Absolute Hearts

Version 1.1 out now

Out now: the row sits right above the head · clouds and flames stay behind it · full brightness at night · new bars and a redrawn heart set · a stage in the settings · twelve builds from 1.8.9 to 26.3 · fourteen languages

You hit them. You just don't know how close they are.

Every fight in Minecraft is guesswork. Four hits in, is the guy in front of you one swing from death or sitting on a golden apple? You find out the moment it stops mattering.

Absolute Hearts puts the health bar where you are already looking: over their head.

Hearts, a bar, a plain 14/20, a percentage, or the two overlays the old UHC servers used to draw, brought back on purpose. It reads the numbers the server already sends your client, so there is nothing to install on the server, nothing to configure for your friends, and nothing that can get you kicked for a mod the admin never heard of.

New in 1.1: the quality update

Everything the row does stayed. How it looks and where it sits got rebuilt.

• Right above the head – no more row floating in the air. It only moves up when a name plate or a score line is really there, and it glides there instead of jumping.
• Readable further away – the row shrinks gently with distance instead of all the way.
• Armour points beside the row – out of the head and out of the flames.
• Clouds stay behind it – on 1.21.1 and 26.x they used to wash the row out.
• Flames stay behind it – a burning target keeps a row you can read.
• Full brightness – at midnight and in caves, on every version.
• Bars with depth – a lit top edge, a shaded bottom edge, quarter marks, and numbers with an outline.
• A redrawn heart set – stronger colours, and empty hearts you can actually see.
• Walls mean walls – rows and names no longer show through unless the setting says so.

And a stage in the settings. The row stands over a figure in its real proportions, so size and height get set by eye.

Where this is going

1.2 is next: a team list at the edge of the screen for team UHC, health from the scoreboard where a server keeps it there, team colours, and hiding your friends.

After that: more old versions (1.19.2, 1.18.2, 1.16.5), rules per creature, and whatever you ask for in the comments.

Built for the fights that are decided in a second

Twelve builds, 1.8.9 to 26.3. Soup PvP never left 1.8.9, and neither did this mod.

No lag between truth and picture. The number over a head is whatever the server last said, this tick. The bar that drains behind it is decoration and is never what you read.

Nothing allocated per frame. No garbage, no stutter, no map lookups in the render path, and an upper limit per frame that shrinks the range instead of dropping to 20 fps in a 40-mob pit.

Six ways to show it

• Hearts – the row you know, in the game's own heart textures, so your resource pack is what you see. Or the mod's own set, identical on every server you join.
• Bar – one clean bar, green through orange to red.
• Number and Percent – 14/20 or 70 %, nothing else.
• Classic overlay – the bordered green bar with the numbers written inside it, the way the old health-indicator plugins drew it.
• Classic tag – 18 ♥ next to the name, and nothing more.

It shows what the others leave out

• Absorption as golden hearts – you can see who just ate a golden apple.
• Armour points beside the row.
• Damage numbers that float up from the hit, yours and theirs.
• The ghost bar that drains a moment behind the real one, so a big hit reads as a big hit.
• A white flash on damage, green on healing, a pulse below 20 %.
• A compact row with x2 once a boss has more hearts than fit over a head.

Exactly as much as you want

Who gets a bar: only players, players and mobs, or everything alive. When: always, only when hurt, only what you are looking at, or only in combat. Tamed animals always, mobs only when they are hurt, a range with a soft edge instead of a hard pop, and three ways to treat walls: off, on, dimmed.

On the screen itself, both switched off until you want them: the health of whatever is under your crosshair, and your own health at eye level, each with its own offset and scale.

Six presets, one click:

• Classic UHC – hearts over players only, always on.
• PvP / Soup – a number over the one you are hitting, your own health at eye level, nothing that lags behind.
• Survival – everything alive, but only when it is hurt.
• Classic overlay – the old bordered bar with the numbers in it.
• Classic tag – 18 ♥ beside the name.
• Quiet – only what you are looking at, half faded.

A settings screen that explains itself

Groups down the left, a search that also reads the explanations, the stage on the right, and the explanation of whatever your mouse is on written out at the bottom, not hidden in a tooltip you have to wait for. On small screens the stage makes way for a slim preview, and 1.8.9 and 1.12.2 keep that preview too.

H turns it on and off, J opens the settings, one more key cycles the display.

Versions

Minecraft	Loader
1.8.9	Forge
1.12.2	Forge
1.20.1	Fabric, Forge
1.21.1	Fabric, NeoForge
26.1, 26.2, 26.3	Fabric, NeoForge

The same displays on 1.8.9, for the servers that never moved on.

Client side only. No server install, no dependencies, no network packets of its own. It works in every modpack and on every server you can already join.

In your language

English, Deutsch, Français, Español, Italiano, Português (BR), Nederlands, Polski, Русский, Українська, Türkçe, 日本語, 한국어, 简体中文.

Two honest notes

Golden hearts show up for players, not for mobs. The server sends absorption for players only; for mobs it is not on the wire at all, so no mod can draw it client-side. Measured, not guessed.

Potion effects of other creatures never reach your client either, so there is no effect colouring. If a mod promises you that without a server part, ask it where the data comes from.