A fantasy-soft Iris shader pack for Minecraft Java 1.20.1. Warm filmic lighting, procedural sky and water, and a lot of in-game tuning options — everything can be reshaped from Iris' Shader Pack Settings screen, no file editing needed.
I spent most of my time on the water. Vanilla's flat texture always bothered me, so the surface here is fully procedural — broad swell layered with a few different ripple scales that don't visibly repeat. Getting the reflections right took a while too: sky, clouds, and sun reflect off the water at every height, plus there's short-range screen-space reflection for nearby scenery, so standing near a cliff or a build actually shows up in the water instead of just sky-color.
The other thing I kept tweaking was how colored light bleeds onto surfaces near stained glass, sea lanterns, redstone, and similar blocks. It's a small detail but it changes the whole mood of a base — sunlight through a stained glass window should actually tint the floor under it, not just pass through as white light.
Requirements
- Iris (or an OptiFine-compatible loader)
Presets
Four starting points, switchable anytime — each just sets the sliders below to sensible defaults, nothing is locked in:
- Clear Water — brighter, higher-clarity water and a lighter overall look
- Balanced ("Fantasy Cozy") — the default, tuned for a soft, storybook feel
- Cinematic — deeper shadows, richer color, stronger glow and reflections
- Fast — trims shadow resolution and heavier effects for lower-end hardware
Also included
- Procedural sky with warm sunrise/sunset, moon phases, occasional aurora and shooting stars
- Soft PCF shadows, held-light from torches/lanterns/lava buckets, directional foliage backlighting
- Rain, underwater caustics and light shafts, with independent strength controls
- Reflective ore/metal blocks, including first-person tool/armor reflections