Solstice Changelog

v1.2

Wet weather

• Rain puddles form on exposed ground while it rains and dry up gradually afterwards
• Puddles form as larger connected pools rather than scattered specks, and grow with rain intensity
• Animated rain ripples on the puddle surface
• Puddles reflect the sky, show a sun glint at grazing angles, and mirror nearby terrain and builds through screen-space reflections when SSR is on
• Wet ground darkens during rain
• Puddle Coverage slider; Low profile turns puddles off

Portals

• Nether portals glow and cast purple light onto surrounding blocks
• Toggle under Nether & End options; off in the Low profile

Snow

• Snow sparkles: crystal glints that catch the light and shift with your view angle, on snow layers, snow blocks, powder snow and snowy grass
• Snow gets a subtle cool brightening and no longer darkens or forms puddles when it rains elsewhere in the world
• Sparkle Strength slider under Visuals

Fire

• Fire and campfire flames flicker: emission pulses with layered waves plus noise, so the bloom breathes like a real fire
• Flame color grading: white-hot core fading to deep orange at the edges; soul fire grades to cold blue-white
• Fire blocks sway gently at the tips; campfire logs stay put, only the flame pixels are affected
• Lit campfires only - unlit ones no longer glow
• Living Flames toggle under Visuals

Glowing blocks

• Light sources (glowstone, sea lanterns, shroomlight, froglights, lanterns, torches, campfires, magma, crying obsidian and more) glow properly and feed the bloom pass
• Ores, amethyst, sculk and enchanting tables get a subtler glint that shows in dark caves
• Glow Strength slider; enabled on every profile since it costs almost nothing

Night sky

• Procedural milky way band on clear nights, scaled by Star Brightness
• Shooting stars streak across the sky every few seconds
• Green-blue aurora on clear nights in snowy and cold biomes, rolled per in-game day (uses Iris biome temperature data)
• All three have their own toggles under Sky & Clouds

SSAO

• Depth-based ambient occlusion: soft contact shading in corners and under blocks
• 10 taps with dithered rotation, smooth occlusion falloff instead of hard cutoffs, and a distance fade so far terrain stays clean
• Strength slider; enabled on High and Ultra profiles

Other

• Light shafts now fade out as the sun or moon leaves the screen edge instead of smearing across the corner of the view
• Screen-space reflections use a dithered ray start and finer hit refinement, which hides step banding on water and puddles