Shader of Stars

v1.0 — Initial Shader of Stars Release

• Established the core Shader of Stars high-FPS pipeline (iGPU Fast, Balanced, High, and Cinema profiles) tuned for integrated GPUs (Intel Iris Xe, Intel Arc, AMD Radeon 680M/780M/890M) and Apple Silicon at 100% native resolution without ray tracing.
• Atmosphere & Celestial Nights: Natural glare-free daytime exposure, Chappuis-ozone sunsets, multi-tier twinkling starfields, Milky Way dust rifts, Aurora Borealis curtains, shooting stars, and analytical post-rain primary & secondary double ✨s (ENABLE_✨S, zero GPU cost in dry weather).
• Water, Rain & Lighting: Analytical Stokes-Gerstner ocean waves (WATER_STYLE = 0, plus Classic Legacy backup), connected wave-strip caustics, sun-aligned underwater volumetric god rays, forest canopy leaf sunbeams, wind-slanted rain streaks with concentric puddle/water ripples, leak-free concave shadow biasing, zero-FPS-cost glowing ore veins, and world + handheld reflections on precious metal/gem blocks.
• Dimensions: Shadowless 3D-anchored volcanic Nether fog with swirling 3D parallax Nether portals; Ethereal Eclipse End sky (Vivid Nebula backup toggle) with Hollow Sun black-hole lighting, custom 3D Cosmic Abyss End portals, and Astral Mirror obsidian in The End (while keeping dark volcanic obsidian in the Overworld/Nether).
• Introduced initial curved-shell Nubis volumetric clouds (CLOUD_STYLE = 0) alongside Classic Legacy clouds (CLOUD_STYLE = 1).

v1.1 — Coarse-to-Fine Cumulus & Intel Iris Xe Driver Compliance

• Added bidirectional coarse-to-fine clear-sky skipping (~60% empty-sky early exit) with spherical Worley cumulus florets and wind-compensated temporal reprojection.
• Audited and fixed all non-monotonic smoothstep edge orderings across clouds, stars, fog, ripples, and SSR for strict Windows Intel Iris Xe OpenGL driver compliance.

v1.2 — SIMD-Coherent Raymarching & Native Pixel Clarity

• Reworked cloud raymarching for uniform SIMD warp execution and eliminated coarse-to-fine boundary stippling.
• Tightened sub-pixel Halton jitter (0.58x), 1.0σ YCoCg TAA (0.72 stationary blend), unified RGB CAS sharpening, clean Fresnel glass sheen, and stabilized shadow/SSAO kernels for sharper terrain and foliage on iGPU Fast and Balanced.

v1.3 — 100% Native-Resolution Sky Architecture & VRAM Reduction

• Removed sub-resolution (50%/65%) cloud rendering, 5-tap upscaling blur, and the colortex4 (RGBA16F) ping-pong buffer — saving ~23 MB of VRAM and evaluating clouds strictly at 100% native resolution on visible sky pixels.
• Expanded CLOUD_STYLE to three selectable modes (0, 1, and 2 = Classic Legacy backup).

v1.4 — Photon-Inspired Gaseous Volumetric Clouds & Sky-Split TAA (First Public Release)

• Replaced stylized v1.3 cumulus shapes with 100% native-resolution Photon-inspired gaseous volumetric clouds: continuous Perlin-Worley + turbulent FBM vapor density, Beer-Lambert transmittance, Wrenninge 3-octave multi-scattering, creamy sunlit tops, neutral dove-grey/silver-taupe undersides, and distance-damped horizon perspective (CLOUD_ALTITUDE = 220).
• Three Cloud Styles (CLOUD_STYLE):
  • 0 — Photon Cumulus (Default on iGPU Fast & Balanced: 4–6 adaptive steps + 1-fetch clear-sky skip averaging ~2.55 RGBA8 fetches/px).
  • 1 — Photon Multi-Layer Sky (Default on High & Cinema: 6–10 cumulus steps + 455m dappled Altocumulus sheet + 530m wispy Cirrus filaments).
  • 2 — Classic Legacy (1-click backup in Quick Feature Toggles).
• Sky-vs-Terrain Split TAA: Dedicated sky temporal convergence (2.15σ, 0.90 blend + wind-compensated cloud reprojection for ~10x effective cloud samples) paired with 1.00σ (0.72 blend) terrain/leaf clamping so clouds stay silky-smooth while block edges stay crisp.
• Synchronized water surface cloud reflections with the v1.4 cloud deck and updated project licensing to All Rights Reserved.