Enchantment glint

The glint animation applied to an iron pickaxe, signaling it is enchanted

The enchantment glint is a visual effect applied most often to enchanted items and equipment, as well as some other items.

Summary

The enchantment glint is shown on any item that has been enchanted as well as some items naturally, namely enchanted golden apples, Nether stars, End crystals, bottles o' enchanting, lodestone compasses, written books, enchanted books, and debug sticks.

Enchanted armor, elytra, and carved pumpkins also display the enchantment glint when equipped. As do horse armor, nautilus armor, wolf armor, carpets, saddles, and harnesses when equipped as armor by mobs.

Eggs, ender pearls, eyes of ender, fire charges, firework rockets, and snowballs enchanted through commands will appear enchanted when thrown.

Chests equipped by donkeys, mules, and llamas do not display the effect.^[1] Held or framed maps also do not display it.^[2]

Animation generation

Unlike most animations in the game, which are defined through mcmeta files, the enchantment glint's generation is hardcoded and cannot be fully modified. The color and texture of the enchantment glint can be modified with resource packs in Java Edition versions greater than 1.15. Resource packs in Bedrock Edition can also modify the enchantment glint but green, yellow, and white colors do not render well due to a different rendering engine.

The enchantment glint's rendering is tied to the dimensions of the atlas,^[3] meaning that it will look completely different based on how many textures are currently loaded.

Obtaining

There are 3 ways to get an item with an enchantment glint:

Items that have enchantment glint naturally
Enchanting items
Giving them the NBT component: minecraft:enchantment_glint_override‌^{[JE only]}.

To obtain a stick with an enchantment glint, use the following command: /give @p stick[minecraft:enchantment_glint_override=true]‌^{[JE only]}.

History

Development

October 3, 2011							First look at the glint on equipped armor.

Java Edition

Java Edition
1.0.0	Beta 1.9 Prerelease 2	Added the glint effect.
1.0.0	Beta 1.9 Prerelease 2	It used this grayscale texture file.
1.3.1	12w23a	Now visible on enchanted tools and armor on multiplayer.
1.8	14w25b	Thrown bottles o' enchanting now show the enchantment glint applied to them.
1.8	pre2	Thrown potions now show the enchantment glint applied to them.
1.13	pre6	Enchanted shields now show the enchantment glint applied to them.
1.14	18w50a	Thrown or fired enchanted eggs, ender pearls, eyes of ender, fire charges, firework rockets, and snowballs now show the enchantment glint applied to them.^[4]
1.14	19w12a	Enchanted totems of undying now show the enchantment glint applied to them in the animation when they are consumed.^[5]
1.15	19w39a	Due to a rewrite of the rendering engine, the enchanting animation was changed.
		The texture used has also changed.
		Enchanted tridents now show the enchantment glint applied to them.^[6]
	19w42a	Enchanted items now glow in the dark.
	19w45a	Thrown enchanted tridents now show the enchantment glint applied to them.^[7]
	Pre-release 1	The texture has been changed very subtly for unknown reasons.
1.19.4	23w04a	The enchantment glint texture has been moderately darkened.
	23w05a	The glint texture has been considerably darkened.
	23w05a	There are now accessibility options for controlling the intensity and speed of the enchantment glint.
	Pre-release 1	There are now two enchantment glint textures: one for items (which uses the texture used from 1.15-pre1 to 23w03a) one for armor (which uses the texture from 23w05a onwards).
	Pre-release 1	Potions no longer have an enchantment glint.
1.20.5	24w09a	The enchantment glint is now controlled by the `enchantment_glint_override` item component.
1.21.2	24w36a	Enchanted horse armor now shows the enchantment glint on horses which are wearing them.
1.21.2	pre1	Enchanted carpets and wolf armor now shows the enchantment glint on mobs which are wearing them.
1.21.5	25w03a	Enchanted saddles now show the enchantment glint on mobs which are wearing them.
1.21.6	25w15a	Enchanted harnesses now show the enchantment glint on happy ghasts which are wearing them.
1.21.11	25w41a	Enchanted nautilus armor now shows the enchantment glint on mobs which are wearing them.