Species (resource pack)

How a species looks. Never loaded by a dedicated server.

A species is drawn from up to three resource-pack files, all in standard Bedrock formats that Blockbench exports, plus one small file for the things Bedrock has no field for:

File	Location	Holds
Client entity	assets/<ns>/ancientcreature/entity/*.json	Geometry, textures, materials, animations, scripts, render controllers
Render controller	assets/<ns>/ancientcreature/render_controllers/*.json	Which geometry, texture layers and bones to draw, chosen by Molang
Species settings	assets/<ns>/ancientcreature/species/<name>.json	Shadow, render scale, GUI framing

Geometry, animations and animation controllers live under ancientcreature/geo/, ancientcreature/animations/ and ancientcreature/animation_controllers/. See Bedrock geometry, Bedrock animations and Animation controllers.

Client entity

A standard Bedrock minecraft:client_entity. Its description.identifier is the species id it dresses. This is the shipped Triceratops:

{
  "format_version": "1.10.0",
  "minecraft:client_entity": {
    "description": {
      "identifier": "ancientcreature:triceratops",
      "materials": { "default": "entity_alphatest" },
      "textures": {
        "default": "textures/entity/triceratops",
        "mottled": "textures/entity/triceratops_mottled",
        "saddle": "textures/entity/gear/triceratops_saddle",
        "armor_iron": "textures/entity/gear/triceratops_armor_iron",
        "armor_golden": "textures/entity/gear/triceratops_armor_golden",
        "armor_diamond": "textures/entity/gear/triceratops_armor_diamond",
        "armor_netherite": "textures/entity/gear/triceratops_armor_netherite"
      },
      "geometry": { "default": "geometry.triceratops" },
      "animations": {
        "idle": "animation.triceratops.idle",
        "walk": "animation.triceratops.walk",
        "charge": "animation.triceratops.charge",
        "graze": "animation.triceratops.graze",
        "bellow": "animation.triceratops.bellow",
        "main": "controller.animation.triceratops.main"
      },
      "scripts": { "animate": ["main"] },
      "render_controllers": ["controller.render.ancientcreature.triceratops"]
    }
  }
}

Field	Notes
identifier	The species id, e.g. mypack:dodo
textures	Written the Bedrock way: relative to the pack root, without .png. Resolved in the file's own namespace unless the path names one (othermod:textures/...)
geometry	Short name → geometry.* identifier from a .geo.json
materials	Short name → material. Names containing alphablend, translucent or blend render translucent, names containing emissive render full-bright, everything else renders cutout (entity_alphatest)
animations	Short name → animation.* or controller.animation.*
scripts.initialize	Molang run once when the creature is first drawn, typically to set variable.*
scripts.pre_animation	Molang run every frame before animating
scripts.animate	Animations and controllers to run every frame: names, or { "name": "blend weight or condition" }
scripts.scale, scalex/scaley/scalez	Molang render scale, on top of growth scale and render_scale
render_controllers	Names, or { "name": "condition" } to apply a controller only while the condition holds
sound_effects	Short name → sound event id, for animation sound_effects tracks
particle_effects	Short name → particle id, for animation particle_effects tracks. Java particle ids that take no options (minecraft:flame, minecraft:heart, ...) work, plus the common Bedrock built-ins (minecraft:basic_smoke_particle, heart_particle, ...)

All Molang is the full Bedrock language and can read every query.

Without a render controller

If a client entity lists no render controller (or none applies), the default geometry is drawn with the texture named after the creature's variant, falling back to default. That is enough for a simple species, but saddles and armor only show through a render controller.

Render controllers

A standard Bedrock render controller file. The shipped species all use the same shape: a skin chosen by variant, then armor and saddle layers on top.

{
  "format_version": "1.8.0",
  "render_controllers": {
    "controller.render.ancientcreature.triceratops": {
      "arrays": {
        "textures": {
          "Array.skins": ["Texture.default", "Texture.mottled"],
          "Array.armor": ["Texture.armor_iron", "Texture.armor_golden", "Texture.armor_diamond", "Texture.armor_netherite"]
        }
      },
      "geometry": "Geometry.default",
      "materials": [{ "*": "Material.default" }],
      "textures": [
        "Array.skins[query.variant]",
        "query.armor_tier > 0 ? Array.armor[query.armor_tier - 1] : 0",
        "query.is_saddled ? Texture.saddle : 0"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Supported: arrays (textures, geometries, materials), geometry, textures (several entries are drawn as stacked layers; an entry that evaluates to 0 draws nothing), materials, part_visibility (bone patterns with * wildcards, later rules winning), color, overlay_color, is_hurt_color, on_fire_color and ignore_lighting.

Gear overlays are ordinary texture layers on the creature's own geometry, so a saddle or armor texture is the same size as the skin and only paints the pixels the gear covers. query.armor_tier is 0 without armor, then 1–4 for iron, golden, diamond and netherite.

Species settings

assets/<namespace>/ancientcreature/species/<name>.json

{
  "format_version": 2,
  "shadow_radius": 0.9,
  "render_scale": 1.0,
  "gui": {
    "scale": 12.72,
    "translation": [0.0, 0.0, 0.0],
    "rotation": [0.0, 215.0, 0.0]
  }
}

Field	Type	Default	Notes
format_version	int	2	1 is the earlier format, see below
client_entity	id	the species id	Which client entity to use, if its identifier differs from the species id
shadow_radius	float 0–16	0.5	Multiplied by the creature's growth scale
render_scale	float	1.0	Visual only; does not change the hitbox
gui	object	see below	Framing in GUIs

The whole file is optional: a client entity whose identifier is the species id is used with default shadow and GUI settings.

If a species has neither, the log says so once, naming both places it looked.

gui

Creatures differ enormously in proportion, so one hard-coded framing cannot suit them all. These values place each one in the Fossil Identification Chamber's preview.

Field	Type	Default	Notes
scale	float	12.0	Zoom. Bigger creatures want a smaller number
translation	[x, y, z]	[0, 0, 0]	Nudge inside the cell; y moves it up or down
rotation	[x, y, z]	[0, 215, 0]	Euler angles in degrees

Variants

Which variant a creature has is decided by the server, from the datapack's variants list, and saved on the creature. The resource pack only decides what each variant looks like:

• with a render controller, read query.variant (the variant's position in the datapack list, so 0 is the first) or query.variant_name (its id), as Array.skins[query.variant] does above;
• without one, give the client entity a texture named after each variant id.

Format version 1

Packs written for earlier releases name the files directly:

{
  "format_version": 1,
  "geometry": "mypack:dodo",
  "texture": "mypack:textures/entity/dodo.png",
  "animations": "mypack:dodo",
  "controller": "mypack:dodo",
  "shadow_radius": 0.5,
  "variants": [
    { "id": "default", "texture": "mypack:textures/entity/dodo.png" },
    { "id": "albino", "texture": "mypack:textures/entity/dodo_albino.png" }
  ]
}

These still load. They are converted on load to an equivalent client entity, and their geometry and animations, which were authored for the earlier axis handling, are converted so the species looks exactly as it did. Variant textures listed here are used for the variant ids the server rolls; the weights in this file are ignored, since the server now rolls variants from the datapack. geometry and texture are required in format 1.

New packs should use a client entity: it is what Blockbench exports, and it is the only way to get render controllers, gear layers and scripts.