Effects

Effects Skill — Paper

Purpose

Reference this skill when adding visual or audio feedback to plugin actions in Paper 1.21. Covers the Particle API for visual effects and Player#playSound / World#playSound for audio.

When to Use This Skill

• Spawning particles at a location (explosions, sparkles, trails)
• Playing a sound when a player earns a reward or completes an action
• Creating ambient area effects with repeating tasks
• Using resource-pack custom sounds via namespaced keys

API Quick Reference

Code Pattern

package com.yourorg.myplugin.effects;

import org.bukkit.Color;
import org.bukkit.Location;
import org.bukkit.Particle;
import org.bukkit.Sound;
import org.bukkit.SoundCategory;
import org.bukkit.entity.Player;

public class EffectService {

    // --- Particles ---

    // Simple burst of flame particles at a location
    public void playFireBurst(Location location) {
        location.getWorld().spawnParticle(
            Particle.FLAME,
            location,
            30,      // count
            0.5,     // dx spread
            0.5,     // dy spread
            0.5,     // dz spread
            0.05     // speed
        );
    }

    // Coloured dust (for custom colour effects)
    public void playColoredDust(Location location, Color color) {
        Particle.DustOptions dust = new Particle.DustOptions(color, 1.5f);  // size 1.5
        location.getWorld().spawnParticle(
            Particle.DUST,
            location,
            50,
            0.3, 0.3, 0.3,
            0,      // speed must be 0 for dust
            dust    // particle data
        );
    }

    // Spawn particles only visible to a single player
    public void playPersonalEffect(Player player, Location location) {
        player.spawnParticle(
            Particle.TOTEM_OF_UNDYING,
            location,
            20,
            0.2, 0.5, 0.2,
            0.1
        );
    }

    // --- Sounds ---

    // Play a sound to a specific player
    public void playLevelUp(Player player) {
        player.playSound(
            player.getLocation(),
            Sound.UI_TOAST_CHALLENGE_COMPLETE,
            SoundCategory.PLAYERS,
            1.0f,    // volume (0.0–1.0, can exceed 1.0 to increase range)
            1.0f     // pitch (0.5 = low, 2.0 = high)
        );
    }

    // Play to all players in range
    public void playExplosionArea(Location location) {
        location.getWorld().playSound(
            location,
            Sound.ENTITY_GENERIC_EXPLODE,
            SoundCategory.HOSTILE,
            1.0f,
            1.0f
        );
    }

    // Custom resource-pack sound via namespaced key
    public void playCustomSound(Player player, String soundKey) {
        // soundKey example: "myplugin:level_up"
        player.playSound(
            player.getLocation(),
            soundKey,          // String form of namespaced key
            SoundCategory.MASTER,
            1.0f,
            1.0f
        );
    }
}

Common Pitfalls

• Using speed = 0 for non-directional particles: For particles that have a direction concept (FLAME, SMOKE), setting speed = 0 makes them stationary. Set a small value like 0.05 for natural spread.

• Dust particles require speed = 0: For Particle.DUST, the speed parameter is unused. Always pass 0 — nonzero values do nothing but are confusing.

• count = 0 with offset for directional particles: Setting count = 0 and non-zero dx/dy/dz creates a single particle fired in a specific direction. This is the Minecraft particle API's directional mode.

• spawnParticle on an async thread: Particle spawning is a world mutation. Must run on the main thread.

• High particle counts on large servers: Spawning 500+ particles per event handler will overwhelm clients. Keep burst counts under 100 and use repeating tasks sparingly for ambient effects.

Version Notes

• 1.21: Particle.REDSTONE was renamed to Particle.DUST. Update legacy code that uses Particle.REDSTONE.
• Particle.DustTransition (colour-fade dust) is available since 1.17 and stable in 1.21.

Related Skills

• particles.md — Full particle type reference, circle/sphere patterns
• sounds.md — Sound enum reference, stop sound, custom resource-pack sounds
• ../scheduling/scheduler-tasks.md — Repeating tasks for ambient effects