IMPORTANT: Canvas requires Minecraft 1.14.3 and Fabric API 0.3.0 build 187 or higher.
If you cannot use versions that recent, then earlier versions should still work, however they will not have many of the newer features and bug fixes.
Known Issues
- Shader support for item rendering is work-in-progress and disabled by default. It mostly works except for directional in-world lighting. This will eventually be fixed.
- Frame rate can drop significantly with HD Lightmap enabled in scenes with mixed translucency (snow, ice, water.)
- For all other issues, see the issues log.
What is Canvas?
Canvas is a rendering library for Fabric mods that offers visual improvements for players, and also implements an API mod authors can use to implement rendering effects that would not be possible with the vanilla renderer.
Hardware Requirements and Performance
Canvas targets moderate to high-end hardware but should work on any PC that supports OpenGL 2.1 and GLSL shaders.
Canvas will almost certainly improve chunk-loading performance vs Vanilla Minecraft. Frame rates may be better or slightly worse, depending on what is being rendered.
Current Stable Features for Players
- Faster chunk loading
- Improved lighting
- Hardcore darkness (terrain only)
- Less foggy fog
Current Stable Features for Mod Authors
- Block models are dynamic when chunks are rebuilt - not necessary to pre-bake all variants
- Item models are dynamic - not necessary to pre-bake all variants
- Emissive materials
- Improved lighting for models with non-cubic geometry
- Multi-sprite materials for borders and blended/composite texturing effects
- Per-quad control over render layer, lighting, shaders and conditions (see below)
Experimental Features (breaking changes are likely)
- Material Shaders - mod authors can define custom shaders for model materials
- Conditional Materials - materials that are only rendered when a global condition is true
- Apply shaders and emissive effects during item rendering
Finding Bugs
I test Canvas on OSX, Windows 10 and Ubuntu 18.04.2. I do not have the means to test on many hardware/OS combinations so bug reports are appreciated. Please include full logs.
Tried to couple this with OptiFine and saw interesting results: Only entities are rendered, while others remain unrendered and look like void. Funny experiment and I see some potential on collaborating... But yeah, over all, this is good, this mod is kinda amazing at the moment.
I like the idea, and I'd switch to it if it wasn't for a few feature that OF has, like making clouds higher, or Connected Textures for glass and other blocks. Resourcepacks are a big deal nowadays.
What's the difference between this and OptiFine? Seemingly the same but more lightweight and opensourced…
In reply to Neubulae:
Open source is one big difference. Second is that Canvas is designed to give mod authors the ability to write custom shaders for their blocks and items.
But that feature isn't complete and Canvas shaders aren't yet a full-featured as those in OptiFine.
In reply to grondagthebarbarian:
looking good
I really would love to couple this with Optifine. I am not even interested in flashy shaders, I like how this fixes the lighting and improves chunk loading speed.
In reply to CapoFantasma97:
Thank you for giving Canvas a try. I can't imagine that Canvas will ever be compatible with Optifine - both mods make big changes to rendering that couldn't be reconciled.
However, the Indigo renderer that is included with Fabric is still relatively zippy and it just got some fixes that improve Optifine compatibility. The OptiFabric mod is still needed, but even OF shaders seem to work OK now.
If you're looking for some of the other OF features like connected textures, etc. - those should come to Fabric in time, but will likely be separate mods.
In reply to grondagthebarbarian:
What I mostly regard as essential with optifine are antialiasing and anisotropic filtering management, fog tweaking, performance optimizations, and all that jazz. Unfortunately after 10 years the game is so backwards in those critical aspects. Especially not having options for antialiasing ingame is incredibly anomalous, it's been an essential video setting for years in games.
In reply to CapoFantasma97:
Yes, the lack of anti-aliasing is particularly painful. I probably won't attempt that until MC 1.15 when Mojang takes the covers off of Blaze3D. May be less work at that point, assuming Mojang doesn't do it themselves.
Game comes to a halt near I'm assuming translucent blocks with mod, near a glacier/iceberg biome and whenever I look in it's direction the game comes to a snails pace/eventually crashes, I want to use this but so far will have to hold off.
In reply to FloofyMaki:
Yep, it's a known issue and will be fixed. https://github.com/grondag/canvas/issues/31
Disabling HD light maps may help.
In reply to grondagthebarbarian:
Awesome, Currently I'm getting by with optifabric and optifine after some setting tweaking to get it to work!
Any plans for 1.14.3?
In reply to gomez_96:
Yep, had some minor technical troubles with updating but should be posted tonight.
In reply to grondagthebarbarian:
OwO yes plz
Update: I will have a bug fix update “soon” that targets 1.14.2.
I also needed to fix some bugs in the Fabric default renderer and those always come first in priority because more people are likely to use the default.
Thank you for your patience. Please keep bug reports coming when you find them!
Any plans to adjust for optifine compatibility if and when it comes out for 1.14? Just wondering.
In reply to luckyp3616:
Highly unlikely that Canvas will be compatible with Optifine. Maybe OF without shaders, (but still unlikely and not a huge priority) and definitely not with OF shaders given that Canvas is also a shaders mod and works very differently.
Optifine is great, and I've used it many times myself, but it offers very little programability or compatibility assurances for mod authors. Plus it is closed source. Canvas is intended to overcome those limitations for mods and mod packs that need to. Over time, many of the features in OF that people rely on should become available in Canvas or other Fabric mods.
There's also nothing that stops OF from implementing the Fabric Renderer API and FREX. That would be awesome! But given that far more people use OF than Fabric (at least for now) I can't fault the OF author for not doing so.
In reply to grondagthebarbarian:
I see.... Optifine also has issues with compatibility with Fabric. Fabric also I think has Indigo, it's own renderer. Honestly, I think in order to be compatible, they would have to not be active at one time. You'd have to switch between them if anything.
Maybe your mod could become a competing replacement for optifine instead.
In reply to luckyp3616:
I wrote most of the Fabric Indigo renderer also. It will never officially support Optifine (because so much is out of our direct control) but we will try to improve compatibility when we can.