Description
Gallery
Changelog
Versions
Community
- Join my discord server for questions, suggestions and development updates
- You can also donate if you would like to say thanks
Frequently asked questions
- "When will Photon be released for new Minecraft version?"
- Shader packs are generally not very dependent on MC versions; as long as Iris is available, Photon should just work.
Features
- Fully revamped sky, lighting and water
- Detailed clouds with several layers and many different cloud types
- Immersive weather system providing different skies each day
- Voxel-based colored lighting (enabled with Ultra profile, requires Iris)
- Screen-space reflections
- Volumetric fog
- Soft shadows with variable-size penumbras
- Detailed ambient occlusion (GTAO)
- Camera effects: bloom, depth of field, motion blur
- Much improved image quality with TAA, FXAA and CAS
- Advanced temporal upscaling (disabled by default) for low end devices
- Extensive settings menu allowing you to customize every aspect of the shader
- Full labPBR resource pack support
Compatibility
Shader loaders
- Iris (recommended)
- Iris is a modern shader loader with far better performance, mod compatibility and developer features than OptiFine
- Some features (Colored Lighting) will only work on Iris
- OptiFine
GPU vendors
- Nvidia
- AMD
- Intel
- NOT compatible with Apple GPUs (Metal)
Mods
Showcase videos
Acknowledgments
- Settings menu translations:
- NakiriRuri and OrzMiku (Chinese)
- Jmayk (Italian)
- Timtaran (Russian)
- Emin - Shadow bias method from Complementary Reimagined (fully fixes peter panning and light leaking underground!)
- DrDesten - Depth tolerance calculation for SSR (helps to prevent false reflections)
- Jessie - f0 and f82 values for labPBR hardcoded metals
- Sledgehammer Games - Bloom downsampling method used in Call of Duty Advanced Warfare (described here)
- http://momentsingraphics.de/ - Blue noise texture
- NASA Scientific Visualization Studio - Galaxy image
All Versions
+ Add Version
[v1.3b] photon v1.3b
by sixthsurge on Oct 07, 2026
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Fix a mistake in the previous fix that was causing incorrect behaviour on 1.21.11
[v1.3a] photon v1.3a
by sixthsurge on Oct 07, 2026
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This is a tiny hotfix update which removes the "Use Separate Entity Draws" option and instead uses the recommended value for this setting based on the Minecraft version
[v1.3] photon v1.3
by sixthsurge on Oct 07, 2026
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- Added support for Voxy
- Added screen-space shadows and subsurface-scattering for distant terrain
- Added material support for new Minecraft additions - thanks to Candymanmax
- Improved the sun and moon, with thanks to Xyber
- Lots of bug fixes, with special thanks to Lassebq and rrtt217
Huge thanks to the community members who contributed to this release:
- Candymanmax
- Lassebq
- rrtt217
- Xyber
- Fooze
- Miclus
- Swung0x08
- PatataNL
- JXDYJS
[v1.2a] photon v1.2a
by sixthsurge on Oct 07, 2026
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This is a small update fixing a few issues that were found in v1.2.
[v1.2] photon v1.2
by sixthsurge on Oct 07, 2026
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Hi everyone,
Despite my extremely sporadic work schedule for this project, it's time for another update! I am very excited about this one - while the previous update mostly focused on technical changes, this one brings a lot more atmosphere to the game.
## Weather and Clouds
## Crepuscular Rays
## Colored Lights Fog Scattering
## Improved Indirect Lighting
## Miscellaneous
As always I have also spent quite a lot of time fixing bugs and implementing various optimisations.
Despite my extremely sporadic work schedule for this project, it's time for another update! I am very excited about this one - while the previous update mostly focused on technical changes, this one brings a lot more atmosphere to the game.
## Weather and Clouds
- The previous daily weather system has been replaced with a much more dynamic system, which some people will remember from extremely old Photon versions. This provides much more natural weather variation which is also influenced by the biome you're in.
- The weather affects the clouds, fog and even the waving plants.
- The downside of this is that you can no longer adjust the weather per-day.
- Cumulus congestus clouds may now appear alongside the regular cumulus clouds rather than replacing them.
- I've adjusted a lot of the cloud shapes and lighting. Altostratus-like clouds will also appear now.
- Reworked rainy weather.
- Lightning flashes now illuminate the sky.
- Added rainbows :)
## Crepuscular Rays
- Added crepuscular rays through the clouds.
- These are also controlled by the new weather system.
## Colored Lights Fog Scattering
- When _Colored Lights_ is enabled, the fog will be illuminated by light sources.
- I also made the voxel volume for the Colored Lights centered ahead of the player rather than on them, so you can see colored lights much further with no performance impact.
## Improved Indirect Lighting
- SH Skylight is improved by using bent normals and enabled by default.
- Added a new approximation for indirect subsurface scattering based on AO.
- This makes shaded areas and dusk/dawn look much more natural.
## Miscellaneous
- New fast fog approximation, which is used in reflections, behind translucents and when volumetric fog is disabled. This means that fog no longer disappears in these cases.
- Updated water waves - I think they look much nicer now and the pattern is much less repetitive.
- Updated the moon with a new textured look.
- Improved the Pale Garden atmosphere with dense fog and light emission from eyeblossoms.
- Added an edge highlight effect to the Nether portal.
- Added materials for 1.21.5 additions.
- Added two new menu translations
- Italian translation by Jmayk.
- Russian translation by Timtaran.
As always I have also spent quite a lot of time fixing bugs and implementing various optimisations.
[v1.1] photon v1.1
by sixthsurge on Oct 07, 2026
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- added Chinese translation by NakiriRuri and OrzMiku
- added some modded blocks to block.properties
- adjust TAA to reduce ghosting
- adjust fog
- enable water texture on underground water for improved visibility
- hardcoded materials for 1.21 and 1.21.4 additions
- improve cloud filtering
- improve rough reflections
- improve silver lining on clouds
- increase sky vibrance, especially at sunset
- multilayer reflections: water no longer loses its surface behind stained glass
- new cloud types: cirrocumulus clouds, noctilucent clouds
- new sky option: Galaxy (milky way in the night sky)
- small plants are displaced close to the player
- water wave height variation
- many bug fixes and optimisations
[v1.0a] photon v1.0a
by sixthsurge on Oct 07, 2026
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Fix syntax error with Colored Lights
[v1.0] photon v1.0
by sixthsurge on Oct 07, 2026
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Initial release
