// CHANGELOG

Updates

Features, fixes, and applied feedback

1. Jun 27, 2026new

   Animate your diamond sword (held in hand)

   The diamond sword in the Item editor now has an Animate when held option. While you hold it, the sword's surface cycles colors. Pick rainbow or two-color. Each runs a "wave" (flowing, with a direction you choose) or a "cycle" (uniform) motion. Two-color lets you set both colors. There are frame-count and speed sliders plus a live preview. The colors render bright, so they stay vivid in first person too. Only the in-hand 3D sword animates. Bedrock can't animate the flat inventory icon, so the icon shows a fixed full-rainbow gradient instead.

2. Jun 26, 2026new

   Animate your ores (rainbow / shimmer)

   Ores in the Block editor now have an Animation option, deepslate included. The specks (inner ore) and the outline are set separately and combine freely (e.g. rainbow-wave outline plus twinkling specks). Specks can be glint / twinkle / rainbow / two-color. The outline can be rainbow / two-color. Each runs a "wave" (travelling) or "gradation" (uniform cycle) motion. Two-color lets you pick the colors. There are frame-count and speed sliders plus a live preview. Bedrock has no GIF playback, so the animation bakes into a frame-by-frame flipbook that plays in-game.

3. Jun 12, 2026new

   Animated hotbar & inventory background

   You can now animate the UI hotbar (bar and selected-slot frame) and the inventory background. Pick from 7 effects: Rainbow / Gradient / Hue cycle / Sweep / Pulse / Scroll / Wave. The tool generates the animation from a single image. You can also upload numbered PNGs, a GIF, or a vertical strip. The selected-slot frame designs grew from 6 to 12, adding glow, dashed, gradient, corner triangles, and more. Bedrock has no Java-style GIF playback for UI, so the animation ships as a JSON UI frame-step sequence that works in-game.

4. Jun 12, 2026fix

   Safer pack import

   Importing a .mcpack / .zip now drops files that don't belong in a pack, such as executables. The import dialog lists what it excluded. We also added limits to guard against archives that expand to an enormous size (zip bombs).

5. Jun 9, 2026new

   Short sword: three styles

   The sword's "Short sword" option is now a dropdown with three styles instead of a single toggle. "Blade trim (grip unchanged)" shortens the middle of the blade without moving the grip. "Shrink" scales the whole sword down. "Top cut" removes the top of the sword, with an adjustable amount from 1 to 8px at 16x. All three styles apply to preset and uploaded swords.

6. May 25, 2026new

   Creator Preset "Kara2K" added

   PvP YouTuber Kara gave PackAnvil direct permission to bundle the Kara2K pack as an official Creator Preset. Open the preset ▼ dropdown in the Sword / Tool / Armor model / Block / Item / Sky tabs and pick "Creator presets" to apply Kara's work in one click. After applying, you can still tweak HSL or swap individual slots. You can also export .mcpack, publish to the gallery, or fork. Full attribution lives on the credits page.

7. May 21, 2026new

   Stone & wood block sound presets added

   Added 5 ready-to-use presets each for stone-block and wood-block break sounds, no upload needed. Just pick one from the Stone block break / Wood block break sections in Sound settings. We also quality-tuned the existing sound presets for attacks and eating.

8. May 21, 2026fix

   Fixes for HUD image uploads

   Fixed several issues with uploading images for the HUD (hearts, armor, food, XP bar). Uploaded art now shows up in gallery thumbnails. Uploaded UI assets no longer go missing when someone else opens a published pack. Packs published before this fix can be repaired: reopen them in the builder and publish again.

9. May 19, 2026new

   Upload your own art for hearts, armor, food, and the XP bar

   The UI editor now has an Upload mode for HP hearts, Armor icon (HUD), Food (hunger), and the XP bar. Each variant (full / half / empty or shadow) takes its own PNG. Any slot you leave empty falls back to the selected preset style. So you can upload just the full state and let the preset fill in the rest. Hue / saturation / brightness sliders apply on top of the uploaded image.

10. May 18, 2026new

    Gradient + rainbow modes for the XP bar

    In the UI editor's XP bar section, each half (full / empty) now supports Solid, Gradient (2 colors), and Rainbow fill modes. Hue / saturation / brightness are independent for the two halves. The preview is also larger, so transitions are easy to see.

11. May 18, 2026new

    Low fire preset added

    Added a "🔥 Apply low fire" button to the Fire group in the block editor. Pick from 5 height levels. It keeps your view clear during PvP burns while you can still tell that you're on fire. Level 3 is the standard. Level 1 hides the flames entirely, and level 5 is near-vanilla.

12. May 17, 2026feedback

    Keyboard input added to every builder slider

    Every slider in the builder (hue, saturation, brightness, and more) now has a number input next to it. You can type exact values like -30 or 1.25 directly. Thanks to the user who suggested this through the feedback form.