Added:

Improved Creature Lighting:

Creatures now shade their faces based on sun direction, making them look more realistic without affecting cave lighting.

Enchantment Effects:

Restored the shimmering "glint" effect on enchanted armor. Enhanced Fog & Sky: Added a dedicated fog distance setting and improved how sky gradients are rendered.

Smart Texture Loading (Experimental):

An optimization that only uploads animated textures currently visible on screen to save resources.

Better UI & Diagnostics:

Added gold update notifications in the settings menu, clearer dependency warnings (e.g., if a setting is off because waves are disabled), and more detailed frame-time breakdowns (GPU vs. Renderer).

Fixed:

Water Visuals:

Fixed "dot" artifacts in sun reflections, corrected water refraction/depth math, improved sky reflections in water, and fixed the brightness of wet surfaces during rain.

Shadows & Lighting:

Resolved an issue where shadows would darken torchlit caves; fixed "stacked" shadows (where cloud and sun shadows multiplied incorrectly); and restored the red damage flash on creatures.

Visual Glitches:

Fixed a major bug causing creatures and players to appear see-through; corrected foliage bending/orientation; and fixed broken fog settings in certain presets that caused a "white wall" effect.

Stability & Performance:

Numerous fixes for crashes related to chunk allocation, memory management, and patch conflicts between different mods.

Changed:

Improved Cost Panel:

The settings menu now uses a unique color to highlight when a setting actually saves resources rather than consuming them.

Performance Optimization:

Improved threading for low-end machine presets to ensure smoother drawing.