Solstice v1.2

A lightweight semi-realistic shader pack built for a high performance-to-quality ratio. (developed and tuned on an RX 6600 at 1440p).

Features

• Real-time PCF shadows with per-pixel distortion (sharp near, cheap far, no warping on builds)
• Colored translucent shadows: sunlight through water turns blue with animated caustics
• Two cloud modes: Blocky 3D - chunky vanilla-style box clouds with real height, per-face lighting and inter-cloud shadows (very cheap); and Volumetric raymarched clouds with self-shadowing, silver linings, wind drift, and a high cirrus layer
• Cloud shadows on terrain, matching the sky overhead
• Screen-space god rays (sun/moon, above and below water) with source-occlusion checks
• SSR water reflections - terrain, trees, and builds mirrored on water; depth-aware (clear shallows, mirror depths) with sky-gradient fallback
• Procedural fluid water: Gerstner-style traveling waves, sea-state variation, rain ripples
• Unified atmospheric fog: fog is the sky gradient (aerial perspective), render-distance fade dissolves into it seamlessly
• Full weather system: bright diffuse overcast, dark slate thunderstorms, localized lightning flashes that light the cloud deck from within, emissive lightning bolts
• Procedural circular sun and phase-accurate circular moon
• Dynamic held-item lighting (torch in hand lights the world)
• Dark survival nights, warm Nether ambient (adjustable in-game)
• Rain puddles: connected pools with rain ripples, sky and SSR scene reflections, and sun glint; wet surfaces darken while it rains and dry out afterwards
• Nether portals glow and cast purple light onto nearby blocks
• Snow sparkle: view-dependent crystal glints on snowy ground
• Living flames: fire and campfires flicker with white-hot cores and swaying tips; soul fire burns cold blue
• Glowing blocks: glowstone, lanterns, froglights and friends glow through bloom; ores, amethyst and sculk glint in dark caves
• Night sky: procedural milky way band, shooting stars, and a green aurora on roughly one clear night in three
• SSAO contact shading in corners and under blocks
• HDR pipeline: bloom, ACES tonemapping, FXAA-lite edge smoothing, dithering
• Full Nether and End support: dark violet End with drifting aurora ribbons, stars and fixed-angle shadows; dragon death rays and explosions glow through bloom; Nether gets biome-tinted fog, a drifting haze backdrop, ember glow on the horizon and heat shimmer over distant terrain

Settings

Four profiles: Low / Medium / High / Ultra (shader options screen), plus six option screens: Shadows, Sky & Clouds, Water, Visuals, Color & Tone, Nether & End, and an About page. Notable sliders: Cloud Coverage, Cloud Speed, Blocky Cloud Height, Nether/End Brightness, Aurora Strength, Fog Density.

Requirements

• Iris (bundled with Fabulously Optimized). OptiFine untested; Iris-exclusive uniforms (thunderStrength, lightningBoltPosition, hasSkylight) degrade gracefully if absent.

Performance notes

Shadows are the dominant cost - lower Shadow Resolution/Distance first. Clouds cost only on sky pixels (Cloud Quality slider). SSR costs only near water. Everything else is cheap.

The image was captured using Ultra settings.

Changelog

v1.2 - Weather, glow and night sky. Rain puddles with sky reflections and wet-ground darkening (driven by the game's wetness value, so ground dries gradually after rain). Emissive blocks: two block classes, full glow for light sources and a subtler glint for ores, amethyst and sculk, both feeding the bloom pass. Night sky additions: milky way, shooting stars every few seconds, and an aurora that appears on about a third of clear nights (rolled per in-game day). Depth-based SSAO with a strength slider. All new effects have toggles; Low profile skips puddles and SSAO, Medium skips SSAO.

v1.1 - Rebuilt Blocky cloud mode as true 3D boxes (voxel-traced height, lit tops/shaded sides, inter-cloud shadows). Added a Blocky Cloud Height slider, an About screen, and extra option tooltips.

Second part of v1.1: proper Nether and End support. The pack used to break outside the overworld because the dimension folders were incomplete; every shader program now runs in all three dimensions. The End got a darker, moodier look with aurora ribbons in the sky, stars, and shadows from its fixed light angle. Dragon death rays and explosion flashes are pushed into HDR so bloom makes them glow. The Nether got biome-tinted fog that warms toward the lava below, a slow haze backdrop that matches the fog color at the horizon (no more flat fog wall), a faint ember glow, and distance-weighted heat shimmer. Lava now moves: slow molten swells (sharing the Wave Strength slider) and an emissive heat pulse that feeds the bloom, in every dimension. New Nether & End options screen: End Aurora toggle + strength slider, Nether Haze, Heat Shimmer; Lava Waves lives under Water.

Authors

d0mkaaa