Water motion and splash visuals
Wakes alters how water reacts when you travel across rivers and oceans in Minecraft. The mod adds simulated wave trails behind moving objects and drops splash effects whenever you hit the surface. Water shoots out to both sides as you cut through the water. It is built to match the general look of the base game.
You can spot these effects on other players too. When your friends paddle or swim across a lake on a multiplayer server, their movement leaves visible trails on your screen.
Entity effects and boat movement
The wave simulation applies to all entities in the world. When a mob or a player moves through water, waves form directly in their path. Rowboats get dedicated animations where waves appear right at the oars while paddling. If an entity drops into water from a height, the mod generates a splash effect at the impact point.
Everything runs on the client. Your game handles all the rendering calculations locally, so you don't need matching files on a dedicated server.
Configuration and shader notes
The mod includes built-in settings powered by Midnightlib. You can adjust the visual options directly through the embedded configuration menu to tweak how the waves behave.
If you run visual mods, Wakes includes support for Iris shaders. Keep in mind that there are known incompatibilities with certain shader packs. The author tracks active bugs on GitHub and accepts problem reports on the project repository.
Future updates planned by the developer include foam outlines around shores and models, wake effects across lava surfaces, and an API so other mod creators can add wakes to custom liquids.
Technical setup and platform details
Wakes is built for the Fabric mod loader. Here's the thing, it's categorized under Building and Decoration on Modrinth. The project is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 only.
Because client-side installation is required and server-side installation is unsupported, you only install it in your personal client profile. The mod supports specific Minecraft releases: 26.2, 26.1.2, 26.1.1, 26.1, 1.21.11, 1.21.10, 1.21.8, 1.21.7, and 1.21.6.
