players need the mod installed to see my animations?

No, but there is a catch. Other players will only see your improved animations if they also have Not Enough Animations installed on their client. Since the mod is client-side only, it changes what each individual player sees — you will see improved animations on all players around you regardless of whether they have the mod.

Does Not Enough Animations work with Minecraft 26.1?

Yes — the latest version (1.12.0) added Minecraft 26.1 support for the Fabric mod loader. Forge and NeoForge builds for 26.1 are not yet available at the time of writing, so players on those loaders should use the 1.21.11 or earlier builds until updated versions are released.

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