Living Wind

About

Living Wind brings a dynamic wind system to Minecraft, making the world feel more alive through atmospheric particles, immersive sounds, and realistic wind behavior.

Rather than simply blowing in one direction at a constant speed, wind naturally changes throughout the day, responds to weather and environmental conditions, and interacts with the world around you.

By default, Living Wind affects particles from both vanilla Minecraft and other mods (with some exceptions defined in the particle blacklist), without requiring dedicated compatibility. The mod integrations listed below provide additional or specialized behavior for specific mods.

Features

• Dynamic wind simulation  –  Wind direction and strength continuously evolve based on weather, biomes, time of day, altitude, and approaching storms.
• Gusts & windy periods  –  From brief, unpredictable gusts to longer stretches of strong, turbulent wind, no two days feel quite the same.
• Atmospheric particles  –  Leaves, grass, petals, dust, wind streaks, and other particles drift naturally through the air, reacting to and visualizing the wind’s direction and strength.
• Tree-specific falling leaves  –  Broadleaf trees release fluttering leaves, while coniferous trees shed smaller needle clusters with their own wind physics. Leaf types are automatically detected and can be customized for modded trees through the config.
• Immersive wind audio  –  Gentle breezes, powerful gusts, and howling winds blend dynamically, with different sounds depending on the environment.
• Smart shelter detection  –  Wind effects become quieter and weaker inside buildings and sheltered areas, while the world outside continues to experience the weather.
• Wind-powered decorations & redstone  –  Place wind vanes and animated miniature windmills that follow the wind, including redstone variants that respond to its direction or strength.
• Optional wind influence on entities – Wind can push players, mobs, and projectiles, with stronger effects while airborne. Disabled by default, with separate toggles and adjustable wind strength for each entity type.
• Extensive customization  –  Fine-tune the wind simulation, audio, particles, and compatibility features through in-game configuration menus.

Living Wind also integrates with numerous other mods, allowing wind to influence everything from environmental animations to machinery. See the Mod Integrations section below for details.

Shelter detection

One of Living Wind’s key features is its ability to distinguish between exposed and sheltered areas. Step inside a cosy cabin, and the wind gradually fades away while leaves continue blowing past your windows outside.

Dimension support

Living Wind supports dimension-specific wind behavior, with the Overworld using normal wind, the Nether featuring weaker background winds and stronger gusts, and the End having wind disabled by default.

Through the in-game Dimension Settings, you can customize wind behavior for any vanilla or modded dimension, choosing between Normal, Reduced Gusty, Very Weak, and Disabled modes.

The Nether also features wind sounds, ambient particles from natural blocks, a separate wind shelter detection system adapted to its enclosed environment, and wind-driven Nether Storm fog animations when using Complementary Reimagined shaders (with or without Euphoria Patches).

Wind Instruments & Redstone

Living Wind adds four decorative and functional blocks that interact with the world’s wind simulation. Watch them respond naturally to changing wind conditions, or use their redstone variants to bring wind-powered automation into your builds!

• Wind Vane – A decorative bird-shaped weather vane that smoothly rotates to indicate the current wind direction.
• Redstone Wind Vane – A functional variant featuring illuminated directional indicators and redstone outputs that change depending on which way the wind is blowing.
• Windmill – A miniature windmill with a rotating head and animated blades. Its blades spin faster or slower depending on wind strength, while the windmill turns to follow the changing wind direction.
• Redstone Windmill – Combines the animated windmill with a redstone signal that scales with wind strength. Its illuminated indicators also change as the wind grows stronger, making it useful for wind-powered contraptions and automation.

All four blocks respond to Living Wind’s dynamic wind system, allowing you to build everything from cosy weather stations to functional redstone machinery.

Mod Integrations

Living Wind integrates with popular mods, bringing dynamic wind interactions to animations, particles, audio, and gameplay. Most integrations can be customized or disabled in the config.

 

1. Visual & Gameplay Integrations

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1.1 Additional Functional Integrations

• Small Ships – Sailing wind direction and strength now follow Living Wind’s simulation, while retaining the original sailing mechanics.
• Create: Coasters Simulated – Red balloons react to Living Wind’s direction and strength.
• Coasters: Tracks and Balloons – Extends wind effects to the additional balloon color variants.
• Treasure Balloons – Floating treasure balloons move with Living Wind’s direction and strength, remaining stationary when there’s no wind.
• Chimes – Hanging chimes sway with the wind’s direction and strength, while their ambient sounds become more or less frequent depending on wind conditions and shelter.
• Swinging Hanging Signs – Hanging signs sway with Living Wind’s direction and strength while retaining their original swinging physics and interactions.
• Aleki’s Nifty Ships (Forge 1.20.1 only) – Ships use Living Wind for sailing physics, wind indicators, and flag animations. Also supports addons like Firma: Civilization.
• Create Aeronautics: Transmission & Linkage (NeoForge 1.21.1 only) – Wind physically rotates sail-powered contraptions attached to Kinetic Conversion Bearings. Supports horizontal and vertical windmills, directional sails, and double-sided symmetric sails.

2. Sound & Particle Integrations

• Ambient Sounds – Choose Living Wind’s wind audio, Ambient Sounds’ wind audio, or both (default: Living Wind). Other ambient sounds remain unaffected.
• Particular – Choose Living Wind’s falling leaves, Particular’s, or both. Particular’s leaves can also react to wind strength through their movement and spawn density.
• Dynamic Surroundings – Choose which mod provides wind sounds, or use both (default: Living Wind). Dynamic Surroundings’ own particle wind simulation is suppressed in favor of Living Wind’s, preventing conflicting wind forces. Fireflies, foam, and ripples remain protected, while waterfall mist can react to Living Wind.
• Advanced Chimneys – Chimney smoke follows Living Wind’s wind direction and strength, while smoke inside chimneys remains unaffected.
• Atmospherics – Wind streaks follow Living Wind’s direction. Desert dust and sandstorm particles also respond to wind direction and strength, with particle density increasing during stronger winds.
• Simple Clouds – Local rain and storms influence wind strength in affected areas.
• Serene Seasons / Ecliptic Seasons – Wind strength, gust frequency, and ambient foliage particles change throughout the seasons. Includes seasonal snow effects and an option to choose between Living Wind’s and Ecliptic Seasons’ falling leaves, or both.

3. Integrations Added by Other Mods

The following mods include their own built-in compatibility with Living Wind, developed and maintained by their respective authors.

• Burnt (v1.10.5.3+) – Uses Living Wind’s direction and strength to influence fire behavior and spreading.
• Hoarfrost: Snow & Blizzards – Snowfall and blizzards follow Living Wind’s direction and strength, with snowdrifts also responding to wind conditions.
• Petrichor: Rain & Storms – Rain direction and intensity respond to Living Wind’s simulation, from gentle drizzles to powerful storms.
• Rustling Leaves – Falling leaves and leaf piles react to Living Wind’s direction, strength, and gusts, while preventing duplicate falling leaf effects.

Automatic Particle Compatibility

Living Wind includes a customizable particle blacklist and wind-response multipliers, allowing you to exclude particles from wind or make them react more or less strongly.

It also automatically protects underwater particles, gameplay indicators, potion effects, and other specialized animations from inappropriate wind movement.

Built-in compatibility includes:

• Create – Encased Fan airflow remains unaffected.
• Cosy Critters & Creepy Crawlies – Moths, birds, and spiders retain their intended movement.
• Wavify & Coastal Waves – Water and wave effects retain their original behavior.
• What Are They Up To? – Player activity indicators retain their intended behavior without being blown away by wind.
• SkyLands – Clouds receive reduced wind influence.
• Explosive Enhancement – Explosion animations remain unaffected.
• Footprint Particle – Footprints and surface effects remain in place.
• Visuality – Crystal sparkles, slime, mob-hit effects, and more are protected.
• Particle Effects Reforged – Potion and status-effect particles remain unaffected.
• Effectual – Minecart sparks, footprints, light-source glows, and other position-dependent effects are protected.
• Subtle Effects – Splashes, waterfalls, fireflies, and various specialized effects retain their intended behavior.
• Streams Reflowing – Stream particles follow their water-flow physics instead of atmospheric wind. Waterfall spray & foam particles receive reduced wind influence.
• Spawn – Flies, dragonflies, pond skaters, and other creature-related particles retain their intended movement without wind interference.
• Scorched Guns – Bullet-hole particles remain fixed in place instead of being affected by wind.
• No Man’s Land – Resin, syrup, milk, oil droplets, and various scripted effects retain their intended behavior without being blown away by wind.
• Aurae! – Eye of Ender placement, portal effects, and other stationary or scripted particles remain unaffected by wind.
• Ecliptic Seasons – Fireflies, butterflies, wild geese, and greenhouse effects retain their intended movement and behavior without wind interference.

Performance

Despite its detailed wind simulation and atmospheric effects, Living Wind is designed to be lightweight and performance-conscious.

The mod uses several optimizations to minimize unnecessary work, including cached particle colors, limited particle-spawning budgets, and calculations that are spread across multiple game ticks instead of running continuously.

Most visual and audio effects are optional and can be adjusted or disabled through the in-game configuration, making it easy to balance atmosphere and performance to suit your system.

For additional performance improvements, I recommend:

• Flerovium & Async Particles – Particle-related optimizations that work alongside Living Wind.
• Sodium / Embeddium – General rendering optimizations that can improve overall game performance.

Configuration & Commands

Living Wind comes with an in-game configuration menu, allowing you to customize nearly every aspect of the mod without manually editing config files.

Adjust wind behavior, particle density and movement, audio, shelter detection, visual effects, and integrations with other mods. You can also configure particle blacklists and individual wind-response multipliers.

Commands are available for testing and manually controlling the wind:
(Require operator permissions or cheats enabled.)

• /livingwind status – View current wind conditions.
• /livingwind strength <value> – Set wind strength (0–2.5) for 30 seconds.
• /livingwind direction <degrees> – Change wind direction (0–360°).
• /livingwind gust – Trigger a wind gust.
• /livingwind windyperiod start/stop – Start or stop a windy period.
• /livingwind natural – Return to natural wind simulation.