DarkSteps

Every footstep imprints a brief print on the ground, its tint taken from the block under the player's boots and dimmed a little so it looks like a track, not a particle. Footprints alternate between left and right placement as the player moves, and they fade out smoothly over a short time instead of disappearing at once. The effect applies to many different block types, so the look adapts as the terrain changes.

Rendering happens on the client only, and the mod does not change gameplay, so the server and other players see nothing of it. Because the footprints are drawn directly onto the ground instead of spawned as particles, they stay solid and subtle, a decorative detail that adds to movement without altering it. The mod is published for Fabric and Forge, across five game versions, 1.19.4 – 1.21.1, under the MIT License. The code is not open source.