Minecraft Environment Attributes

Environment Attributes

Environment attributes control visual effects and gameplay mechanics per environment. Java Edition only (flagged for 26.3 updates).

Sources and Modifiers

There are four environment attribute sources, applied in order: dimension, biome, timeline, and weather. Dimensions and weather provide global attributes; timelines provide time-based ones; biomes provide position-based ones.

When several sources provide the same attribute, modifiers decide how they combine. All attributes support override (only the last-applied value counts). Example: Overworld dimension sets sky color blue, plains biome sets green → green in plains, blue elsewhere.

Interpolation

Interpolatable attributes transition smoothly when moving between different values. Interpolation applies in: camera-position attributes (biomes within a 10-block radius contribute by occupied volume) and timeline attribute tracks (interpolated by track and time). Example: cloud height 100 (dimension) vs 1700 (plains) → smooth blend at the border.

Technical Details

Three independent systems:

• Server world environment attributes — the normal system (dimension/biome/timeline/weather).
• Client world environment attributes — same sources; plus with lightning (when "hide sky flash" off, within 2 ticks): visual/sky_color linearly interpolates toward #CCF0FF with factor 0.22, and visual/sky_light_factor becomes 1.0.
• Environment attributes in unfinished chunks — empty before 26.3; from 26.3 only dimension and biome sources.

Definition Format

Two forms:

• Attribute map — in the attributes field of dimension type and biome definitions: { <attribute ID>: value } (implicit override) or { <attribute ID>: {modifier: <type>, argument: ...} }.
• Attribute track — in timeline definition files (see the time-line skill).

Weather attributes are hardcoded and unmodifiable (see Weather below).

Common Types

• RGB color — string #rrggbb (case-insensitive, exactly 6 hex chars after #), int (Red<<16 + Green<<8 + Blue; top 8 bits ignored), or list of 3 floats [0,1].
• ARGB color — string #aarrggbb (8 chars), int (Alpha<<24 + Red<<16 + Green<<8 + Blue), or list of 4 floats [0,1] (R,G,B,A).

Attribute List

Visual

• visual/fog_color — fog color (also affected by time of day, effects). RGB, default #000000. Interpolatable at camera.
• visual/fog_start_distance — fog start distance in blocks (negative = fog starts behind the camera). Float, default 0.0.
• visual/fog_end_distance — fog end (view) distance; final value never < 96 blocks. Float > 0, default 1024.0.
• visual/sky_fog_end_distance — sky fog end distance. Float > 0, default 512.0.
• visual/cloud_fog_end_distance — cloud fog end distance. Float > 0, default 2048.0.
• visual/water_fog_color — underwater fog color. RGB, default #050533.
• visual/water_fog_start_distance — Float, default −8.0.
• visual/water_fog_end_distance — Float > 0, default 96.0 (also depends on time underwater).
• visual/sky_color — sky color. RGB, default #000000.
• visual/sunrise_sunset_color — sunrise/sunset tint (rendered only in the overworld skybox; transparent = not rendered). ARGB, default #00000000.
• visual/cloud_color — cloud color (transparent = no clouds rendered, entities not "in clouds"). ARGB, default #00000000.
• visual/cloud_height — cloud height (entities within cloud height..+4 consider themselves in clouds when opacity ≠ 0). Float, default 192.33.
• visual/sun_angle / visual/moon_angle / visual/star_angle — celestial body elevation angles in degrees (0 = directly above, clockwise from east; rendered only in the overworld skybox). Sun angle also affects clocks and daylight detectors. Float, default 0.0; interpolation jumps directly when the 360-modulo'd difference exceeds 90.
• visual/moon_phase — moon phase (rendering, moonlight, item models). Enum, default full_moon: full_moon, waning_gibbous, third_quarter, waning_crescent, new_moon, waxing_crescent, first_quarter, waxing_gibbous. Override only, not interpolatable.
• visual/star_brightness — star brightness (vanilla: 0.5 at night, 0 day). Float 0–1, default 0.0.
• visual/block_light_tint — block light tint (gray at low light, tinted mid, white at high). RGB, default #FFD88C. Provides lightmap shader uniform BlockLightTint.
• visual/sky_light_color — sky light visual color. RGB, default #FFFFFF. Provides SkyLightColor.
• visual/sky_light_factor — sky light visual brightness (multiplies sky light color). Float 0–1, default 0.0. Provides SkyFactor.
• visual/night_vision_color — night vision light color (per-channel max with visual/ambient_light_color). RGB, default #999999. Provides NightVisionColor.
• visual/ambient_light_color — ambient light color. RGB, default #FFFFFF. Provides AmbientColor.
• visual/default_dripstone_particle — dripstone default dripping particle when no liquid above. Particle options, default {"type": "minecraft:dripping_dripstone_water"}. Override only.
• visual/ambient_particles — ambient particles attempted every tick around the camera on incomplete-collision blocks. List of {particle (particle data), probability (0–1)}, default empty. Override only.

Audio

• audio/background_music — background music (category music, follows the player; music popup key = sound path with / → .): default (sound, min_delay, max_delay (capped at 24000 ticks by the music frequency option), replace_current_music), optional underwater, creative. Default empty object; override only.
• audio/music_volume — background music volume. Float 0–1, default 1.0. Interpolatable.
• audio/ambient_sounds — ambient sounds (category ambient): loop (loops while in the biome, fades in/out), mood (sound, tick_delay, block_search_extent (cube half-side ×2), offset), additions (list of {sound, tick_chance}). Default empty; override only.
• audio/firefly_bush_sounds — whether firefly bushes can produce ambient sounds/particles (still need open sky etc.). Bool, default false.

Gameplay

• gameplay/sky_light_level — sky light intensity for behavior (Phantom spawns, daylight detectors, mob spawn light); does NOT affect brightness rendering. Float 0–15, default 15.0. Dimension-wide (not position-based).
• gameplay/can_start_raid — whether Ominous players can start raids (not synced to client). Bool, default true.
• gameplay/water_evaporates — water evaporates: buckets (via #water fluids) cannot place, ice cannot make water, wet sponges dry instantly, dripstone cannot turn mud into clay. Bool, default false.
• gameplay/bed_rule — bed behavior (not synced): can_sleep / can_set_spawn = always / when_dark (internal sky light ≤ 11; always passes when the dimension has has_fixed_time) / never; explodes (default false — bed explodes on use); destroy_on_leave (no effect); error_message (text component; only for sleep/spawn failures). Default: sleep when_dark, spawn always.
• gameplay/respawn_anchor_works — whether respawn anchors work (else they explode). Bool, default false.
• gameplay/straw_bed_rule (Java 26.3 dev) — like bed_rule for straw beds: can_sleep/can_set_spawn conditions, destroy_on_use (default false), destroy_on_leave (default false), error_message.
• gameplay/nether_portal_spawns_piglin — whether nether portals spawn zombified piglins. Bool, default false.
• gameplay/fast_lava — lava flows faster/farther and pushes harder. Bool, default false. Dimension-wide.
• gameplay/increased_fire_burnout — fire burns out faster with higher chance to burn blocks (not synced). Bool, default false.
• gameplay/eyeblossom_open — eyeblossom conversion (potted too): open, close, default (never converts). Enum, default default.
• gameplay/turtle_egg_hatch_chance — per-random-tick hatch progress chance. Float 0–1, default 0.002.
• gameplay/piglins_zombify — whether piglins, piglin brutes, and hoglins zombify. Bool, default true.
• gameplay/snow_golem_melts — snow golems take 1 fire damage per tick. Bool, default false.
• gameplay/creaking_active — creaking hearts activate (true) or stay dormant (false). Bool, default false.
• gameplay/surface_slime_spawn_chance — base surface slime spawn chance in #allows_surface_slime_spawns biomes (moonlight also matters). Float 0–1, default 0.0.
• gameplay/cat_waking_up_gift_chance — cat morning gift chance. Float 0–1, default 0.0.
• gameplay/bees_stay_in_hive — bees always return to hives and don't leave. Bool, default false.
• gameplay/monsters_burn — mobs burn in daylight (not synced). All must hold: not player/player-model/armor stand and in #burn_in_daylight; attribute true at position; not in water/rain/powder snow; eye-position sky light 15; the internal light formula (60a−4ai+i)/(60−3i) > 0.5; empty helmet slot (zombie horses/zombified nautiluses check body armor). Bool, default false.
• gameplay/can_pillager_patrol_spawn — whether pillager patrols can spawn. Bool, default true.
• gameplay/villager_activity / gameplay/baby_villager_activity — adult/baby villager schedule activity, fetched once per second (not synced). Villager activity enum, default idle; meaningful: core, hide, idle, meet, panic, pre_raid, raid, rest, work (+ play for babies). Override only.

Modifiers

Modifiers take input value (automatic) + argument value + modifier type.

• override — replace with the argument. Implicit when mapping an attribute ID directly to a value.
• Boolean (and, nand, or, nor, xor, xnor) — boolean logic with the argument.
• Float — add, subtract, multiply, minimum, maximum, alpha_blend (linear interpolation between input and value with sample point alpha 0–1, default 1 — alpha 1 = override).
• Color (RGB and ARGB variants; per-channel results clamped to [0,255]) — add, subtract, multiply; alpha_blend (result per channel K: K×(1 + A/255), all four channels; A=255 = override); blend_to_gray (gray = brightness×(0.3R+0.59G+0.11B), output = lerp(factor, channel, gray)).

Weather Attributes

The weather source is hardcoded and applies only when the dimension allows weather (has_skylight true, has_ceiling false, not The End).

Other Uses

• Loot predicate environment_attribute_check — checks a server-side environment attribute against an exact value.
• Number provider environment_attribute — reads numeric server-side attributes (floats and celestial angles, not colors) for loot and villager trade computations.
• Both fetch at the loot context's origin position.