Rethinking Voxels

# Rethinking Voxels

This shader is an edit of [Complementary Reimagined](https://www.complementary.dev/reimagined) that aims to be decently fast (when compared to path tracing shaders) while having block lights cast sharp shadows.

### Notes

The lighting system is not perfect. Occasional sudden brightness changes are a side-effect of the way it works and cannot be completely removed without hurting performance or removing sharp shadows from light sources. To do the latter, disable `Per-Pixel Lighting` in the `Rethinking Voxels Settings`.

This shader is developed on Iris, using an AMD graphics card on linux, and it is also tested on an NVidia graphics card on linux. While it usually works on other platforms, bugs that appear only there are not caught by my testing and hence they take longer to fix. To use this shader pack, the Iris shader loader is required. Beta 18d and older versions also work on OptiFine.

### Contact

If you need support, please join the [shaderLabs discord server](https://discord.gg/8wT5KxF4TZ), where this shader has a channel (#rethinking-voxels-gri573).

### Partnership

I have entered a partnership with Ember, a Minecraft server hosting provider. This is because Ember hosts the complementary SMP server and has provided a better hosting experience / customer support than the previous hosting service, and because they reached out asking about it. If you need to host a Minecraft server and wish to support Rethinking Voxels’ development at the same time, do check them out! Using the promotional code `RETHINKING` in a first-time purchase will redirect 70% of the first month’s fee to me as well as give you a 10% discount.

[](https://billing.ember.host/aff.php?aff=13)

### Media

Video by youtube user iambeen that showcases rethinking voxels beta 18d (with custom settings), compared to the original reimagined:

RenderPearl

# Modern, lightweight shaders for Iris


RenderPearl is an incredibly lightweight shader pack using the latest Iris features and optional extensions on various graphics drivers, aiming to deliver pleasant visuals with excellent performance on modern hardware.

If you want to report a bug or give feedback/suggestions, the best way to do so is by opening an issue on the [GitHub issue tracker](https://github.com/Luracasmus/renderpearl/issues). I rely heavily on user feedback in bug fixing and design.

## Features

* Smooth, colored real-time shadows and volumetric light using distorted shadow mapping.
* Colored block light with physically based reflections using a light list combined with vanilla lighting and average texture color.
* Ray traced, per-hand hand light.
* A wide range of highly optimized post-processing effects, including compute shader implementations of [FidelityFX Contrast Adaptive Sharpening](https://gpuopen.com/fidelityfx-cas/), [SMAA](https://www.iryoku.com/smaa/) 1x from [SMAA-MC](https://modrinth.com/shader/smaa-mc), automatic exposure and a variety of tone mapping operators.
* Customizable waves and water opacity.
* Built-in utility features such as light level visualization and a compass overlay.

## Mod & Resource Pack Compatibility

Most built-in PBR information, including light colors, material normals and roughness, are almost entirely procedurally generated and should therefore work perfectly with most resource packs and mods.

Integration with Distant Horizons and Voxy is supported on the latest Minecraft version, but experimental and very basic. Complete support is planned for a future update.

Support for mods that modify the Iris shader pipeline, such as Chunks Fade In, is experimental and may have issues, such as the shader pack failing to compile.

## Requirements

> If you have a decently modern non-macOS device it probably supports everything you need, but you might have to update your Iris and graphics drivers.

* **Iris** with support for features:
* `BLOCK_EMISSION_ATTRIBUTE`
* `COMPUTE_SHADERS`
* `CUSTOM_IMAGES`
* `ENTITY_TRANSLUCENT`
* `PER_BUFFER_BLENDING`
* `SEPARATE_HARDWARE_SAMPLERS`
* `SSBO`
* **Graphics drivers** with support for **GLSL 4.60.8+**.
* **Minecraft** of a version that is listed as supported by the RenderPearl release. The latest supported version is usually the most stable.

## Tuning & The Compatibility Menu

The default configuration and all values selectable with profiles are intended to work on all systems that meet the shader pack’s **Requirements**, though you may be able to achieve higher performance and quality by changing some of these options. Beware that some values may cause the shader pack to not compile, in which case you simply have to reset the option. These are usually marked with a red ⚠.

## Design & Modding RenderPearl

RenderPearl’s source code is intended to be modifiable and re-usable. It’s written according to best practice to the best of my ability, but prioritizing performance over readability. If you have any questions about how it works, feel free to contact me on any platform.

Technical information can be found in [the GitHub repository](https://github.com/Luracasmus/renderpearl/blob/main/DEV.md).

—

**These are the only RenderPearl project pages made by me:**

* [Modrinth](https://modrinth.com/shader/renderpearl)
* [CurseForge](https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/shaders/renderpearl)
* [Planet Minecraft](https://www.planetminecraft.com/mod/luracasmus-s-shaders/)
* [GitHub](https://github.com/Luracasmus/renderpearl)

If you want to distribute RenderPearl, or just spread the word of it, I would greatly appreciate if you would link to at least one of them, Modrinth being the most important one.

RedHat Shaders

– About

RedHat is a shaderpack that for Iris and Optifine.
It is an edit of an old version of Chocapic13, and has many features.

RedHat’s main features are lighting effects such as Godrays (3D, or 2D, if you have a low-end machine), Shadows, Underwater Light Absorption, and many more.

The shaderpack features reflections too, and reflects some light on all surfaces, to make everything look more similar to the Minecraft trailers style.

There are many cinematic options such as Lens Flares, Depth of Field (Chromatic Aberration included), Grain, Tilt Shift, and others.

The colors, which change depending on the time, make everything more realistic yet they keep the fantasy vibe.

There are many effects related to movement as well. All foliage or hanging things such as lanterns wave. Along those there are Waving Hand and Waving Camera options too, configurable as well.

If that wasn’t enough, RedHat supports all versions from 1.7.10 up to 1.21, and it supports custom skyboxes!

Lastly, there are many atmospherics effects such as Fog and Clouds, Round moon and sun, and other things like PBR support, Auto-Exposure, Stars, and many, many other things.

There are a lot of ways you can customize the shaderpack, and make it look like the way you want.

– Requirements

GPU: Must support OpenGL 3.2 and have at least 1GB of VRAM. AMD, NVIDIA and Intel are all supported (You’ll have to decrease some settings to play smoothly with Intel GPUs).

CPU: Must have a minimum clock speed of 1GHz

RAM: Must have located at least 1.5-2GB of RAM to your game

OS: Windows (7,8, 8.1, 10, 11), Linux (Mesa drivers might lead to issues)

Shadermod: Optifine or Iris

MC Version: 1.7.10, up to 1.21

> Light Settings Recommendation: i3/i5 3-4th Gen, 4GB DDR3 RAM, GT 1030 2GB GDDR5
> Balanced Settings Recommendation: i5/i7 8-9th Gen, 8GB DDR4 RAM, GTX 1050 Ti 4GB GDDR5
> Heavy Settings Recommendation: i5/i7/i9 10th+ Gen, 16GB DDR5 RAM, GTX 1660 Ti 6GB GDDR6

If you use RedHat without meeting these requirements, then keep in mind you’ll take a risk.
RedHat is a pretty heavy shaderpack, thus do not expect it to be FPS friendly on the default settings.

Recastional

# 🌊 Recastional Shader Pack

> **Elevate your Minecraft experience to a cinematic masterpiece.**

**Recastional** is a shader pack designed to transform your world into an exhilarating visual journey. It creates a unique atmosphere, enveloping the environment in a warm, caressing light that brings every pixel to life.

***

## ✨ Overview

As the sun rises and sets, its rays pierce through the clouds, casting a **soft golden glow** that enhances the natural beauty of the landscape. With **Recastional**, you don’t just play — you immerse yourself in a cinematic experience where every frame is a work of art.

* **Vibrant Textures:** Every rock, tree, and building feels detailed and alive.
* **Shimmering Waters:** Realistic water surfaces that sparkle as if kissed by sunlight.
* **Dynamic Shadows:** Stretching and shifting shadows that add profound depth to your surroundings.
* **Atmospheric Skies:** Volumetric clouds and glowing flora that invite exploration.

***

## 🛠 Complete Feature List

### 🎨 Advanced Rendering Systems

* **Enhanced Particle System** – Physics-based particle rendering with LOD support.
* **Volumetric Clouds** – High-precision ray-marching for realistic skyboxes.
* **Advanced Water System** – Real-time reflections, refractions, and caustics.
* **Parallax Terrain Mapping** – Height-based surface displacement with triplanar mapping.
* **Entity Glow Effects** – Dynamic rim lighting and emissive textures for special entities.

### 🔧 Post-Processing Pipeline

* **Enhanced Composite** – HDR tone mapping, professional color grading, and subtle film grain.
* **Bloom System** – Multi-pass bloom with Gaussian blur and granular intensity control.
* **Depth of Field** – Realistic camera focus with high-quality hexagonal bokeh.
* **Advanced Shadow Mapping** – PCF filtering with support for soft and colored shadows.

### 🚀 Performance & Optimization

* **GPU Optimizer** – Hardware-specific tweaks for **NVIDIA**, **AMD**, and **Intel**.
* **LOD Manager** – Automatic level-of-detail scaling based on distance.
* **Dynamic Quality Scaling** – Real-time performance adjustments to maintain stability.

### 🔄 Compatibility & Legacy

* **OpenGL Compatibility** – Stable fallback shaders for older graphics hardware.
* **Cross-Platform** – Full support for **Windows, macOS, and Linux**.
* **VR & Multi-Monitor** – Stereoscopic rendering and ultra-wide display configurations.

### 📚 Technical Foundation

* **PBR Shading Library** – Physically Based Rendering using the **Cook-Torrance BRDF**.
* **Next-Gen Lighting** – Volumetric lighting, SSAO, and Global Illumination (GI).
* **Weather Module** – Dynamic simulation of rain, snow, and atmospheric fog.

***

## 📋 Configuration & Presets

You can fine-tune your experience using our modular configuration files:

* `advanced.properties` – Toggle high-end rendering features.
* `performance.properties` – Hardware-specific optimization toggles.
* `debug.properties` – Tools for development and analysis.

### ⚠️ Important Note on Performance

To achieve the **ULTRA** and **HIGH** graphics shown in screenshots, **Iris Shaders** is highly recommended.

> **Note:** High settings are hardware-intensive. If you experience low FPS, please adjust your preset in the shader options.

***

## 🎮 Version Support

* **Compatibility:** Fully optimized for **Minecraft 1.21.11**.
* **Engine:** Works best with **Iris** or **OptiFine**.

***

_Created with passion for the Minecraft community._

Also available on CurseForge: [CurseForge](https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/shaders/recastional)

Quanta Shader

# Quanta Shader

> A simple, fast and beautiful Minecraft shader for Iris/OptiFine.
> Soft sunlight, gentle bloom, real shadows, dynamic clouds and lively
> water — tuned to look great while staying smooth on modest hardware.

—

A huge thank you 🙏

Quanta Shader exists only thanks to **Javier G. Cimarras (`javiergcim`)**
and his amazing project **[MakeUp Ultra Fast]**.

All the heavy lifting — the lighting model, the shadows, the water,
the sky, the clouds, every clever optimization that makes this shader
fast — is his work. This project is just a small, respectful fork:
renamed, cleaned up, and slightly tweaked.

If you like Quanta Shader, please go and support the original author
first. He deserves all the credit. ❤️

* Original project:
* Original author: **javiergcim or KDXavier**

Psiho shader

I do not know how **_psychos_** see the world, but I was curious. That’s how I created this shader.

Caution! If in the settings file.glsl change the shader parameter and make it greater than 100, unpleasant things can happen.

Do you want to try something new? This shader will add a sense of madness and pain to the game. It is especially suitable for those who have already gone through Minecraft many times, built many buildings and created mods and shaders. If you get bored, try to test your strength and become a real masochist!

With this shader, every stage of the game, from the tree to the dragon, will become incredibly difficult. But that’s not all! Try to build something more complicated than two blocks on the sides and three up. Feel the real pain and enjoy the game on a new level!

For true connoisseurs of difficulties, open the settings file.glsl and make the following changes:

“`glsl
#define MESS_INTENSITY 250.0 // maybe… more)?
“`

Pollution 2035 Shaders

## Pollution 2035 Shaders

As hazy as smog, as haunting as memory.

Make you experience both cinematic immersion and smooth gameplay.

### Features

#### Performance without compromise.

Optimized from LIGHT Shaders (Chocapic13’s Shaders’ fork) core,

Stripped away resource-heavy effects that don’t serve the atmosphere,

Delivers stable FPS even in entities dense zones.

#### Distinctive polluted aesthetic.

Not just another “pretty” shader pack—

Crafted to immerse you in a world choked by industry.

Let you experience the movie environment as if you were there.

Plus unique post-processing exclusive to this pack.

#### Adaptive darkness handling.

Nether and caves feel appropriately oppressive without becoming unplayable—
specialized exposure adjustment ensures visibility while preserving the grim mood.

### Requirements

– Iris Shaders, Oculus Shaders or OptiFine.
– OpenGL 1.2 support.
– An ordinary GPU. (even extremely below average)

### *If you want to support my work, you can subscribe to my [Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/Author87668/join) membership.*

Pixel Rework

Pixel Rework is a polished shaderpack that keeps Minecraft’s vanilla identity intact while improving visual clarity, lighting balance, and overall atmosphere. It focuses on clean, stable rendering with natural-looking daylight, smoother shadow transitions, clearer skies, and carefully tuned water behavior that avoids extreme distortion. The pack is designed to feel familiar, not over-stylized: colors stay true to vanilla, performance remains practical, and visual upgrades are applied with restraint so the world still feels authentically Minecraft.

Pixel Perfect


# Notice
This project has been archived. I unfortunately don’t have time to keep it up to date, so you may run into issues with newer Minecraft/Iris versions.

# Overview
Pixel Perfect is a Minecraft shader designed from scratch with two main goals:

1. **Aesthetics with Function**: It revamps the vanilla look while maintaining gameplay, focusing on color and functionality. Unlike other shaders that are mainly eye candy, Pixel Perfect aims to be a viable replacement for Minecraft’s default visuals.
2. **Cool Toys**: This shader has lots of unique features and small enhancements, from invisibility distortion to streamer mode lighting to custom colorgrading (upload your own LUTs if you’re tech-savvy enough).

# Features

A selection of some of the features Pixel Perfect has to offer:
– **Levels of Vanilla**
– Choose the amount of vanilla you want in your shader from three presets.
– Vanilla **+**
– Vanilla **++**
– Vanilla **+++**
– **Extreme Customizability**
– Nearly every value and shader effect can be tweaked, from *contrast* to *wind speed* to *invisibility distortion*.
– If you have Python, a custom python script allows you to upload and configure your own colorgrading profiles.
– **Dynamic Wind**
– Rather than blowing randomly, foliage gets affected by individual gusts of wind traveling in different directions
– Weather affects the speed, direction, and intensity of wind gusts
– Different dimensions have their own wind profiles
– Choose between several **Darkness Options**, including *Hardcore Darkness* and *Streamer Mode*.
– **Much, *much* more** (see all of this shader’s features in the [changelog](/shader/pixel-perfect/changelog)).

# Screenshots

## Vanilla+++

## Vanilla++

## Vanilla+

Some screenshots use terrain generated with [Terralith](/mod/terralith).

Phoxel PT

## Please read!
This shader is still in beta, expect to encounter issues, because you will. When you do come across issues, let me know about it! I am actively working on improving and fixing up Phoxel, and your help will make it a lot easier

## About Phoxel
Phoxel was started because of a lack of publicly available path tracing shaders for Minecraft, and was originally meant to be purely vanilla in it’s style. But with the 0.6 re-release, Phoxel is starting to take on it’s own visual style, and I now strive for Phoxel to capture some of the beauty of real life, mixed with the unique ambience and blocky beauty of the Minecraft we’ve all come to love.

Phoxel currently covers two shaders: Phoxel PT, and Phoxel Lite, some info will differ between the two. All new releases and features will come out on Phoxel PT before Phoxel Lite, but Phoxel Lite will have a few features before Phoxel PT, purely because some features are much easier to implement without path tracing.

## Phoxel PT
### Phoxel PT is designed for screenshots, if you want to use Phoxel for gameplay, please check out Phoxel Lite (Not yet available)
Phoxel PT is the original, with the goal of eventually capturing Phoxel, with it’s core philosophy, at it’s absolute best. (with some render time of course :P)

## Extra Info
Report issues and see up coming updates for the project on [Github](https://github.com/Despatra/Phoxel). See events, ask questions, and do more in the [Discord](https://discord.com/invite/GSF9D3Q2T5)

### Most Recent Update
Phoxel is back, but there are changes to how things will work:
1. I will no longer be releasing Beta versions, instead all projects will now only include releases and patches
2. All full releases will receive patches to make sure they work with the most recent version of Minecraft

Generally this does mean releases will be much more spread out in comparison to pre Phoxel Beta 0.5 releases, but I feel you all deserve not crappy shaders and projects.
I’m going to try a couple more things, but if what I try doesn’t work, or is something beyond me, Phoxel will not be able to be as performant as needed, and may move to a screenshot directed shader, rather than a real time path tracer, and the quality will probably never be comparable to others.