EtherLite Shaderpack
Developed by VibraX
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🌟 High-End Cinematic Visuals for Low-End Hardware: EtherLite is an "ultra-fake high-end" shaderpack engineered to achieve the impossible: delivering breathtaking, cinematic visuals without melting your graphics card. Built specifically with integrated graphics (like the Intel UHD 620) and low-end hardware in mind, EtherLite bypasses heavy, traditional rendering techniques in favor of extremely clever screen-space math and visual illusions.
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Get the look of a heavy raymarched shader while maintaining perfectly playable frame rates.
✨ Key Features
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Screen-Space God Rays (Crepuscular Rays): Experience stunning, powerful light shafts bursting through the jungle canopy and terrain. Instead of rendering performance-heavy 3D volumetric shadows, EtherLite uses a highly optimized radial blur on the depth buffer to smear sunlight across your screen.
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Golden Hour Global Illumination: Enjoy rich, warm lighting that simulates bounced ambient light in shadowed areas, mimicking high-end GI setups without the extreme performance cost.
Ultra-Optimized Water Engine (No SSR):
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Crystal Clear Depth: Water features depth-based absorption, transitioning naturally to deep blue in deeper areas.
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Dynamic Flowing Ripples: Smooth, organic sine-wave noise functions create natural surface displacement.
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Fake Environment Reflections: Achieves a highly detailed, mirror-like surface using a distorted projected skybox and intense specular sun reflections, completely bypassing the massive framerate drops of true Screen-Space Reflections (SSR).
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2D Volumetric Clouds: Look up to see fluffy, volumetric-style cumulus clouds. EtherLite utilizes a 2D fractional Brownian motion (fBM) noise texture projected onto a curved sky dome, applying edge-lighting to create 3D depth for a fraction of the cost of standard raymarched clouds.
Auto-Generated PBR & Subsurface Scattering:
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Foliage Backlighting: Leaves and grass feature dynamic subsurface scattering, glowing translucently when backlit by the sun to create beautiful silhouettes.
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Resource-Free Normal Mapping: Blocks dynamically generate bump mapping based on their base color textures. Enjoy a 3D textured look without needing to install heavy, RAM-eating PBR resource packs!
💻 Performance & Compatibility
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Target Hardware: Designed for maximum performance on integrated graphics (e.g., Intel UHD series) and older GPUs.
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Requirements: Requires [Iris Shaders] to run.
Prepare to experience Minecraft with cinematic depth, glowing atmospheres, and realistic shaders—all while keeping your PC cool and your FPS high.
## Version: v0.1-beta (Initial Testing Release)
- Supported Minecraft Version:** 1.20.1
- Supported Loaders:** Iris (Recommended), OptiFine
### ✨ New Features & Visuals
- Custom Seamless Water:** Implemented high-quality water textures with seamless blending.
- Dynamic Water Ripples:** Added realistic fluid movement and wave interactions.
- Cinematic Atmospherics:** Introduced 2D volumetric clouds and immersive cinematic night skies.
- Advanced Lighting:** Enabled screen-space god rays (sun shafts) for dramatic lighting effects.
- Item Glow:** Added a custom glowing effect for enchanted items to make them stand out in the dark.
### 🚀 Performance & Optimization
- Low-End Hardware Support:** Heavily optimized core rendering logic to ensure playable framerates on low-end integrated graphics (specifically tested on Intel UHD 620).
- Codebase Foundation:** Established the base GLSL framework inspired by Super Duper Vanilla's atmospheric logic, heavily modified for performance.
### ⚠️ Known Issues (Beta)
- As this is the first public testing version, some minor visual inconsistencies may occur under specific lighting conditions or across different biome transitions.
- Please report any bugs or performance drops so they can be addressed in the next update!
