Effects

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Effects are short, ready-made animations. You call one line, the effect plays, and it removes itself when it is done. You do not need to build or clean up anything.

They are made for moments like a kill, a death, a win or a drop.

motion.effects().shatter(location, Material.REDSTONE_BLOCK.createBlockData());
motion.effects().tombstone(location, Component.text("Steve"));
motion.effects().swordRain(location, ItemStack.of(Material.IRON_SWORD));
motion.effects().soul(location);

The location is the ground point where the effect happens. For a mob that died, use the location of the mob.

Effect	What you see	Time
`shatter(location, block)`	The block breaks into 10 small pieces. They fly out, spin, fall and shrink.	about 2 seconds
`tombstone(location, name)`	A gravestone with "RIP" and the name rises out of the ground, stays 3 seconds, and sinks back.	about 4.5 seconds
`swordRain(location, sword)`	6 swords fall from the sky one after another, stick in the ground, then vanish.	about 3.5 seconds
`soul(location)`	A glowing skull rises, spins and fades away.	about 2.5 seconds

What you give to each effect:

shatter takes the block to break, for example Material.REDSTONE_BLOCK.createBlockData(). Pick the block of the thing that died, or a color you like.
tombstone takes a Component for the name. Component.text("Steve") works. For a mob, use event.getEntity().name().
swordRain takes any ItemStack. It does not have to be a sword.
soul takes nothing else.

Each call returns the MotionDisplay, so you can still hide(player) or remove() it before it ends.

As a kill effect#

@EventHandler
public void onKill(EntityDeathEvent event) {
    Player killer = event.getEntity().getKiller();
    if (killer == null) {
        return;
    }
    Location at = event.getEntity().getLocation();
    // face the killer so the tombstone text is readable
    at.setDirection(killer.getLocation().toVector().subtract(at.toVector()));
    at.setPitch(0f);
    motion.effects().tombstone(at, event.getEntity().name());
}

Remember to register the listener with getServer().getPluginManager().registerEvents(this, this).

The front of an effect is the direction of the location's yaw. The text of the tombstone is on the front. Turn the location to the player to make the text readable. For shatter, swordRain and soul the direction does not matter.

Who sees it#

Every player within 48 blocks of the location sees the effect. If you want only one player to see it, call hide(player) for the others, or use visibleByDefault(false) and show(player).

Try them#

In the example plugin: /dm effect shatter|tombstone|swords|soul, or /dm killeffect tombstone and kill a mob.

Make your own#

An effect is only a model with an animation and display::remove at the end. The source of Effects.java is a good place to learn. See Models and Animations.

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