RIFT Skies

Tear open the sky.

Turn the Overworld into a swirling crimson vortex, a violet nebula, a polar aurora or a molten gold atmosphere. Open a glowing dimensional tear to reveal distant stars, then tune the entire look from a live control room.

RIFT Skies is a cosmetic, client-only mod for Minecraft Java 1.21.1 and NeoForge. Its effects animate in real time using an original procedural shader. No extra library, resource pack or shader pack is required.

Four atmospheres

• Crimson Fracture: burning red currents around a tear into the void.
• Amethyst Nebula: violet clouds and electric starlight.
• Arctic Aurora: emerald ribbons beneath a polar night.
• Solar Collapse: molten gold around a star-filled fracture.

Make the sky your own

Press B to open the control room, or use /riftskies in chat.

• Open and close the rift with a smooth transition.
• Adjust its width, tilt, elevation, edge glow and smoothing.
• Set vortex speed and cloud speed independently.
• Choose the amount of starlight and one of three detail levels.
• Show or hide stylised sun and moon discs.
• Let rain dim the atmosphere, or keep your chosen look.
• Save settings automatically and restore the vanilla sky instantly.

Look towards a point in the sky and type /riftskies rift look to align the tear with your view. The effects stay anchored in the world as you move the camera.

Installation

1. Install NeoForge 21.1.248 or a newer 21.1 release for Minecraft 1.21.1.
2. Place the RIFT Skies JAR in your profile's mods folder.
3. Launch the NeoForge profile and enter an Overworld world.
4. Look up and press B.

The default Crimson Fracture preset starts enabled. Change the B key binding under Options > Controls > Key Binds > RIFT Skies if another mod uses it.

Useful commands

Compatibility

RIFT Skies changes the Overworld sky and clouds. The Nether and End retain their existing skies. Install it on your client; other players do not need the mod, and settings are not synchronised between clients.

This release targets NeoForge and Minecraft 1.21.1. It does not support Fabric, Forge, Bedrock or other Minecraft versions.

Shader packs and other mods that replace dimension skies may override or conflict with the renderer. Those combinations have not been tested. Begin with NeoForge and RIFT Skies alone. Choose Performance detail if your GPU needs a lighter effect.

The rift is a visual sky effect. It does not create a traversable portal or alter terrain lighting. Celestial discs are procedural artwork rather than vanilla textures or lunar phases.

Credits

Original code, effects and icon inspired by the supplied Custom Skyboxes reference. This independent project includes no code or assets from Custom Skyboxes.

Developed with AI assistance and verified in a running Minecraft client. All Rights Reserved, copyright RIFT Skies, with CurseForge modpack permission. You may include the official, unmodified release in any CurseForge modpack without asking, using the official project and file in your modpack manifest. Configuration changes are welcome. Keep the attribution and licence intact. Other rights remain reserved.