Photon Shaders

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

• 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.