AuraLite Shaders

🆕 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.