With the RTX demos ofMinecraftshowing the world how truly stunning the game can look with the right lighting, players may be desperate to have their game look that way in their games too. Unfortunately, not everyone has the money to throw around fora PC capableof producing such stunning-looking ray-tracing.
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Fortunately, there is a cheaper alternative for players. Shader mods have been around for a long time, but the scene has more recently been bursting with an incredible selection. Owners ofMinecraftJava Editioncan install all of these usingthe Optifine Mod.
10VanillaPlus
A lot of shaders out there are very fanciful in their effects. Some of them can drastically change the look of aMinecraftworld, despite not changing the texture pack. VanillaPlus looks to avoid this effect. It retains the coreMinecraftlook while adding some beautiful lighting.
This shader will make bright, sunny days feel like a joyous frolic in the familiar environment and will have players searching for the perfect scenic spotto build themselves a home. All the same, it can makeThe Netherlook more like the hopeless hellscape it’s designed to be. Its less fanciful effects make it less graphically intensive too.
9Sildur’s Shaders
Sildur’s Shaders is the first of many shaders that seek to make aMinecraftworld feel as vibrant as possible. It changes the water texture to be a bit more realistic but maintaining a cartoony feel while sunlight has been injected full of color.
What’s brilliant about Sildur’s is the many different versions players can choose between to suit both their tastes and their PC’s capabilities. PC can’t handle the vibrant lighting but still want some of the other effects? No problem! The “Enhanced Default” pack will do just that. Alternatively, players can turn it all the way up to max if they so choose.
8EBIN Shaders
EBIN is a slightly more subtle shader, along the lines of VanillaPlus, but it has wonderful attention to detail. Extra care was put into the behavior of shadows to make sure they’re always as realistic as possible, but that’s not all.
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The clouds have a more realistic look and adapt the direction they travel depending on the time of day. This detail even extends to the water, which will also change its effects throughout the day and will have vastly different colors dependant on the depth & temperature.
7Nostalgia Shaders
As the technology and skills behind shader mods have improved over the years, many shader packs have become more elaborate. This isn’t a bad thing, as it makes for more beautiful effects, but it means that some of the older shader packs have become outdated and unusable.
This is a problem for people who liked the look of those packs. Thankfully, Nostalgia Shaders is looking to recreate that style of shader while mixing in a few modern techniques. It offers a custom, but non-realistic skybox with cloud effects and a soft rounded feel to every light source, even when the sun is harshly glaring down on the world.
6Oceano Shaders
For players who like as much color and vibrancy in their world as possible, Oceano will be right up their street. Its lighting system is as impressive as most others, but it’s still a huge step up from Minecraft’s default lighting.
Oceano instead focuses on changing the overall atmosphere that a world’s visuals give off. There aren’t any fancy-looking god rays, but the color saturation has been turned up as high as it’ll go, and the effects in things like water have been carefully crafted to aid this bright and beautiful feeling. It may aid builds looking fora more fantasy-based setting.
5Naelego’s Cel Shaders
Ever wanted Minecraft to look Cel-Shaded? Well, here you go! One of the most unique shaders out there, reminiscent ofthe removed Super Secret Setting, this changes Minecraft’s look like never before.
Unlike most other shaders, this likely isn’t a pack that players will want to have on constantly when they’re playing. However, it can be fun to switch it on and look around worlds to see how different they can be. It’s not quite on the level of Borderland’s cel-shading, but it’ll certainly turn some heads.
4Lagless Shaders
A common problem with installing shaders is not having a good enough PC to handle them. While shaders don’t require as much power as the RTX demo does, it can be hard to get good lighting effects without tanking PCs on the lower end of the spectrum.
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This is where Lagless Shaders comes in as a less hardware-intensive shader for those without high-end equipment. Naturally, it doesn’t look quite as impressive as many other shaders there, but the core features of overhauled lighting and prettier worlds are still there.
3SORA Shaders
SORA is one of the more realistic shaders out there. While god rays shining through every gap in the treeline is certainly pretty, real-world lighting only behaves like that under specific scenarios. The lighting in SORA will still give players a more vibrant world, but without going over the top on effects.
Rather than wowing the player with volumetric lighting everywhere the eye can see, this lighting feels more in line with how light behaves in the real world. It still casts clearly defined shadows and the like, but as the sun sets, the change in lighting changes the overall atmosphere of the world, even just between minutely different stages of sunset/rise.
2SEUS Shaders
One of the most notable shaders out there and arguably the gold standard when it comes to free shader packs. There’s no gimmick of the look SEUS is going for; it’s just about creating the best lighting engine possible forMinecraft.
All of the features other shader packs have run with, SEUS established how o do them properly, and with the “renewed” pack, it is back in the game as one of the best options out there. While other packs may offer something more specific to an individual’s tastes, for those wanting to see just how gorgeous of a game Minecraft can really be, SEUS is the place to start.
1Continuum Shaders
With Continuum, we reach the highest end of the spectrum. However, be aware that not only are these shaders very intensive on hardware, they also cost a small fee of $10; they really are the best of the best, though. Where SORA forgoes volumetric lighting to make a more realistic shader, Continuum blends these techniques to get the best out of both the sheer beautiful and realistic aspects.
The team working there are some of the most experienced in the field, and they have multiple different versions of the shaders. There’s the legacy pack, which is less realistic but more colorful, and even a ray-tracing version. Additionally, the team there is working on the Stratum resource pack, focused on hyper-realistic textures.
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