it looks very odd having the player magically fly up with the power of sticks placed in the right order...

Ok this is now actually fully implemented in the current rewrite branch. With locking to the ladder, limiting the head rotation and the arms being a bit higher than in the current version. Also won't start the animation while still touching the ground.

i made something to what it could look like

Yea that's doable I guess. But you have to kinda remember that you can rotate on the ladder so it might also look really stupid with people climbing a ladder backward 😅

I'll have to test how well you can identify what climbable block you're on. Since there are ladders, vines, the nether tree things.

it already does 😆

i thought of an idea where you would be able to move your head freely in first person but in third person your head would stop moving after 45 degrees from your back and then once the player moves their head beyond their back their head kinda snaps to a different 45 degrees from their back and be able to move their head freely in one direction but not the other in third person... I'm not good at explaining things.

the nether vines would make the most sense just having the walking animation

https://youtu.be/nYKOTRvuE6o

I posted a video showcasing a few issues with the ladder animation currently (I'll make separate reports). There isn't a leg animation yet for some reason as shown above, and I'm not sure how this would work for blocks like weeping vines, twisting vines or cave vines as stated above.

In general, I just think ladder climbing animations are too unminecrafty for the game. However I don't want to get into a big debate in a github issue page. It would be cool to see where this goes, though.