Custom Item Particle Effects in Minecraft – Step by Step Tutorial (Java Edition)

Hey everybody, it’s UnderMyCap, and welcome back to another video! Today I’m going to be showing you how to add some very cool particle effects to your Minecraft items. This is a really simple command that I’m sure many of you will be able to learn by the end of this post. It involves the execute command, the particle command, and a few other things that I’ll walk you through right here. If you’d prefer to follow along visually, you can watch the full video below!

What You’ll End Up With

To give you an idea of the end result, the item in my example is a diamond, and when it’s dropped on the ground it has a beautiful trail following behind it. I chose the water dripping effect because it has a lovely bluish colour that matches the diamond nicely. You can of course choose whatever particle effect and item combination you’d like — this is just an example to get you started!

Getting Started – Setting Up Your Command Block

The first thing you’ll need to do is grab a command block. To do this, simply type the following into your chat:

/give @s command_block

Once you have the command block, place it down on the ground. The reason we’re using a command block for this tutorial is that we want the command to repeat continuously so that the particle effect keeps appearing on the item. If you simply type a command into the chat it only runs once, but by setting the command block to Repeat mode it will constantly re-run the command and keep that particle effect looking amazing.

Writing the Command

Now it’s time to write the command inside the command block. Open the command block interface and start typing. The command uses the execute command combined with the particle command. Here’s how to build it step by step.

Start with /execute, then type @e — the e stands for entity. We’re targeting an entity here because a dropped item in Minecraft is treated as an entity. If you wanted to apply a particle effect to a player instead, you would use @a followed by the player’s name. After @e, type [name= followed by the name of your item — for example, diamond. Make sure the capitalisation matches the item name exactly, as Minecraft commands are case sensitive. For instance, if your item name includes a capital letter (such as a capital G in Glowstone), you must include that capital letter in your command or it won’t work.

Next, you want to run the particle command, so type run particle followed by the name of the particle effect you’d like to use. In my example I used lava dripping on a piece of glowstone, but feel free to choose whichever particle suits your item best.

After selecting your particle, you’ll need to specify the coordinates using three tilde (~) symbols, which directs the particle to the exact position of the item. The three values represent the X, Y, and Z coordinates relative to the item. For example, if you want the particles to appear above the item you can increase the Y value, and if you want them to appear below the item you can use a negative value like ~-1 for Y. You can adjust X and Z with positive or negative numbers to shift the effect in any direction you like.

After your coordinates, add three zeros for the spread values. If you’d like a little bit of spread on the particles you can set a value like 0.1 instead. Then set the speed to 0, the count to 1, and finally add force at the end. This last part — force — was added in a newer update and is easy to forget, so make sure it’s included at the end of your command!

A Few Things to Keep in Mind

Once your command is entered correctly and your command block is set to Repeat mode, you’ll see the particle effect appear around your item as soon as it’s dropped on the ground. It looks incredibly cool — you can even throw the item and watch the particle trail follow along behind it! One thing worth noting is that the particle effect will only appear when the item is dropped on the ground. While the item is sitting in your inventory it won’t display the effect, but the moment you toss it out it will start looking fantastic again.

Final Thoughts

And that’s really all there is to it! With just a command block set to Repeat mode, the execute command, and the particle command, you can create some truly eye-catching effects for your Minecraft items. I hope you found this tutorial helpful and feel inspired to experiment with different particles and items. If you have any questions or suggestions for future videos, please feel free to leave them in the comments — I love reading through them and hearing your ideas. Thank you so much for reading, and I hope to see you in the next one!