Solstice v1.3

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. Dynamic mode pools fog near sea level and thins it with altitude, with morning mist at sunrise; density slider goes down to fully off
• 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)
• Inverse-square block light: torches and lamps attenuate like real point lights (toggleable), with flame color at a real ~1900K blackbody
• 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.

Authors

d0mkaaa