🌌 AuraLite Shaders (Minecraft 1.16.5 – 26.1.2)

!Minecraft Version

AuraLite is a modern, lightweight, and highly optimized shader pack built on top of the OpenGL 4.6 / GLSL 460 standard. It is specifically designed and tested for Minecraft 1.16.5 – 26.1.2 with Sodium + Iris (and compatible with OptiFine, Oculus).

AuraLite delivers a breathtaking, realistic visual experience without overcomplicating the screen with bloated post-processing effects (such as aggressive motion blur or heavy bloom). A lightweight HDR bloom was added in v1.0.1 to softly glow emissive sources without smearing the scene. Optional FXAA/SMAA anti-aliasing, SSR, TAA, godrays, and SSAO are profile-scaled so AuraLite keeps high FPS and smooth frametimes on modern GPUs.

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ℹ️ Historical note: older changelog sections below are preserved as original release notes.

🆕 What's New in v1.0.4 — Profile Rebalance, Translucent Blocks & Glass Rendering

Version 1.0.4 delivers a full quality-profile rebalance for smoother progression, introduces proper translucent block rendering for ice and glass, adds a dedicated Iris/Oculus translucent terrain pass, and fixes a cross-vendor GLSL compatibility issue.

🔄 Full Profile Rebalance

All six quality profiles (VERY_LOW → EXTREME) have been rebalanced for a smoother, more logical feature progression:

Profile	Key Changes in v1.0.4
VERY_LOW	Sun intensity lowered to Dim (1), underwater night set to Moonlit Pool for visibility.
LOW	Ambient brightness lowered, cozy lights disabled, Filmic tone mapping (ACES), underwater night set to Dim. Stars upgraded to Standard.
MED	Godrays now enabled (Fast quality) — this was the biggest missing piece in the sweet-spot preset. PBR strength raised to Standard. Meteor frequency normalized.
HIGH	SSAO now enabled (Subtle) — contact shadows appear at this tier. Godrays bumped to Balanced. Moon intensity lowered to Standard.
ULTRA	Godrays raised to High. TAA strength at Balanced.
EXTREME	Water wave scale pushed to Stormy. Underwater night set to Pitch Dark for maximum survival realism. Photographic (AgX) tone mapping.

🧊 Split Ice & Glass Block Rendering

• Regular ice (minecraft:ice, block ID 10005) now renders with its actual texture and semi-transparency instead of being fully opaque. Transparency scales with the WATER_TRANSPARENCY setting (Clear / Balanced / Deep).
• Packed ice, blue ice, and frosted ice (block ID 10007) are now rendered opaque with texture — distinct from regular ice so the visual difference is clear.
• All glass blocks and panes (block ID 10008), including every stained-glass variant and tinted glass, now render with their actual texture and proper transparency. Glass opacity scales with WATER_TRANSPARENCY. This eliminates the old "invisible glass" problem where glass blocks disappeared against bright skies.
• Both ice types and glass are handled by the new gbuffers_terrain_translucent pass, ensuring correct rendering on Iris/Oculus split-translucent pipelines.

🪟 New Translucent Terrain Pass (gbuffers_terrain_translucent)

• A new gbuffers_terrain_translucent.fsh / .vsh shader pair was added. This pass handles water, ice, glass, and nether-portal blocks in a single Iris/Oculus-compatible translucent terrain path.
• Mirrors the existing gbuffers_water.fsh logic so translucent blocks render identically regardless of whether the loader uses a unified or split translucent G-buffer path.
• Nether portal plasma, ice Fresnel, glass opacity, and water Fresnel/ripples all route through this pass.

🛠️ GLSL Compatibility Fix

• Replaced all fma() calls with direct multiply-add expressions across every shader file. The fma() intrinsic, while correct on most modern GPUs, caused compilation failures on certain drivers (particularly older Intel iGPUs and some Mesa versions). The replacement a * b + c expressions are mathematically equivalent and compile universally.

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🆕 What's New in v1.0.3 — Anti-Aliasing & PBR Performance

Version 1.0.3 adds configurable spatial anti-aliasing (FXAA / SMAA) and a PBR render distance control that skips expensive Cook-Torrance specular calculations on distant terrain.

🖼️ Spatial Anti-Aliasing (FXAA / SMAA)

• SPATIAL_AA_MODE — new toggle in the [Post-Processing] menu with 3 modes:
  • Off — no spatial AA (TAA-only or nothing).
  • FXAA — Fast Approximate AA. Sobel gradient-directed edge detection with conservative blend weights. Cheap and effective.
  • SMAA — Subpixel Morphological AA. Combines luminance Sobel gradient with depth discontinuity detection for superior edge detection on geometry where luma contrast is low. Slightly more expensive than FXAA.
• Both modes operate in linear space before tone mapping and are conservative enough to avoid washing out the image (max blend weight 0.15–0.18, high edge thresholds).
• Freely combinable with TAA (composite1 pass) for temporal + spatial smoothing.
• Added to all 6 quality profiles: VERY_LOW=Off, LOW/MED=FXAA, HIGH/ULTRA/EXTREME=SMAA.

⚡ PBR Render Distance

• PBR_DISTANCE — new setting in the [Lighting Settings] menu with 4 levels:
  • Near (16m) — PBR specular only on very close surfaces. Maximum GPU savings.
  • Standard (48m) — balanced distance. Default for LOW/MED profiles.
  • Far (128m) — extended range. Default for HIGH/ULTRA profiles.
  • Unlimited — no distance limit. EXTREME profile only.
• Beyond the fade range, the entire Cook-Torrance BRDF block (GGX distribution, Smith geometry, Fresnel-Schlick) is completely skipped via early-out — no wasted ALU on sub-pixel specular.
• Fade is smooth (smoothstep between start and end distance) to avoid visible pop-in.

🌐 Localization

• Full English and Russian localization for both new settings (option names + value labels).
• Other language files fall back to English labels.

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🌿 Foliage Subsurface Scattering (also finalized in v1.0.3)

• FOLIAGE_SSS — toggle in the [Foliage Settings] menu. Enables light bleeding through leaves and plants when looking toward the sun, plus a soft wrap term for the shaded side. Controlled per-profile (enabled from MED upward by default). Uses material ID tagging in gbuffers_terrain and a dedicated SSS pass in composite.fsh.
• Added to all quality profiles (VERY_LOW → EXTREME) with the !FOLIAGE_SSS or FOLIAGE_SSS flag.
• Full English + Russian localization strings added.

older changelog sections below are preserved as original release notes.

Version 1.0.2 adds realistic subsurface scattering for vegetation, making leaves, grass, and plants look more translucent and lifelike when light shines through them. This is a focused visual enhancement that integrates cleanly with the existing PBR and lighting pipeline.

🌿 New Feature

• Foliage Subsurface Scattering (FOLIAGE_SSS) — New toggle in the [Foliage Settings] menu. When enabled, foliage receives additional lighting from the back (light bleeding) and a soft wrap term for the unlit side. Controlled per-profile (enabled from MED upward by default). Uses material ID tagging in gbuffers_terrain and a dedicated SSS pass in composite.fsh.
• Added to all quality profiles (VERY_LOW → EXTREME) with the !FOLIAGE_SSS or FOLIAGE_SSS flag.
• Full English + Russian localization strings added.

🧭 Project metadata refresh

• README and installation references now point to v1.0.3.
• Source-folder notes now correctly describe the repository as containing snapshots through shaders v1.0.3/.
• Minor synchronization of shaders.properties (FOLIAGE_SSS screen entry and profile definitions).

--- older changelog sections below are preserved as original release notes.

🆕 What's New in v1.0.1 — Stability, HDR Bloom & Photographic Tone Mapping

Version 1.0.1 is a focused hotfix on top of v1.0.0 that addresses five edge-case rendering issues and introduces a new cinematic tone-mapping curve with lightweight HDR bloom.

🛠️ Bug Fixes

• TAA history acceptance threshold. Added historySample.a < 0.99 guard in composite1.fsh so uninitialised or stale history buffers (e.g. right after shader reload or resolution change) are rejected instead of causing ghosting.
• Vibrancy math. applyVibrancy in final.fsh now correctly handles negative saturation values — oversaturation works as intended rather than relying on undefined GLSL mix extrapolation followed by hard clamping.
• SSR normal NaN guard. Added length(N) > 0.5 check before traceSSR() so invalid normals from edge pixels are silently skipped instead of producing black reflections.
• SSR near-field trace precision. Minimum raymarch step lowered from 1.0 to 0.3 view-space units, dramatically improving hit rate on close surfaces (ripples, shallow pools, wet stone).
• Meteor moon-brightness curve. gbuffers_skybasic.fsh now uses cos²(phase × π/8) — identical to getMoonPhaseBrightness() in composite.fsh — so moon washout is physically consistent.

🎨 Visual Enhancements

• HDR Bloom (v1.0.1). Cheap single-pass 3×3 neighbour blur for overbright pixels (luminance threshold 0.75). Naturally affects sun/moon disks, lava, portals, bright specular highlights, and torches — without smearing the entire scene or requiring extra render targets.
• Photographic (AgX-like) Tone Mapping (v1.0.1). A new CONTRAST = 4 option in final.fsh provides a sigmoidal tone curve with natural highlight chromatic attenuation, soft toe, and lifted blacks — giving a cinematic, non-clipped look that keeps foliage saturation under control while handling extreme brightness gracefully.
• EXTREME profile updated. Now uses CONTRAST=4 (Photographic/AgX-like) instead of CONTRAST=3 for cinematic highlight handling.

🧭 Project metadata refresh

• README and installation references now point to v1.0.1.
• Source-folder notes now correctly describe the repository as containing snapshots through shaders v1.0.1/. (Historical for that release)

--- older changelog sections below are preserved as original release notes.

🆕 What's New in v1.0.0 — Meteor Showers & Finalized Reflection Pipeline

Version 1.0.0 builds on the volumetric aurora work from v0.3.0 and introduces the first v1.0.0 source snapshot in this repository. The update adds a physically-inspired meteor system to the night sky, finalizes the modern SSR path for reliable Iris compatibility, and refreshes the documentation so the project now correctly points to the shaders v1.0.0/ folder.

☄️ Physically-Based Meteors / Falling Stars

• True great-circle sky arcs. Meteors are rendered as moving arcs on the celestial sphere instead of flat 2D streaks, so showers converge toward a shared radiant like real meteor photography.
• Ablation-based brightness curve. Each meteor rises, peaks, and fades with a bell-shaped light curve inspired by atmospheric entry.
• Blackbody plasma colouring. Meteor heads are tinted with the same Kelvin-based colour pipeline used by AuraLite's sun/moon lighting, giving physically consistent warm-to-white fireball tones.
• Moonlight washout and weather attenuation. Faint meteors are suppressed by bright moon phases, rain, and daytime sky brightness, improving realism and avoiding visual clutter in poor visibility.
• Persistent trains on bright fireballs. The strongest events leave a short-lived glowing ionization trail, including a subtle green oxygen-style tint on the lingering train.
• Available in both Overworld and The End. Overworld meteors respect moonlight and atmosphere; End meteors render against the permanent night sky without moon washout.

🪞 Finalized v1.0.0 SSR / Water Reflection Path

• colortex6 fully removed from the reflection workflow. The older MRT export path was retired; final.fsh now reads normals directly from colortex2 and roughness from colortex1, matching AuraLite's already-working PBR data path.
• Depth-based water-surface detection. Water is identified by comparing depthtex0 and depthtex1, making reflections robust on Iris paths where water G-buffer writes may be inconsistent.
• More stable water normals. Reflection normals are reconstructed from neighbouring depth samples and then perturbed with coherent world-space ripple gradients, reducing faceting and torn reflections.
• Cleaner post-pass reliability. The reflection pipeline now lives entirely in the final post-processing pass, simplifying the frame graph and avoiding loader-specific MRT issues.

🎛️ New Sky Settings & Profile Integration

• New configurable options: SHOOTING_STARS, SHOOTING_STARS_FREQUENCY, and SHOOTING_STARS_BRIGHTNESS.
• Shooting stars are disabled on the lightest presets and enabled from MED upward through the normal profile system.
• English and Russian UI text was expanded for the new night-sky controls, while other language files continue to fall back safely.

🧭 Project metadata refresh

• README and installation references now point to v1.0.0.
• Source-folder notes now correctly describe the repository as containing snapshots through shaders v1.0.0/.
• The quality-profile and configuration sections below were refreshed for the current release, while older changelog entries remain intact for historical reference.

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🆕 What's New in v0.3.0 — Volumetric Aurora Realism Update

Version 0.3.0 focuses on the night sky and replaces the older flat aurora overlay with a more photographic, volumetric aurora renderer. The rest of the rendering pipeline remains based on the stable v0.2.9 SSR/water foundation.

🌌 Realistic Volumetric Aurora Borealis

• Raymarched aurora curtains. Aurora rendering now samples a vertical volume above the horizon instead of drawing a simple 2D noise layer, giving the effect visible depth and height.
• Distinct vertical pillars and rays. Fine high-frequency striations create the characteristic upward beams seen in real aurora photography.
• Sharper lower edge, softer upper fade. The aurora now has a defined luminous base and gradually dissolves into the upper night sky.
• More vivid photographic colours. The palette was rebalanced toward saturated cyan-green, magenta/purple, and subtle deep-blue upper blending.
• Better motion pacing. Animation speed was reduced and smoothed so curtains drift naturally instead of sliding too quickly across the sky.
• Preserved biome/weather logic. Existing AURORA_MODE, cold-biome detection, rain attenuation, speed, and brightness settings continue to work.

🧭 Project metadata refresh

• README and installation references now point to v0.3.0.
• Source-folder notes now correctly describe the repository as containing snapshots through shaders v0.3.0/.

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🆕 What's New in v0.2.9 — Working SSR, Realistic Waves & True Night Underwater

Version 0.2.9 is a focused water-quality update that finally delivers the long-requested screen-space reflections that work on every loader (including the tricky Iris 1.20+ pipeline), introduces physically-coherent procedural waves that don't tear reflections, and gives underwater scenes true nocturnal darkness.

🪞 Screen-Space Reflections (SSR) — Now Actually Working

• Loader-agnostic SSR pipeline. Previous SSR implementations relied on multi-render-target writes via DRAWBUFFERS:06 + layout(location = 1) out. This combination silently failed on Iris 1.20 — the second attachment was never bound to the FBO, so reflection data was lost between the composite and final passes. v0.2.9 reads the surface normal directly from colortex2 and roughness from colortex1.z (the same buffers PBR specular highlights already use), bypassing the broken MRT path entirely.

• Bulletproof water detector. Water surfaces are now identified by comparing depthtex0 (depth with translucents) and depthtex1 (depth without translucents). When they differ, the pixel is a water/glass/ice surface — no false positives on lapis lazuli, blue wool, packed ice, or terrain seen through water. Works regardless of whether gbuffers_water correctly writes its G-buffer attachments.

• dFdx-stabilized normal reconstruction. For pixels where gbufferModelView is identity in the final pass (a known Iris quirk), the water normal is rebuilt from depth-buffer derivatives using a 4-tap central-difference kernel. The result is the true geometric normal of the visible water surface, independent of any matrix uniforms.

• Schlick-correct Fresnel. Reflections now follow the physical F0 = 0.02 dielectric water curve: weak when looking straight down, near-mirror at grazing angles.

• Adaptive view-space raymarcher with binary refinement. Textbook real-time SSR: the reflected ray is marched in view space with a step length that scales with the current depth gap (long jumps in empty space, short jumps near the surface), then refined with 4–7 binary-search iterations once a crossing is detected. Distance-aware tolerance prevents Z-fighting on far samples. 14 / 24 / 40 march steps depending on SSR_QUALITY.

🌊 Coherent Procedural Wave System

• 4-octave fBm height-field with C2-continuous quintic smoothing. Each octave is rotated ~33° to break grid alignment.
• Analytic gradients (4-sample central differences in world space) produce coherent wave slopes — reflections smoothly track wave geometry instead of jittering as random noise offsets did in earlier prototypes.
• New WATER_WAVE_SCALE menu setting: Calm / Standard / Choppy / Stormy — controls wave amplitude from mirror to broken horizon.
• New WATER_WAVE_DETAIL menu setting: Coarse / Standard / Dense — controls wave frequency from a few large swells to many fine ripples.

🌑 True Underwater Night Darkness

• The old underwater scattering formula had three baked-in brightness floors (+0.25 on dayFactor, +0.3 on skyLight, plus a constant deep-water blue tint), so even pitch-black midnight underwater looked like a moonlit pool. v0.2.9 rebuilds the formula to honour the actual day/night cycle.
• New UNDERWATER_NIGHT_DARKNESS menu setting:
  • Moonlit Pool — original 0.2.8 brightness (compat mode)
  • Dim — clearly night, still visible
  • True Night — realistic darkness (default)
  • Pitch Dark — extreme survival realism

🛠️ Smaller fixes

• Removed the unused colortex6Out MRT write from composite.fsh along with its colortex6Format declaration — fewer attachments, simpler pipeline, less to break.
• Centralized SSR/wave/underwater toggles into the regular profile system, so all six presets (VERY_LOW → EXTREME) carry sensible defaults.
• Added English and Russian translations for all new options, plus value-label localization (Calm/Choppy/True Night etc.) — other languages fall back to English labels.

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🆕 What's New in v0.2.8 — Dimension Upgrades, Precise Biomes & Physics Fixes

Version 0.2.8 is a major dimension-specific realism, accuracy, and physics update. It implements bulletproof dimension detection using Minecraft's native engine uniforms, overhauls the End and Nether dimensions with custom atmospheres, solves long-standing visual and math bugs, and repacks the entire codebase.

🌌 Dimension Upgrades (The End & The Nether)

• Crystal-Clear End Dimension — completely removed clouds and fog in the End dimension (including on emissive surfaces). Obsidian towers and End cities are now perfectly clear, giving unblocked visibility to End stars and nebulae.
• Dynamic Nether Biome Atmospheres — completely overhauled the Nether dimension. Instead of a single hardcoded orange-red fog, the shader now dynamically reads the active biome's fogColor (Crimson Forest, Warped Forest, Soul Sand Valley, Basalt Deltas, and Nether Wastes) and adapts both block fog and ambient lighting color in real-time.
• End Star Spherical Mapping — replaced the old 2D stretched star projection in the End with a perfect, uniform 3D star grid mapping (synchronized with the Overworld). This completely eliminates equatorial star stretching and distortion near the horizon.

🛠️ Bulletproof Code & Physics Fixes

• worldTime Overflow Protection — replaced all occurrences of direct float(worldTime) casting with mod(float(worldTime), 24000.0). This solves a major Minecraft bug where daylight cycles, twilight sunset factor, moon masks, and morning/evening mist would permanently freeze after the first Minecraft day (especially on long-term worlds and servers).
• Nether/End Cook-Torrance BRDF Light Alignment — resolved a critical mathematical mismatch in PBR highlights. In non-Overworld dimensions where there is no direct sun/moon light direction, the light vector L is now aligned to a physical upward vector (vec3(0.0, 1.0, 0.0)), matching the overridden half-vector H. This guarantees perfect, balanced glossy/metallic specular reflections on all faces.
• Vibrancy Range Safety Clamp — added a safety clamp inside the applyVibrancy saturation controller in final.fsh. This prevents negative values or channel overflows when using High/Extreme contrast or Vivid/Colorful presets, eliminating display clipping and driver-level color banding.
• Precise Biome Name Mappings — updated shaders.properties custom uniforms to explicitly map and track individual Minecraft End biomes (BIOME_THE_END, BIOME_SMALL_END_ISLANDS, etc.) and Nether biomes (BIOME_NETHER_WASTES, BIOME_SOUL_SAND_VALLEY, etc.) rather than guessing by biome category.
• Minecraft Native dimension Uniform Integration — declared and linked uniform int dimension; inside composite.fsh and gbuffers_skybasic.fsh. This provides 100% reliable, zero-overhead dimension checks (-1 for Nether, 1 for End, 0 for Overworld) across all Minecraft versions, eliminating the "clouds in the Nether" and "fog in the End" glitches.

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🆕 What's New in v0.2.7 — Realism, TAA & Compatibility Update

Version 0.2.7 is a practical visual-realism and compatibility update built on top of v0.2.6. It adds balanced next-generation effects for higher presets, fixes post-rain ✨s on more rendering paths, expands language support, and ships a correctly packaged shaderpack ZIP with a root shaders/ folder.

✨ Sky & Weather Fixes

• Reliable post-rain ✨s — ✨ and moonbow rendering moved into gbuffers_skybasic so they appear reliably after rain on Iris/OptiFine paths where the composite sky branch may not run.
• Safer sky rendering — fixed stale G-buffer/emissive handling for sky pixels and guarded against invalid normal normalization.

☀️ Physically-Inspired Light Shafts & Cloud Shadows

• Volumetric godrays — added physically-inspired single-scattering sun shafts with Beer–Lambert extinction, Henyey–Greenstein / Mie phase, height-based aerosol density, shadow-map occlusion, weather attenuation, and cloud-shadow transmittance.
• Transparent procedural cloud shadows — clouds now cast soft, variable-opacity shadows on terrain. Cirrus layers are faint, mid-level decks are moderate, and cumulus/storm decks are stronger and more dramatic.

🎞️ TAA and Profile Balancing

• Temporal Anti-Aliasing (TAA) — added a conservative temporal resolve with motion reprojection, previous-frame history, neighborhood clipping and motion/luminance rejection to reduce shimmer on high presets.
• New VERY_LOW profile — a true maximum-FPS preset for very weak GPUs.
• Rebalanced profiles — effects are distributed more gradually: cloud shadows begin at MED, godrays and TAA begin at HIGH, SSAO begins at ULTRA, and EXTREME pushes the heaviest variants.

🌐 Localization & Packaging

• Localization expanded to 59 language files — added many regional languages and compatibility aliases, including both fil_ph.lang and legacy tl_ph.lang for Filipino/Tagalog support.
• Correct shaderpack ZIP layout — release ZIPs now contain a root shaders/ directory, matching Minecraft shaderpack expectations.

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🆕 Recap — What landed in v0.2.6 — License Migration & Version Support

Version 0.2.6 is a legal protection and compatibility update. It migrates the project license to a copyleft non-commercial model to protect AuraLite from unauthorized commercial redistribution, adds copyright assertions to all source files, and officially expands tested compatibility.

⚖️ License Migration to CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

• MIT to CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 — Migrated the project's license from MIT to Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International. AuraLite is now legally protected against commercial reuse and unauthorized sales (e.g. on third-party launchers/portals).
• Copyright Asserted — Explicitly declared copyright: Copyright (c) 2026 AlexanderNyr.
• Embedded Code Headers — Embedded copyright headers (// AuraLite Shaders - Copyright (c) 2026 AlexanderNyr. Licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.) into all GLSL shader files (.fsh, .vsh), block properties (.properties), and translation tables (.lang).
• Rules & Permissions FAQ — Added a clear FAQ section outlining allowed actions (monetized videos/streaming, inclusion in free CurseForge/Modrinth modpacks) and prohibited actions (commercial sales, paid Patreon redistributions, raw rehosting on ad-supported download hubs).

🎮 Version Compatibility Expansion

• Minecraft 26.1.2 Support Verified — Tested and verified to work flawlessly on the latest Minecraft Java hotfix 26.1.2 with Iris + Sodium.
• Minecraft 1.16.5 Support Verified — Tested and confirmed to run beautifully on the legendary modding version 1.16.5 (Iris/OptiFine).

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🆕 Recap — What landed in v0.2.5 — Settings Fix & Cloud/Lighting Refinement

Version 0.2.5 is a polish & stability update that fixes long-standing rendering bugs, adds a new EXTREME quality profile with screen-space ambient occlusion, completely overhauls the cloud system for camera-stable rendering, and refines fog, aurora, and water lighting. The composite pass grew to ~1 422 lines of GLSL while keeping the same lightweight philosophy and FPS targets.

☁️ Cloud System Overhaul

• Camera-stable cloud sampling — clouds no longer change appearance or swim when rotating the camera. Samples are now height-anchored with a per-slice world-space strategy instead of screen-space jitter.
• Independent wind-shear per layer — Cirrus, Altocumulus, Altostratus, and Cumulus layers now move with separate rotated/sheared domains and wind offsets, preventing upper layers from looking like copies of lower ones.
• Wind speed affects clouds — the WIND_SPEED setting (Gentle / Breeze / Gale) now also controls cloud wind drift, with storms pushing layers faster.
• Cloud Render Distance (CLOUD_DISTANCE) — new 4-step setting (Near / Standard / Far / Very Far) that scales automatically with quality profiles. Range expanded: LOW 3 000 m → ULTRA 16 000 m for horizon-scale cloud decks.
• Camera-inside-cloud volumetric veil — when flying inside the cloud layer, a soft white/grey fog veil surrounds the camera for immersive flythrough.
• Softer cloud self-shadowing — cloud undersides are no longer crushed to black; ambient lift produces naturally dark but readable cloud bases.
• Better silver lining / phase lighting — precomputed Mie phase term gives soft golden glow on cloud edges without extra noise calls.
• Soft layer edges — vertical feathering on every cloud layer eliminates hard density boundaries.

🌟 New EXTREME Quality Profile & SSAO

• EXTREME profile — a new fifth quality tier that adds SSAO/SAO-style contact ambient occlusion for screen-space darkening in corners, under blocks, and around geometry intersections.
• SSAO Strength — 3-step control (Subtle / Balanced / Deep). SSAO is enabled on ULTRA and EXTREME profiles.

🔧 Rendering Fixes & Improvements

• PBR specular BRDF fix — added the missing NdotL cosine factor for correct Cook-Torrance BRDF. Specular is now properly dim at high sun angles and bright at grazing.
• Shadow slope bias fix — bias now uses raw NdotL (not light-wrapped) to prevent shadow acne artifacts.
• Water G-buffer fix — gbuffers_water now outputs full G-buffer data (DRAWBUFFERS:012) — lightmap, PBR, and normals — so the composite pass lights water correctly instead of reading stale terrain data.
• Unified water specular — water's own Blinn-Phong specular removed; composite's GGX PBR now handles all water specular with proper Fresnel and microfacet model.
• Emissive pixel detection — portals and self-lit surfaces now use colortex2.a < 0.5 as an emissive flag; composite skips scene lighting for them, displaying the cosmic plasma as-is.
• Sunset/twilight timing fix — /time set 12800 stays red/warm instead of snapping to neutral; twilight window widened to 11 000–13 000.
• Redundant render call removed — eliminated a second projectAndDivide() call in composite; viewPos is computed once.

🌌 Aurora Borealis Fixes

• Aurora rendering moved to gbuffers_skybasic — fixes auroras being invisible on some Iris/OptiFine pipelines where the composite sky branch didn't run for sky geometry.
• North mask fixed — the old smoothstep(0.0, -0.65, ...) was undefined on some GPUs; replaced with a correct north-facing mask.
• Real cold-biome detection — AURORA_MODE=1 (Only in Cold Biomes) now uses a real biome custom uniform (biome_category, biome_precipitation, temperature) instead of unreliable fogColor heuristics. Fallback to fog-based detection remains for loaders that don't provide the uniform.

🌫️ Ground Mist & Fog Refinements

• Realistic atmospheric fog — fog now accounts for altitude (aerosol density), horizon path length, and outdoor/indoor exposure via skylight.
• Ground mist overhaul — the low mist layer (Y ≈ 60–70) now uses large slow sheets + small breakup noise, optical distance accumulation instead of a hard 120 m cutoff, and a broader dawn/evening timing window with humidity-based persistence.
• Camera-inside-mist veil — standing inside the mist layer veils the whole view with a subtle forward-scattering fog.

🛠️ Profile & UI Improvements

• <profile> selector on main screen — quality presets (LOW / MED / HIGH / ULTRA / EXTREME) are now visible and switchable directly on the main settings screen.
• Translation notice — a new ⚠ Translations may contain errors entry warns that some localization strings may be inaccurate.
• POM disabled in ALL presets (including ULTRA) — POM is unstable on some resource packs / GPU drivers; users can still enable it manually.
• All profiles use realistic terminator (LIGHT_WRAP=1 — Lambert) by default.
• profile.LOW completeness fix (v0.2.3) — LOW profile now includes every settings key for reliable profile switching.
• Localization expanded in v0.2.5 — the base menu localization was expanded to 23 language files. Later v0.2.7 builds extend this further to 59 language codes.

📋 Accumulated fixes from v0.2.3 & v0.2.4

• CLOUD_HEIGHT / CLOUD_THICKNESS defines now wired to actual cloud geometry.
• GROUND_MIST #define added so the toggle in shaders.properties works.
• SUN_TEMPERATURE applied to gbuffers_skybasic's Kelvin curve, matching composite.fsh.
• All texture2D() calls replaced with texture() for GLSL 460 consistency.
• Dead code removed: unused noise/fbm functions in gbuffers_terrain, dead renderVolumetricClouds() in gbuffers_skybasic, unused mc_EntityOut varying.

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🆕 Recap — What landed in v0.2.2 (Enhanced Lighting Edition)

Version 0.2.2 introduced a brand-new [Sun & Moon] configuration screen and deeply expanded the shadow / ambient pipeline:

• ☀️ Sun & Moon Intensity — 4 levels each.
• ☀️ Sun & Moon Colour Temperature — Kelvin-based via the Tanner Helland blackbody curve.
• ☀️ Sun Halo (Mie Scatter) & Enhanced Sunrise/Sunset Glow.
• 🌑 Shadow Softness (rotated Poisson disk), Shadow Distance, Shadow Tint, Shadow Lift / Ambient, Light Wrap (Terminator Softness).

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🆕 Recap — What landed in v0.2.0

Version 0.2.0 was the original content update that nearly doubled the pack's visual feature set (≈ +900 lines of shader code):

• 🌠 Night Sky Overhaul — flowing Aurora Borealis, a diagonal Milky Way nebula, configurable stars density & brightness, and an animated post-rain ✨ that lingers as wetness decays.
• 🌧️ Dynamic Weather Surfaces — Wet Reflections on solid ground during rain, support for thunderStrength to separate thunderstorms from light showers.
• 🌫️ Golden Ground Mist (Y = 62–66) — soft, golden-white morning/evening fog sheets that drift over water and ice at dawn and dusk.
• 🕯️ Cozy Light Flickering — real-time warm flicker animations for torches, campfires, and lanterns. Held-item light is also taken into account.
• 🧱 Parallax Occlusion Mapping (POM) — true 3D block relief on LabPBR resource packs, with configurable depth and step count.
• 🌊 Granular Water Tuning — separate sliders for ripple strength (WATER_RIFFLES) and specular glow (WATER_SPECULAR_STRENGTH).
• 🎨 Color Vibrancy + Tone-Mapping Curves — 4-step saturation and 3 tone-mapping curves (Soft / Filmic ACES / Intense).
• 🌀 Cosmic Nether Portal — vanilla portal texture is replaced by a swirling 3D plasma vortex.
• 🧊 Ice Glitch Fix — dedicated block ID disables waving/refraction on ice variants to eliminate visual artifacts. (v1.0.4: split into regular ice (semi-transparent) and packed/blue ice (opaque) with proper texture rendering.)
• 🌙 Moon-Phase Aware Sky — sky shading reacts to moonPhase and dimension for nether/end correctness.

Source for every version is shipped in this repo under shaders v0.2.0/ through shaders v1.0.4/. The current source snapshot is v1.0.4. End users should grab the packaged release ZIP from Releases.

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✨ Features At A Glance

☁️ 1. Meteorological 3D Volumetric Clouds (Fly-Through!)

AuraLite features a fully physical, flyable 3D cloud system driven by 12-step Raymarching in world coordinates:

• True 3D Space: Clouds float at a physical height (configurable base altitude). You can fly up, enter a dense, foggy overcast, and rise above the clouds to see an endless rolling sea of fluffy cumulus clouds.
• Camera-Inside-Cloud Veil (v0.2.5): When flying inside the cloud layer, a soft volumetric white/grey fog surrounds the camera.
• Independent Wind-Shear Layers (v0.2.5): Each cloud layer (Cirrus, Altocumulus, Altostratus, Cumulus) moves on its own rotated/sheared domain with the WIND_SPEED setting.
• Cloud Render Distance (v0.2.5): New 4-step control (Near / Standard / Far / Very Far) — from 3 000 m to 16 000 m horizon-scale decks.
• Beer's Law Self-Shadowing: Realistic light absorption makes cloud bottoms dense and dark while cloud tops glow with brilliant white/gold illumination.
• Mie Scattering (Silver Lining): Looking towards the sun produces a glowing golden halo around the cloud edges.
• Overcast Storms: When raining (/weather rain), the fluffy cumulus clouds automatically expand, darken, and merge into an ominous, heavy Nimbostratus/Cumulonimbus storm deck.

🌠 2. Living Night Sky (since v0.2.0)

The night sky is no longer just a static starfield — it's a fully procedural cosmos:

• Aurora Borealis: Realistic, flowing northern lights that ripple across the upper sky. Modes: Disabled / Only in Cold Biomes / Always Enabled, with independent speed and brightness controls. (v0.2.5: rendered in gbuffers_skybasic for reliability; cold-biome detection uses real biome uniforms.)
• Milky Way Nebula: A subtle diagonal brownish galactic band glows softly above the horizon, with adjustable brightness.
• Procedural Stars: Independent brightness and density sliders let you choose between a few crisp pinpricks or a brilliantly dense Hubble-style sky. Stars sparkle and twinkle in real time.
• Physically-Based Meteors / Falling Stars (v1.0.0): configurable meteor activity, brightness, moon washout, and persistent ionization trails bring realistic night-sky streaks to the Overworld and the End.
• Persistent ✨: After rain stops, a soft ✨ arcs across the sky and gently fades out as the wetness uniform decays. Brightness and saturation are configurable.

☀️ 3. Analytical Kelvin Sun & Moon — Enhanced in v0.2.2, refined in v0.2.5

• Tanner Helland Blackbody Sun: Sunlight color temperature is dynamically calculated in real time based on the sun's elevation angle using a physically-correct blackbody Kelvin curve (selectable: Cool / Realistic / Warm Golden). This yields photoreal sunrise/sunset colors (~1800K–2200K), warm golden hours (~2800K), and clean crisp white noon light (~5700K–5800K).
• Beer-Lambert Atmospheric Extinction: Sunlight intensity dynamically drops as the sun approaches the horizon due to scattering in thick atmospheric masses: $airMass = \frac{1}{\sin(\alpha) + 0.15 \cdot (\alpha_{deg} + 3.885)^{-1.253}}$ This yields incredibly soft, rich, and breathtaking sunset and sunrise golden hour transitions!
• Independent Sun & Moon Intensity (v0.2.2): 4-step master sliders let you push the day brighter (Blazing) or sink nights into total darkness (Pitch Night).
• Moon Color Temperature (v0.2.2): choose between Icy Blue (cold), Silver (physically accurate 4100K), or Warm Cream (harvest-moon).
• Sun Halo (Mie forward-scatter) & Enhanced Sunrise/Sunset Glow (v0.2.2) — warm scattering effects on terrain when looking near the low sun.
• 🆕 Extended Twilight Window (v0.2.5): Sunset/sunrise lighting stays warm/red at /time set 12800 instead of snapping to neutral.
• Crispy Circular Sun & Moon Disks: Custom procedural, perfectly round, anti-aliased sun and moon disks are drawn onto the sky dome with glowing coronas and soft halo scattering.

👥 4. Soft Shadows, Immersive Dark Nights & Cozy Lights — Enhanced in v0.2.2, refined in v0.2.5

• Rotated Poisson Disk Soft Shadows (v0.2.2): replaces the old fixed 3×3 PCF kernel. Three quality steps — Sharp / Soft / Ultra Soft — give natural-looking penumbra on shadow maps up to 4096×4096.
• 🆕 Shadow Slope Bias Fix (v0.2.5): bias now uses raw NdotL to prevent acne artifacts.
• Shadow Distance Control (v0.2.2): cap dynamic shadow rendering at 60m / 80m / 120m / 160m for performance or quality tuning.
• Shadow Tint (v0.2.2): realistic cool-blue tint for daytime shadows under an open sky (or neutral / warm if you prefer).
• Ambient Lift (v0.2.2): control how dark shadowed areas appear at night and in caves.
• Light Wrap (Terminator Softness) (v0.2.2): choose physical Lambert, a soft photographic wrap, or a stylized look. (v0.2.5: all profiles default to realistic Lambert.)
• 🆕 SSAO / SAO Contact Ambient Occlusion (v0.2.5): screen-space darkening in corners and at geometry intersections. Enabled on ULTRA+ profiles.
• Deep Dark Nights (2× darker): Night ambient light, moonlight intensity, and fog are reduced by 2× by default to create incredibly atmospheric, immersive nights. Caves and forests are pitch dark, requiring torches for exploration (combine with the new Pitch Night moon preset for extra spice).
• Warm Block Lights: Torches, lanterns, and lava emit a cozy golden-amber glow with physically accurate quadratic falloff.
• 🕯️ Cozy Torch Flickering (since v0.2.0): Real-time flickering animations for torches, campfires, and lanterns add a living, warm atmosphere to your shelters. Held-item light contribution (heldBlockLightValue) is also accounted for.

🌊 5. Physical Fresnel Water & Silver Moonlight Path — Refined in v0.2.5

• Fresnel Effect: Water reflectivity is mathematically calculated based on your viewing angle. Looking straight down provides crystal transparency, while looking towards the horizon transitions water into a highly reflective, glossy sheet reflecting the sky dome.
• Silver Moonlight Path: Moonlight specular reflection on water ripples has been increased by 4.5×. At midnight, a brilliant silver lunar reflection path shimmers across the waving ocean.
• 🆕 Unified GGX PBR Water Specular (v0.2.5): Water's old Blinn-Phong specular replaced by composite's GGX microfacet model with proper Fresnel — physically consistent with terrain PBR.
• 3D Geometric Waves: Vertex shader waves physically displace the water mesh in real-time, and react to rainStrength / thunderStrength for choppier seas during storms.
• Independent Ripple & Specular Controls (since v0.2.0): WATER_RIFFLES (Calm / Standard / Choppy) and WATER_SPECULAR_STRENGTH (Soft / Standard / Glinting) can be tuned separately for the perfect water mood.
• Zero Feedback Glitches: Designed to be extremely stable, utilizing no feedback-loop depth buffer reads to guarantee bug-free solid rendering on all GPUs.

🌧️ 6. Dynamic Weather Surfaces (since v0.2.0)

• Wet Reflections: During rain, solid blocks like grass, dirt, and stone darken and become glossy, picking up sky reflections under open weather. Disables itself under roofs.
• Low Ground Mist (Y ≈ 60–70) (refined in v0.2.5): Soft fog sheets drift across water and ice surfaces at dawn and dusk. Uses large slow sheets + small breakup noise with optical distance accumulation for natural-looking radiation fog. Humidity from rain/wetness makes the mist persist longer.
• Camera-Inside-Mist Veil (v0.2.5): Standing inside the mist layer produces a subtle whole-view forward-scattering veil.
• Thunderstorm Awareness: Shaders distinguish between regular rain and full thunderstorms via the thunderStrength uniform, intensifying cloud darkness and wave chop accordingly.

🌿 7. Lively Foliage

• Waving animations for oak/spruce/birch leaves, tall grass, flowers, vines, lily pads, and crops.
• Gently animated using hardware-optimized sine waves and time constants.
• 🧊 Ice fix (since v0.2.0, refined in v1.0.4): regular ice renders with texture + semi-transparency; packed/blue ice renders opaque with texture. All ice types have waving and refraction disabled to eliminate visual glitches.
• 🪟 Glass rendering (v1.0.4): all glass blocks and panes (including every stained-glass variant and tinted glass) now render with their actual texture and proper transparency via the dedicated translucent terrain pass.

💎 8. Full LabPBR 1.3 Material Support + POM — PBR refined in v0.2.5

• 3D Normal Maps: Real-time TBN (Tangent-Binormal-Normal) matrices generate true three-dimensional depth on blocks (stone crevices, brick joints) reacting dynamically to light angles.
• Specular Reflection (GGX Microfacet): Polished surfaces give sharp glossy glints, while metallic surfaces (gold, copper, iron) tint the specular reflection with the block's native albedo. (v0.2.5: correct NdotL cosine factor added for Cook-Torrance BRDF accuracy.)
• 🧱 Parallax Occlusion Mapping (POM) (since v0.2.0): True per-pixel block relief that pops out of the surface. Configurable POM_DEPTH (1–3) and POM_STEPS (1–4). Disabled in all profiles by default for stability; can be enabled manually. Recommended to keep off on incompatible resource packs.
• Seamless Fallback: Falls back automatically to gorgeous flat vanilla textures if no PBR resource pack is active.

🌀 9. Cosmic Nether Portal (since v0.2.0, improved in v0.2.5)

The vanilla Nether portal texture is procedurally transformed into a swirling 3D plasma vortex — animated purple/magenta cosmic energy that pulses with hypnotic depth. Mapped via dedicated block ID 10006 in block.properties. (v0.2.5: portal pixels are flagged as emissive so composite skips scene lighting and displays the plasma as-is.)

🪟 10. Translucent Block Rendering (v1.0.4)

AuraLite renders translucent blocks with proper per-block transparency through a dedicated gbuffers_terrain_translucent pass, ensuring correct display on both Iris and Oculus pipelines:

• Regular ice — semi-transparent with actual texture; opacity scales with WATER_TRANSPARENCY (Clear / Balanced / Deep).
• Packed ice / blue ice / frosted ice — opaque with texture, visually distinct from regular ice.
• All glass blocks and panes — every vanilla glass type (clear, all 16 stained variants, pane variants, tinted glass) renders with its actual texture and correct transparency. No more invisible glass against bright skies.

🎬 11. Cinematic Post-Processing — Refined in v1.0.1, v1.0.3

• Multiple Tone Mapping Curves (since v0.2.0): Pick from Soft, Filmic (ACES), or Intense (High Contrast) to match your preferred mood.
• Color Vibrancy (since v0.2.0): 4-step non-linear saturation control (Muted / Balanced / Colorful / Vivid) that makes foliage glow emerald and skies look lush, without crushing skin tones.
• Exposure Brightness: Muted / Balanced / Vibrant — global brightness lift.
• Subtle Vignette: Gentle lens-darkening at screen edges for improved depth and immersion.

🛡️ 12. Realistic Atmospheric Fog (v0.2.5)

• Fog density now accounts for altitude (aerosol concentration decays with height), horizon path length, and indoor/outdoor exposure via skylight.
• Consistent Beer-Lambert distance fog with height-weighted density — no delayed fog walls.

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☁️ Cloud Altitude Classification

AuraLite's sky is meteorologically modeled after the international cloud classification system:

Altitude (m)
16 000 ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─  ↑ Cumulonimbus (Cb)
12 000 ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─│
10 000   Ci  ─ Cirrus              │ Vertical
 8 000   Cc  ─ Cirrocumulus         │ Development
 6 000 ─ ─ Cs ─ Cirrostratus ─ ─ ─ ─│─ High Clouds (Cirrus layer)
 5 000   Ac  ─ Altocumulus          │
 4 000   As  ─ Altostratus          │
 2 000 ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─│─ Mid Clouds
 1 500   Sc  ─ Stratocumulus        │
 1 000   St  ─ Stratus              │
 500     Ns  ─ Nimbostratus         │─ Low Clouds (Cumulus layer)
   0 ─ ─ Cu ─ Cumulus ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─│

AuraLite smoothly transitions these layers based on in-game weather conditions (clearing, rain, or storms).

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⚙️ Performance Optimizations (OpenGL 4.6 Native)

AuraLite is built from the ground up for maximum FPS using OpenGL 4.6 native hardware operations:

• Hardware FMA (Fused Multiply-Add): All wave and waving foliage math is compiled into native single-cycle hardware operations (fma), reducing GPU execution cycles.
• Bitwise Noise Generation: Replacing slow transcendental float functions (fract(sin(dot(...)))) with ultra-fast Integer Bitwise PCG-style hashes utilizing floatBitsToUint and uintBitsToFloat.
• Early-Ray Termination: Volumetric raymarching terminates instantly once cloud transmittance falls below 2%, saving rendering power.
• No Hand Transparency Glitches: Handheld items, particles, and mobs are rendered in a separate stable path without tangent matrix overhead, eliminating "translucent hand" bugs.
• Dead Code Elimination (v0.2.3–v0.2.5): Removed unused noise/fbm functions, dead cloud raymarching code from gbuffers_skybasic, and redundant render calls to reduce GPU compilation time.
• Profile-Based Scaling: Every feature (POM, Auroras, SSAO, Cozy Lights, Wet Reflections, Ground Mist, Shadow Distance, Cloud Distance, Sun Halo, etc.) is intelligently distributed across the LOW / MED / HIGH / ULTRA / EXTREME profiles so low-end systems don't pay for effects they can't afford.

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📥 Installation

1. Download AuraLite-Shaders-v1.0.4.zip from the Releases section on the right.
2. Open your Minecraft directory (e.g. %appdata%/.minecraft on Windows).
3. Place the downloaded .zip file inside the shaderpacks folder (Do not unzip it!).
4. Launch a supported Minecraft version (1.16.5 – 26.1.2) using a profile with Sodium + Iris or OptiFine installed.
5. In-game, go to Options → Video Settings → Shader Packs, select AuraLite, and click Apply.

💡 The repository ships source folders for every release snapshot: shaders v0.2.0/ through shaders v1.0.4/. The current source snapshot is v1.0.4. End users should grab the packaged release ZIP; developers can browse any folder directly.

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🎛️ In-Game Configuration Options

AuraLite includes localized in-game configuration files for 59 language codes, including major European, Asian, American regional variants and compatibility aliases such as fil_ph / tl_ph.

⚠️ Some localization strings may be inaccurate. If something looks strange, compare with the English original.

[Lighting Settings]

• Dynamic Shadows — Toggle sun/moon shadows.
• Shadow Resolution — 1024 / 2048 / 4096
• Shadow Softness (v0.2.2) — Sharp / Soft / Ultra Soft — rotated Poisson disk filtering.
• Shadow Distance (v0.2.2) — Near (60m) / Standard (80m) / Far (120m) / Ultra (160m).
• Shadow Tint (v0.2.2) — Neutral Gray / Cool Blue (Realistic) / Warm.
• Shadow Lift / Ambient (v0.2.2) — Dark / Standard / Lifted (Bright).
• Light Wrap (Terminator) (v0.2.2) — Realistic (Lambert) / Soft / Stylized.
• Torch Warmth — Cozy / Warm / Intense — Customize block light warmth.
• Torch Flickering (COZY_LIGHTS) — Real-time flicker animations for torches, campfires, and lanterns.
• PBR Lighting — Toggle PBR specular reflections and normal mapping.
• 3D Block Relief (POM) — Enable Parallax Occlusion Mapping for true 3D block textures (LabPBR resource pack required).
• PBR Intensity — Subtle / Standard / Mirror
• 🆕 SSAO / SAO Occlusion (v0.2.5) — Screen-space ambient occlusion for contact shadows in corners, under blocks, and around geometry intersections.
• 🆕 SSAO Strength (v0.2.5) — Subtle / Balanced / Deep.
• 🆕 Screen-Space Reflections (SSR) (v0.2.9) — loader-agnostic screen-space reflections for water and wet glossy surfaces.
• 🆕 SSR Quality (v0.2.9) — Fast / Balanced / High raymarch step budget.
• 🆕 SSR Strength (v0.2.9) — Soft / Balanced / Mirror reflection intensity.
• 🆕 PBR Render Distance (PBR_DISTANCE) (v1.0.3) — Near (16m) / Standard (48m) / Far (128m) / Unlimited — maximum distance for PBR specular calculations. Saves GPU on far terrain.

[Sun & Moon] (since v0.2.2)

• Sun Intensity — Dim / Standard / Bright / Blazing
• Sun Colour Temperature — Cool / Neutral · Realistic (Tanner Helland) · Warm Golden
• Sun Halo (Mie Scatter) — toggle the warm forward-scatter glow when looking near the sun.
• Enhanced Sunrise/Sunset Glow — toggle stronger warm back-scatter at low sun angles.
• Moon Intensity — Pitch Night / Standard / Bright Moon / Full Night
• Moon Colour Temperature — Icy Blue / Silver (Realistic 4100K) / Warm Cream

[Foliage Settings]

• Waving Leaves — Toggle leaves animation.
• Waving Foliage — Toggle grass, flowers, and crops animation.
• Wind Speed — Gentle / Breeze / Gale
• 🆕 Foliage SSS (FOLIAGE_SSS) (v1.0.3) — Subsurface scattering / translucency for leaves and plants (light bleeding when looking toward the sun).

[Water Settings]

• Water Waves — Toggle 3D vertex water waves.
• Water Density — Clear / Balanced / Deep — Adjust water transparency.
• Water Ripple Strength (WATER_RIFFLES) — Calm / Standard / Choppy — Fine normal-map ripples.
• Water Specular Glow (WATER_SPECULAR_STRENGTH) — Soft / Standard / Glinting — Brightness of sun/moon highlights on the ripples.
• 🆕 Water Wave Scale (WATER_WAVE_SCALE) (v0.2.9) — Calm / Standard / Choppy / Stormy — procedural wave amplitude used by SSR.
• 🆕 Water Wave Detail (WATER_WAVE_DETAIL) (v0.2.9) — Coarse / Standard / Dense — procedural wave frequency/detail.
• 🆕 Underwater Night Darkness (v0.2.9) — Moonlit Pool / Dim / True Night / Pitch Dark — controls how dark underwater scenes become at night.

[Sky & Clouds]

• Volumetric 3D Clouds — Toggle raymarched clouds.
• Cloud Altitude — Low (~110m) / Standard (~160m) / High (~240m)
• Cloud Thickness — Thin (Cirrus) / Standard (Cumulus) / Dense (Stormy)
• 🆕 Cloud Render Distance (v0.2.5) — Near / Standard / Far / Very Far — Maximum draw distance for volumetric clouds.
• 🆕 Cloud Shadows (v0.2.7) — transparent procedural shadows from cloud density.
• 🆕 Cloud Shadow Strength (v0.2.7) — Soft / Balanced / Dramatic.
• 🆕 Godrays / Sun Shafts (v0.2.7) — physically-inspired volumetric single-scattering light shafts.
• 🆕 Godrays Quality (v0.2.7) — Fast / Balanced / High.
• Aurora Borealis — Disabled / Only in Cold Biomes / Always Enabled
• Aurora Speed — Slow / Standard / Fast
• Aurora Brightness — Soft / Standard / Glowing
• Milky Way Brightness — Dim / Standard / Bright
• Stars Brightness — Faint / Standard / Brilliant
• Stars Density — Few / Standard / Dense
• 🆕 Meteors (Falling Stars) (v1.0.0) — Physically-based meteor streaks across the night sky.
• 🆕 Meteor Activity (ZHR) (v1.0.0) — Sporadic (~10/hr) / Active Shower / Meteor Storm.
• 🆕 Meteor Brightness (v1.0.0) — Faint (Realistic) / Standard / Bright Fireballs.
• ✨ Intensity — Subtle / Balanced / Vivid — Post-rain ✨ arc.

[Post-Processing & Fog]

• Fog Density — Low / Medium / High — Atmospheric horizon mist.
• Low Ground Mist (GROUND_MIST) — Realistic dawn/evening radiation fog at Y ≈ 60–70.
• Exposure Brightness — Muted / Balanced / Vibrant
• Color Vibrancy (COLOR_SATURATION) — Muted / Balanced / Colorful / Vivid
• Image Contrast (CONTRAST) — Soft / Filmic (ACES) / Intense (High Contrast) / Photographic (AgX-like) — Choose the tone mapping curve.
• 🆕 HDR Bloom (v1.0.1) — cheap single-pass neighbour blur for overbright emissive sources.
• 🆕 Temporal Anti-Aliasing (TAA) (v0.2.7) — motion-reprojected temporal resolve for high presets.
• 🆕 TAA Strength (v0.2.7) — Light / Balanced / Stable.
• 🆕 Spatial Anti-Aliasing (SPATIAL_AA_MODE) (v1.0.3) — Off / FXAA / SMAA — post-process edge smoothing. FXAA uses Sobel gradient-directed blending; SMAA adds depth discontinuity detection for geometry edges. Freely combinable with TAA.
• Vignette — Toggle cinematic corner darkening.
• (Hidden) Rain Wetness Reflections (WET_REFLECTIONS) — Wet glossy ground during rain (enabled by default in MED+ profiles).

🎚️ Quality Profiles (v1.0.4)

Profile	Target	Shadows	Clouds	Cloud Shadows	Godrays	TAA	SSR	PBR	PBR Dist	AA	SSAO	Heavy Extras
VERY_LOW	Maximum FPS	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	16m	Off	❌	Most extras off
LOW	Weak GPUs	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	16m	FXAA	❌	Water/foliage motion, stars, vignette
MED	Balanced	✅ 1024	✅ Std	✅ Soft	✅ Fast	❌	✅ F	✅	48m	FXAA	❌	Wet refl + ground mist + SSS
HIGH	High quality	✅ 2048	✅ Far	✅ Balanced	✅ Bal	✅	✅ B	✅	128m	SMAA	✅ Subtle	Full atmosphere + SSR + TAA
ULTRA	Very high	✅ 4096	✅ VFar	✅ Balanced	✅ High	✅	✅ H	✅	128m	SMAA	✅ Balanced	High-end visuals
EXTREME	Max quality	✅ 4096	✅ Dense	✅ Dramatic	✅ High	✅	✅ H	✅	∞	SMAA	✅ Deep	Heaviest cinematic

💫 Shooting stars are disabled on VERY_LOW / LOW and enabled from MED upward. 🌿 Foliage SSS is enabled from MED upward (disabled on VERY_LOW/LOW for maximum FPS).

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📄 License & Compatibility

• AuraLite is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).
• Copyright (c) 2026 AlexanderNyr.
• Officially Supported Platform: Minecraft 1.16.5 – 26.1.2 with Sodium + Iris or OptiFine loader.
• Note: Verified to work flawlessly on Minecraft 1.16.5, 1.20.1, 1.21.1, and 26.1.2.

⚖️ Rules & Permissions (FAQ)

• Videos & Streams: You are free to showcase, stream, and use this shader in your videos (including monetized channels on YouTube, Twitch, etc.).
• Modpacks: You are free to include this shader in your free modpacks on CurseForge, Modrinth, or other platforms.
• Personal Tweaks: You can modify the shader code for personal use.
• No Re-hosting: Do not upload the raw shader files to third-party sites (especially behind ad links like AdFly). Always use and link to our official, authorized sources below.
• Derivative Works: If you modify this shader and distribute it, your version must be free, open-source, and licensed under the exact same CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license with clear attribution to the original author.

🌐 Official & Authorized Sources:

• GitHub: https://github.com/AlexanderNyr/AuraLite-Shaders
• Modrinth: /shaders/auralite-shaders
• CurseForge: https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/shaders/auralite-shaders