ViaBedrockUtility

A Fabric client mod that provides enhanced rendering capabilities for Minecraft Java Edition clients connecting to Bedrock servers via ViaProxy + ViaBedrock.

Inspired by BedrockSkinUtility, with some code reused from ViaBedrock.

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Features

• Custom Entity Rendering — Parses Bedrock geometry models, render controllers, and skeletal animations to render Bedrock custom entities on the Java Edition client
• Custom Player Skins — Supports Bedrock custom geometry skin models, capes, and animated skin overlays (blinking animations, etc.)
• Bedrock Camera API — Camera presets, position/rotation easing, fade in/out, camera shake
• Animation LOD System — Distance-based animation level-of-detail to optimize performance for distant entities

Architecture

Bedrock Server
    ↓ Bedrock Protocol
ViaProxy (Proxy)
    ├── ViaBedrock (Protocol Translation)
    │       ↓ Custom Payload
    └── ViaBedrockUtility (Fabric Mod, this project)
            ├── Custom Entity Rendering
            ├── Custom Player Skins
            └── Bedrock Camera API
                    ↓
                BECamera (Fabric Mod, camera library)

Communication Channels

ViaBedrock handles Bedrock → Java protocol translation on the proxy side, while forwarding data that Java Edition cannot natively express (custom entity models, Bedrock skins, camera instructions, etc.) to the client mod via Custom Payload channels:

Channel	Direction	Purpose
viabedrockutility:data	S→C	Entity model requests, animation data, skin/cape data
becamera:data	S→C	Camera presets, instructions, shake

Modules

Custom Entity Rendering

Component	Description
CustomEntityTicker	Per-entity state machine managing MoLang scope, render controller evaluation, and animation condition computation
CustomEntityRenderer	Entity renderer managing Animator instances with multi-model blended animations
CustomEntityModel	Model wrapper supporting Bedrock bone visibility control
McBoneModel / ModelPartBoneTarget	Adapter layer wrapping Minecraft ModelPart as BedrockMotion IBoneModel/IBoneTarget
GeometryUtil	Bedrock geometry → Minecraft Model conversion, handling coordinate system differences and UV scaling

Rendering Pipeline:

1. ViaBedrock sends MODEL_REQUEST payload (entity identifier, variant, skin ID, etc.)
2. CustomEntityTicker evaluates render controllers based on entity definition to determine current models/materials/textures
3. CustomEntityRenderer evaluates animation conditions each frame (MoLang expressions as blend weights) to drive skeletal animations
4. LOD system reduces animation update frequency for distant entities

Custom Player Skins

Component	Description
PayloadHandler	Manages chunked skin data reception and assembly
CustomPlayerRenderer	Custom player renderer with texture override and animation overlay support
AnimatedSkinOverlay	Animated skin overlays supporting LINEAR (sequential frame) and BLINKING (automatic eye blink) playback modes
PlayerAnimationManager	Manages Bedrock animation overrides for players, handling axis clearing against vanilla animations
PlayerSkinBuilder	Cross-version compatible SkinTextures builder

Skin Data Flow:

1. SKIN_INFORMATION — Skin dimensions, geometry JSON, chunk count
2. SKIN_DATA × N — Chunked RGBA texture data transmission
3. CAPE — Cape texture (optional)
4. SKIN_ANIMATION_INFO + SKIN_ANIMATION_DATA — Animated overlay layers (optional)

Bedrock Camera API

Component	Description
CameraPayloadHandler	Processes camera instructions, shake, and presets
CameraPresetsPayload	Decodes server-registered camera presets (with parent inheritance)
CameraInstructionPayload	Camera set (position/rotation/easing), clear, fade in/out
CameraShakePayload	Positional/rotational camera shake

Powered by the BECamera library for camera state management and Mixin injection.

Configuration

Configuration UI available via ModMenu or Sodium:

• Animation LOD Presets: HIGH_QUALITY (no LOD), BALANCED, PERFORMANCE, CUSTOM
• Custom Tiers: Control animation update frequency by distance threshold and frame interval

Dependency Chain

CubeConverter          ← Bedrock geometry model parsing
    ↓
BedrockMotion          ← Skeletal animation engine (MoLang / animation controllers / render controllers)
    ↓
ViaBedrockUtility      ← This project
    ↓
BECamera               ← Bedrock Camera API library (camera control / path interpolation)

Dependency	Version	Source	Description
CubeConverter	1.3	mavenLocal / JitPack	Bedrock geometry model parsing
BedrockMotion	1.0.0	mavenLocal / JitPack	Skeletal animation engine
BECamera	1.2.0	mavenLocal	Bedrock Camera API
Fabric API	0.119.5 ~ 0.141.3	Maven	Varies by MC version
Fabric Loader	≥0.18.0	Maven
Lombok	1.18.36	Maven	Compile-time annotation processing

Supported Minecraft Versions

Multi-version builds via Stonecutter:

1.21.5 · 1.21.6 · 1.21.7 · 1.21.8 · 1.21.9 · 1.21.10 · 1.21.11

Active development version is 1.21.11, with version-conditional compilation via //? if >=1.21.9 { comment syntax.

Usage

Required Components

1. ViaProxy — Proxy server through which the Java client connects to Bedrock servers
2. ViaBedrock — ViaProxy plugin that performs Java ↔ Bedrock protocol translation
3. ViaBedrockUtility — This mod, installed on the Fabric client

Optional Components

• BECamera — For Bedrock Camera API support (already included as a dependency)
• ModMenu / Cloth Config — Graphical configuration UI
• Sodium — 1.21.11+ can integrate with Sodium's config panel

Installation

1. Install Fabric Loader and Fabric API
2. Place viabedrockutility-mc<version>-1.0.0.jar and bedrockcameralib-mc<version>-1.2.0.jar into the client mods/ directory
3. Configure ViaProxy to connect to a Bedrock server
4. Launch the game and connect through the ViaProxy proxy

Note: Choose the jar that matches your Minecraft client version. Do not use the root-level viabedrockutility-1.0.0.jar (that's the base version for 1.21.5). Version-specific jars are located under versions/<MC version>/build/libs/.

Building

Prerequisites

• JDK 21+
• Dependency projects published to mavenLocal (see below)

Local Build

# 1. Build and publish CubeConverter
cd CubeConverter && ./gradlew publishToMavenLocal

# 2. Build and publish BedrockMotion
cd BedrockMotion && ./gradlew publishToMavenLocal

# 3. Build and publish BECamera
cd BECamera && ./gradlew publishToMavenLocal

# 4. Build ViaBedrockUtility (all MC versions)
cd ViaBedrockUtility && ./gradlew chiseledBuild

Build artifacts are located at versions/<MC version>/build/libs/viabedrockutility-mc<version>-1.0.0.jar.

If using ViaProxyWorkspace, you can build in one step:

cd ViaProxyWorkspace && ./gradlew buildViaBedrockUtility

CI Build

GitHub Actions automatically builds all dependencies from source (bypassing JitPack cache issues):

CubeConverter → BedrockMotion → BECamera → ViaBedrockUtility

Each dependency is published to mavenLocal first, then chiseledBuild builds all MC versions.

License

See the LICENSE file.