MCL Shader

A shader pack built on one rule: there is one correct picture. Exposure, fog,
saturation and bloom are identical in every profile – how powerful your GPU is
has nothing to do with how a midday sky should look. The profile only decides
what that picture costs.

What it does

Light & shadow

• Contact-hardening shadows (PCSS): sharp at the trunk, soft further away – the sun is a disc, not a point
• Warm direct light against cool shade – the difference is what gives the world volume
• HDR float buffers: fire, lava and the sun overshoot into the filmic curve instead of clipping to flat white

Firelight

• A torch is a flame, not a grey lamp: warm tint, inverse-square falloff, bright core
• Held light actually lights the world – vanilla leaves a cave just as dark with a torch as without one
• Emissive blocks glow by themselves: lava, glowstone, sea lanterns, magma, campfires, lanterns

Sky

• Scattering instead of a flat fill: deeper blue overhead, pale band at the horizon
• Stars of varying size and colour, the Milky Way, auroras on clear deep nights
• A real End sky – cold violet dust with stars showing through, instead of vanilla’s black smear

Clouds

• Ray-marched volumetric clouds: light travels through an actual layer of vapour, not a slab of rectangles
• Cover ranges from scattered wisps to a solid blanket; rain thickens the layer on its own

Water

• Waves, caustics, screen-space reflections, refraction, adjustable clarity
• Underwater: wavelength-dependent absorption – red dies in the first few metres, blue carries furthest, and that is what makes depth feel deep
• Surface wobble at the boundary between water and eye

Weather

• Transparent rain that takes its colour from the haze, not the sky, so streaks stay part of the frame
• Snow that drifts sideways as it falls instead of dropping in columns
• Wet surfaces darken and pick up a narrow sky reflection

Space & frame

• SSAO, volumetric light shafts, distance fog, aerial perspective
• Filmic tonemapping, bloom thresholded above full sunlight, vignette, sharpening, FXAA

Profiles

| Profile | For |
|—|—|
| Fast | Integrated graphics and older cards – no SSAO, reflections, refraction or bloom |
| Balanced | The default. Everything on at sane sample counts |
| Fancy | Higher step and sample counts on clouds, reflections, shadows and volumetrics |

Settings

Around 50 sliders, grouped into Light & shadow, Firelight, Sky, Clouds, Water,
Wind, Rain & snow, Space and Frame. Every one has an in-menu explanation of what
it actually changes.

Options -> Video Settings -> Shaders -> Shader Pack Settings

Menus are translated into English and Ukrainian.

Requirements

• Iris (or OptiFine – the pack is in the OptiFine shader format)
• GLSL 120, so it runs on old hardware too
• Nether and End have their own shader programs

Installation

1. Install Iris (or OptiFine)
2. Drop the .zip into .minecraft/shaderpacks
3. Options -> Video Settings -> Shaders -> select MCL Shader

=== TODO BEFORE PUBLISHING ===

• Screenshots: on Modrinth they matter more than the text. At minimum day, night, rain and underwater.
• Game versions and loaders on the version tab (the pack itself is version agnostic, but list what you actually tested).
• License, and a Credits section if any borrowed code is in there.
• Categories/tags: Fantasy or Realistic, Atmosphere, Cartoon/Vanilla-like – whichever fits, plus Iris / OptiFine under compatibility.