Not Enough Animations Mod: Download and Install Guide (26.3)

What Not Enough Animations does

• Eating and drinking in third person, the way they look in first person.
• Maps held up with both hands. You can even see what’s on another player’s map, if your client already knows that map (from holding it once or seeing it in an item frame).
• Holding items up: compasses and clocks are raised in front of your face. In the current settings the list also includes torches, soul torches and lanterns.
• Shields: you block where you look, so the body turns with the head while blocking.
• Bows and crossbows: the off-hand item is hidden while you draw.
• Boats, horses, ladders, crawling: rowing animations, hands on the reins, a climbing animation and a crawling animation out of water.
• Smoother arm movement and transitions overall.

What I saw in my test

I recorded every scene twice on October 13, 2026 in The Mod Hunter’s world Valley of Mods: once in vanilla Minecraft 26.3 and once with Not Enough Animations 1.12.6 and default settings, with the same camera position, the same items and the same inputs. The player stands on a terrace and is filmed from the front in third person.

• Eating: in vanilla, the arm with the steak barely lifts. With the mod, the hand brings the food to the mouth.
• Drinking and golden apples: the bottle and the apple come up to the face the same way.
• Maps: vanilla holds the map low at the side. With the mod, it’s held up with both hands.
• Compass and clock: lifted in front of the face, as if you were actually reading them.
• Bow and shield: from my front-facing camera, these two looked the same as vanilla, so I left them out of the video. The custom bow animation is off by default anyway (Bow Animation: Vanilla).

In my 26.3 tier list, it landed in B tier, number 19 of 27: really well made, but how often do you actually watch yourself in third person?

Settings worth changing

Open the settings from the mod list: on Fabric with Mod Menu, on NeoForge in the built-in mod list. Every animation can be switched on or off on its own. Worth knowing:

• On by default, beyond the ones above: Freezing Animation, Burning Animation, Pet Wolfs/Cats, Item Swap Animation, Tweak Elytra Flying, In-World Map Rendering, No Sleep Items and No Sleep Movement.
• Off by default: Horse Riding Leg Animation, Simple Hugging Animation, “Naruto Running” and a Falling Animation marked as work in progress. Try them if you like.
• Bow Animation: Vanilla by default, Custom V1 as the alternative.
• Hold Up Items tab: Holding Up Mode decides which items get lifted: All Items, No Items, Only Config Items (default) or Not Config Items.
• Animation Smoothing: on, with its own Smoothing Amount.
• Rotation Lock: None by default, Fixed or Smooth as options.

Compatibility

• Loaders: separate files for Fabric and NeoForge, with no dependencies listed for 1.12.6.
• Servers: purely visual, so it works on vanilla and modded servers alike. Other players only see the animations if they have the mod too.
• First-Person Model: the mod was made as an add-on for it and works with it, but it doesn’t need it.
• Same developer: tr7zw also makes 3D Skin Layers and Entity Culling.

Troubleshooting

• The game crashes when you crawl: that was a bug in 1.12.5 (issue #346). Update to 1.12.6.
• A map in another player’s hand looks empty: your client hasn’t received that map yet. Hold it once yourself or look at it in an item frame.
• One animation looks wrong with another mod: switch off just that animation in the settings instead of removing the mod.
• Nothing changes in first person: that’s expected. The mod only changes how you and other players look in third person.

Alternatives

• First-Person Model by the same developer shows your own body in first person. Not Enough Animations was made to go with it.
• 3D Skin Layers is the natural partner: your skin gets real depth, and your arms actually move with what you’re doing.

How to install Not Enough Animations

Download Not Enough Animations 1.12.6 for your loader from the official Modrinth page, put it into your mods folder and start the game. Switch to third person with F5 and eat something. New to Fabric? Step by step: How to install Fabric mods in Minecraft 26.3.

Verdict

Not Enough Animations is for players who play or record in third person, or who want other modded players to look alive.

• Pro: eating, drinking, maps, compasses and clocks finally look right in third person.
• Pro: no dependencies, client only, works on any server.
• Pro: every animation has its own switch.
• Con: you only see it in third person, and others only see yours if they have it too.
• Con: bow and shield changes were hard to spot in my test.

Eating is also where AppleSkin helps: it shows what each food is worth before you take a bite.