Making your own emotes

Every Body Language emote is a small text file (JSON) that says where the player’s head, arms and legs should be at each moment. A resource pack can add new ones. They show up in the emote list (N) and can go on your wheel like the built-in emotes.

This page walks through making one. The emote file reference lists everything a file can contain.

1. Make the resource pack

In your game folder’s resourcepacks folder, make a folder for your pack with these files in it:

my-emotes/
├── pack.mcmeta
└── assets/
    └── mypack/
        ├── emotes/
        │   └── raise_the_roof.json
        └── lang/
            └── en_us.json

mypack is your pack’s namespace: any short name in lowercase letters, numbers and underscores. Use your own so your emotes never clash with someone else’s.

pack.mcmeta tells Minecraft it’s a resource pack (34 is the pack format for 1.21.1):

{
  "pack": {
    "pack_format": 34,
    "description": "My emotes"
  }
}

2. Write the emote

assets/mypack/emotes/raise_the_roof.json pumps both arms up and down until you move:

{
  "length": 20,
  "loop": true,
  "order": 500,
  "keyframes": [
    { "t": 0,  "right_arm": [-160, 0, 15], "left_arm": [-160, 0, -15] },
    { "t": 10, "right_arm": [-180, 0, 5],  "left_arm": [-180, 0, -5] },
    { "t": 20, "right_arm": [-160, 0, 15], "left_arm": [-160, 0, -15] }
  ]
}

• length is how long one go takes, in ticks. There are 20 ticks in a second, so this is one second.
• loop: true repeats it until the player moves. Leave it out for an emote that plays once.
• order is where it comes in the emote list: lower numbers first. The built-in emotes use 0 to 220.
• Each keyframe says where body parts are at time t. Body Language moves smoothly from one keyframe to the next.

The angles are in degrees. For the arms, -180 on the first number points the arm straight up (-90 points it forward), and the third number swings it out to the side. The reference explains each part.

For a looping emote, make the last keyframe the same as the first, so it flows round without a jump.

3. Give it a name

assets/mypack/lang/en_us.json gives the emote its name in the list:

{
  "emote.mypack.raise_the_roof": "Raise the Roof"
}

The key is emote.<namespace>.<file name>. Without one, the list uses the file name, tidied up. You can add other languages’ files (fr_fr.json and so on) the same way.

4. Try it

1. Turn the pack on in Options › Resource Packs.
2. Press N: Raise the Roof is in the list. Click it.
3. Change the file, save it, and press F3 + T in game to reload. Your changes show straight away.

If your emote doesn’t appear, there’s a mistake in the file. Body Language skips it and writes the reason to the game log, in a line starting Skipping emote mypack:raise_the_roof:, for example “keyframe time 25 is outside 0 to 20”.

Sharing it

Zip the pack (the files inside my-emotes, not the folder itself) and share it. On a server with Body Language, other players need the same pack to see your new emote: the server passes on which emote you’re doing, and each player’s game needs the file to know what it looks like. The server itself doesn’t need the pack.

Tips

• Start from a built-in emote. They’re in the Body Language jar (open it like a zip) under assets/tgemotes/emotes/.
• A pack can replace a built-in emote: put a file with the same name in assets/tgemotes/emotes/.
• Small moves of the head and body (a few degrees) make an emote feel alive.
• Keep raised arms close to straight up, out to the sides, or folded in: a straight arm held out forward and up, about 30 to 60 degrees above level, reads as a Nazi salute. Body Language’s own emotes are checked for it automatically.
• Add a sound or particles at a set moment with events, like the claps in Clap.