Way Better Leaves

About

Way Better Leaves makes Minecraft trees look fuller, softer, and more natural while keeping the familiar blocky Minecraft style.

The mod automatically detects vanilla and modded leaf blocks, uses their original textures and colors, and prepares the bushy models when resources are loaded. Resource-pack textures and biome coloring are preserved automatically.

Way Better Leaves is completely client-side. It does not change gameplay, block collisions, drops, world generation, or server behavior. Servers do not need to install it, and accidental server installation is handled safely.

Features

• 🌳 Automatic Modded Leaf Support: Detects vanilla and modded leaf blocks without requiring separate compatibility packs.
• 🎨 Original Leaf Textures: Uses the texture, transparency, and biome colors of each leaf block.
• 📦 Resource-Pack Support: Automatically adapts to leaf textures supplied by your active resource packs.
• 🍃 Natural Variation: Leaf shapes receive position, depth, and full rotational variation, making forests look less repetitive.
• ✂️ Custom Leaf Shapes: Uses a prepared transparency mask to create carefully trimmed, pixelated foliage instead of plain square panels.
• 👁️ Optional Culling: Removes hidden faces and foliage between connected leaves to improve performance in dense forests.
• 💡 Custom Lighting: Ambient Occlusion and Directional Shading can be controlled specifically for leaves.
• ✨ LabPBR Support: Includes normal and specular texture support for compatible shaders and resource packs.
• 🚫 Configurable Blacklist: Individual leaf blocks can be excluded if their shape does not work well with bushy geometry.
• 🖥️ Client-Side Only: Works on multiplayer servers without requiring server installation.

Leaf Styles

Way Better Leaves includes three selectable styles:

• Native: Keeps Minecraft’s original leaf shape while still allowing the mod’s lighting, culling, and blacklist options to be used.
• Classic: Keeps the original leaf block and adds smaller bushy panels around its visible sides.
• Plus: Replaces the cube-shaped leaf model with three large crossed panels. Each panel uses a repeating 32×32 version of the original leaf texture and remains at a 90-degree angle to the other panels.

Configuration

The configuration file is located at:

config/waybetterleaves-client.toml

enabled = true
type = "PLUS"
culling = true
ambientOcclusion = false
directionalShading = false
blacklist = [ "mod_name:block_name", "another_mod:another_leaf_block"
]


• enabled — Enables or disables the mod.
• type — Selects the leaf style: NATIVE, CLASSIC, or PLUS.
• culling — Removes hidden leaf geometry to improve performance.
• ambientOcclusion — Adds softer shadows around nearby blocks and corners.
• directionalShading — Makes leaf surfaces appear lighter or darker depending on their direction.
• blacklist — Lists leaf blocks that should keep their original appearance and culling behavior.

All options can also be changed through the in-game configuration screen.