Description
Gallery
Changelog
Versions
The new Updates changed visual design drastically and added a ton of effects, screenshots and description are partly severly outdated as of now, I am too lazy to update this at the moment.
About
Aetherstone is a stylized Cartoonish shader, built around having beautiful visuals while staying comfortably playable even on integrated graphics. The shader is still under active development.
Aetherstone is not trying to be photorealistic. Its stylized lighting, an (optional) ink outline and cool-tinted shadows give it a painted feel closer to modern stylized RPG games, while offering effects like dynamic shadows, 3D looking water, Physically Based Rendering...
PROFILES
Five profiles, Potato up to Max:
• Potato: The bare essentials only, for the lowest-end hardware.
• Balanced: Most effects on but some left off without ruining visuals, sample counts trimmed.
• Recommended (default): The intended high-FPS experience.
• Pretty: Higher fidelity when FPS headroom exists.
• Max: Every effect at full quality (not much difference to Pretty).
Performance
Start on Recommended and move up or down the list from there. A good way to find the performance and visuals that are good for you, is also to not only change shader settings but also play around with real render distance and Distant Horizons' render distance if you are using DH. On weak hardware I recommend 6-12 real render distance with Distant Horizons turned off, or Distant Horizons 32 render distance and chunk quality on low/medium paired with 4-6 real render distance.
Actual FPS depends heavily on your hardware, resource pack, render distance (including Distant Horizon's) and scene complexity, so no fixed benchmark number would be honest here.
Window Resizing / Resolution Bug Workaround
Changing your window size, toggling fullscreen, or altering screen resolution while the shader is active can cause visual glitching.
Workaround: Simply reload the shader pack. You can do this by opening shader settings and toggling the pack off and back on, or by assigning a hotkey, under:
Options → Controls → Key Binds → scroll down to Iris → ReloadShaders.
Mod support
-
Distant Horizons terrain and water render through the shader at LOD range, including the underwater ceiling past the normal render edge. DH's own shadow casting is intentionally not used; the shadow map stays independent of DH by design.
IMPORTANT: If you run DH alongside this pack, turn off DH's own cloud rendering in its settings (top-left icon in Video Settings) so it doesn't draw over this pack's clouds!!!
-
[Physics Mod Pro (Ocean Physics)] (get on Physics Mod creators Patreon for free) full wave support for its ocean.
Installation
Aetherstone requires Iris, and relies on Iris-specific features for some effects, so it is not fully compatible with OptiFine.
- First, install iris and Sodium Iris Sodium to be able to load shader packs.
- Launch the game and open Video Settings → Shader Packs.
- Click the button to open the shaderpacks folder.
- Download Aetherstone and place the zip file in that folder, do not unzip it!!
- Back in the game, select Aetherstone-ByTarkProjects from the shader packs menu.
- In the Shaderpack settings, change profile and individual effects to liking.
Modpacks:
In modrinth, include it in any modpack, public or private, free or on a server, as long as you credit Aetherstone and link this page. No need to ask.
A very big Update has released, fixing many major bugs and improving playability, send me an E-mail and give me feedback so I can improve the shader even further: tarkprojectsfeedback@gmail.com
All Versions
+ Add Version
[1.2.1.B] Aetherstone 1.2.1
by TarkProjects on Oct 13, 2026
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## Aetherstone r.2026.10.10.1
## Performance in this Beta version has not been Optimized yet!
### Look
### Shadows
### Leaves
### Distant Horizons
### Water
### New Effects
### Nether & End
## Performance in this Beta version has not been Optimized yet!
### Look
- Colours are altered, with a touch of realism blended in:
- richer twilights and a soft glow around the sun
- deep orange-red sunsets
- a light blue haze on far hills
- New sliders: **Sky Realism** and **Distance Air**. Set them to 0 for the classic look.
### Shadows
- Far Shadows** rebuilt: sharper and more stable on distant terrain and Distant Horizons, with no popping at the screen edges.
- New: Contact Shadows** (Recommended and up). Crisp small shadows where things meet the ground.
### Leaves
- Trees are lit as a real canopy: light filters through and leaves glow when backlit.
- No more dark speckle inside trees, and lighter Toon outlines on foliage.
### Distant Horizons
- DH terrain is lit and shadowed like normal chunks.
- Better-looking trees, a smoother hand-over from chunks, and see-through oceans.
- No more shimmering on far ground.
### Water
- The sun's glint no longer shines on water that terrain blocks from the sun.
- New foam along shores, walls and stream ends, plus a **Stylized Water** option.
- Traced reflections on water and glass.
### New Effects
- Bloom**: torches, lava, lamps and bright sky glow softly onto their surroundings.
- Rain Puddles**: puddles with ripples and reflections, and ground stays damp after rain.
- Rainbows** after rain.
- Lightning** lights up the world around a strike.
- New **lens flare**, and sunlight glows through thin clouds.
- Redone **lava** with a **Lava Crust** slider.
- Optional **Ore Glow**.
- Experimental Volumetric Clouds** on Pretty.
### Nether & End
- Nether: fog and light tinted by biome.
- End: smoother planet bands, a nebula, and fog that matches the sky.
[1.2.0.B] Aetherstone 1.2.0 Beta
by TarkProjects on Oct 13, 2026
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Performance might be slightly reduced to last version in some scenarios on higher presets.
- New**
- Valley haze: soft mist in low ground, thicker in rain and at sunrise and sunset.
- Grass and leaves vary in colour across the land instead of being one flat green.
- Pixel Clouds option (blocky cloud style).
- Reworked clouds: no more stair steps, softer realistic look.
- Player wake: water ripples behind you.
- Rain makes ripples on water; wet ground when it rains.
- Water drops on the screen when you leave water, plus a wobble while under water.
- Screen-space ambient occlusion (soft shadows in corners and around mobs).
- Ground sheen and sand/snow glitter.
- Resource-pack normal and specular maps turn on by themselves.
- Clouds show up in reflections on shiny blocks.
- Torchlight goes from yellow at the torch to a deeper orange further out.
- Stars twinkle.
- Nether Brightness slider, separate from caves.
- Improved**
- Water rebuilt many times: better refraction, the view up through the surface from below, waterfalls, sun glint, colour.
- Softer cloud shadows that are cheaper to run.
- Better looking distance and far shadows.
- Plants and leaves sway more, keep swaying further away, and sway harder in storms.
- Sharper image with render scale and TAAU, with less smearing.
- Normal maps shade correctly.
- Distant Horizons looks better under water.
- Changed**
- Distant Horizons doesn't render in the Nether, so it stays foggy.
- Caves are darker by default.
- "Toon Potato" is now called "PS1 Potato", and the Potato preset was reworked to look better and in the style from a PS1 Game.
- Menu cleanup and fixes.
- Performance**
- Many optimisation passes: shadows, SSAO, refraction, clouds, god rays.
- Render scale now actually saves frames.
- Fixes**
- Shadow glitches.
- Lighting under overhangs and under water.
- Ambient occlusion on ceilings.
- Held-item smearing.
- Grass tufts casting shadows.
- Fog from blindness and the Warden's darkness effect now works.
[1.1.3] Aetherstone 1.1.3
by TarkProjects on Oct 13, 2026
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Distant Horizons — the lighting, texture, shadow, and TAA reprojection fixes (the biggest visible change for anyone using DH)
Far Shadows — new feature callout
Foliage — grounding, leaf self-shadow, SSS distance fixes
Micro Contact AO — new feature
Profiles — the full 8-tier table with the Max retirement explained
Performance — readable summary of all the shader-level optimizations
Plus cloud shadows, lighting/materials, water/reflections, look changes, and bug fixes
Far Shadows — new feature callout
Foliage — grounding, leaf self-shadow, SSS distance fixes
Micro Contact AO — new feature
Profiles — the full 8-tier table with the Max retirement explained
Performance — readable summary of all the shader-level optimizations
Plus cloud shadows, lighting/materials, water/reflections, look changes, and bug fixes
[1.1.2] Aetherstone 1.1.2
by TarkProjects on Oct 13, 2026
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New
Far Shadows (Shadows menu, on from Recommended up). Hills, cliffs and trees now shadow terrain past the Shadow Distance and Distant Horizons terrain. This fixes the flat, unshaded look of distant terrain. Only what is on screen casts, and the shadows fade out in the fog.
Fixes
Cloud shadows are clearly visible again, with a defined edge and a smooth soft transition. Partial shadows had been squashed back toward full sun by the sun's brightness cap. Accurate Cloud Shadows are back on from Recommended up and in the defaults.
Distant Horizons terrain smeared while moving. The temporal anti-aliasing (TAA) treated LOD terrain as sky and reprojected it wrongly. It now uses Distant Horizons' own depth.
Leaves glowed while deep in shadow. Leaf translucency now checks past the leaf's own block, so only sunlit canopy edges glow.
Orange glow band on grass, dirt and sand at the edge of the shadow map, where real chunks meet Distant Horizons. It now needs a block in front of the face in the shadow map.
Section signs in the profile names are written as the \u00a7 escape again, so OptiFine displays the colours correctly.
Performance
Distant Horizons depth is read only where real chunks drew nothing.
Fully shadowed pixels skip the sun brightness cap.
Sky pixels skip the Far Shadows setup.
Far Shadows (Shadows menu, on from Recommended up). Hills, cliffs and trees now shadow terrain past the Shadow Distance and Distant Horizons terrain. This fixes the flat, unshaded look of distant terrain. Only what is on screen casts, and the shadows fade out in the fog.
Fixes
Cloud shadows are clearly visible again, with a defined edge and a smooth soft transition. Partial shadows had been squashed back toward full sun by the sun's brightness cap. Accurate Cloud Shadows are back on from Recommended up and in the defaults.
Distant Horizons terrain smeared while moving. The temporal anti-aliasing (TAA) treated LOD terrain as sky and reprojected it wrongly. It now uses Distant Horizons' own depth.
Leaves glowed while deep in shadow. Leaf translucency now checks past the leaf's own block, so only sunlit canopy edges glow.
Orange glow band on grass, dirt and sand at the edge of the shadow map, where real chunks meet Distant Horizons. It now needs a block in front of the face in the shadow map.
Section signs in the profile names are written as the \u00a7 escape again, so OptiFine displays the colours correctly.
Performance
Distant Horizons depth is read only where real chunks drew nothing.
Fully shadowed pixels skip the sun brightness cap.
Sky pixels skip the Far Shadows setup.
[1.1.1] Hotfix and realistic varients
by TarkProjects on Oct 13, 2026
Download
## Performance
## Visuals
## Fixes
## Profiles
There are now 10 profiles, colour-coded from red (low quality) to green (high):
Potato, Realistic Balanced, Balanced, **Realistic Recommended (new default)**, Recommended, Alt Style, Realistic Pretty, Pretty, Realistic Max, Max.
- Solid terrain now skips the transparency test.
- Sun and moon checks for bloom, god rays and lens flare run once per frame instead of once per pixel.
- Vanilla clouds are no longer built when the pack's own clouds are on.
- Cheaper shadow, caustic and Physics Mod ocean maths with the same look.
- Wet surfaces in rain skip a cloud reflection that was barely visible.
## Visuals
- Moving edges are sharper: TAA now follows the nearest surface around each pixel.
- God rays show no cross-hatch pattern.
- Cloud edges glow brighter toward the sun.
- Leaf and grass sheen is stronger at night.
## Fixes
- Cloud shadows over other shadows no longer leave a light band with a bright fringe.
- Fixed black specks inside soft leaf and grass shadows (TAA off, or with Pixel Shadows).
- Fixed the dot pattern along shadow edges with TAA off.
- Cloud shadows now fall on water and mobs.
- Fine Waves and Ripple Strength now work on textured water.
- Fixed a rare stuck bright pixel in TAA.
## Profiles
There are now 10 profiles, colour-coded from red (low quality) to green (high):
Potato, Realistic Balanced, Balanced, **Realistic Recommended (new default)**, Recommended, Alt Style, Realistic Pretty, Pretty, Realistic Max, Max.
- Realistic profiles:** the same quality as the tier they copy, with natural colours, teal water, no ink outline and no warm shadow edge.
- Alt Style** (was Pretty Alt Style): now sits before Pretty, with vivid colours and swell-based water.
- Balanced** drops minor effects (cloud shadows, screen reflections, wet surfaces, caustics and others). Shadow distance 112 → 96.
- Potato:** cloud shadows off.
- Recommended:** PBR off by default, and reflections take 2 samples instead of 4.
- All profiles:** procedural cloud shadows at strength 0.85.
- New Leaf Brightness, Split Tone and water colour options are now part of every profile.
[1.1.0] Aetherstone 1.1
by TarkProjects on Oct 13, 2026
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Aetherstone r21.9.26
NEW
PRESETS
Six now: Potato, Balanced, Recommended, Pretty, Pretty Alt Style (new) and Max.
Potato: the bare minimum that still looks like Aetherstone, now at 65% render scale.
Balanced: the cheapest good-looking preset. Adds screen reflections, sun bloom and sharper shadows.
Recommended: everything on, tuned for FPS. Adds water world reflections.
Pretty: one step up on every setting. Shadows reach 256 blocks.
Pretty Alt Style: Pretty with hard pixel shadows and a bolder ink outline.
Max: every quality slider at its highest.
MENU
DISTANT HORIZONS
FIXES
LOOK
PERFORMANCE
KNOWN ISSUES
NEW
- Cloud shadows: soft shade drifts over the ground and falls under the clouds you see. Shade under a cloud turns slightly blue.
- Sunlight glows through the shaded edges of sand, grass, dirt, snow, wool and animals.
- Texture Detail: a fine pixel grain that makes textures look higher resolution.
- Natural Specular: soft shine on leaves, grass and sand, from the sun and the moon.
- Iron, gold, glass, gems and light sources look like their blocks when worn, held, dropped or in item frames. No resource pack needed.
- Pixel Shadows (optional): shadow edges follow the texture's pixel grid.
- Second water swell, so distant water no longer looks tiled. Max adds Extra Swells.
- Orange horizon band at sunrise and sunset. The moon now hides behind clouds.
- Wet roofs, metal and glass reflect the same clouds as water.
- Your own shadow now shows even with Mob Shadows off.
- New sliders: Leaf Brightness, Blade Edge Light, Grass Shadow Softness, Sky Reflection Strength, Moon Behind Clouds, Horizon Band, Metal Brightness, Sun Highlight Size.
PRESETS
Six now: Potato, Balanced, Recommended, Pretty, Pretty Alt Style (new) and Max.
Potato: the bare minimum that still looks like Aetherstone, now at 65% render scale.
Balanced: the cheapest good-looking preset. Adds screen reflections, sun bloom and sharper shadows.
Recommended: everything on, tuned for FPS. Adds water world reflections.
Pretty: one step up on every setting. Shadows reach 256 blocks.
Pretty Alt Style: Pretty with hard pixel shadows and a bolder ink outline.
Max: every quality slider at its highest.
MENU
- Every setting, page and preset has a short description with a colour-coded cost.
- Pages regrouped by topic, simpler Quick Settings, and a Performance page listing everything that costs FPS.
- Clearer names, e.g. Warm Shadow Edge, Textured Waves, Caustic Density.
DISTANT HORIZONS
- Fixed LOD terrain being lit as if in permanent shadow, and slopes coming out darker than real chunks.
- LOD terrain has surface variation instead of flat colour, and fog blends better into the distance.
- Fixed thin lines across distant LOD water.
- Shadows no longer pop in and out in steps as you walk.
FIXES
- Water reflections no longer lag or slide while the camera moves.
- Shadows now touch the objects casting them instead of floating off.
- Cloud shadows no longer land under the wrong cloud or slide when you fly.
- No more stuck white dot or doubled sun and moon in reflections.
- Metal looks like metal and no longer goes black at night. Gems reflect properly.
- Armour and held items now use resource pack PBR maps.
- Waterfalls no longer look like a flat mirror. Underwater is no longer black at night.
- Motion blur no longer gets too long at low FPS.
- Cloud Cover slider no longer runs backwards.
- Tree shadows are fixed on high-resolution and 3D-leaf resource packs.
LOOK
- Slightly brighter with more contrast, a lighter sky and more orange sunsets.
- Fog starts closer but builds gently, so distant chunks stay visible.
- Slower clouds, softer default shadow edges, motion blur off on Recommended.
PERFORMANCE
- Leaf shadows use about half as many faces. Cloud shadows do nothing at night.
- Mob Shadows are off on Recommended, which saves CPU around farms and villages.
- Some new effects cost FPS. If you are at the edge of your target, try the next preset down.
KNOWN ISSUES
- Distant Horizons terrain receives shadows but does not cast them.
- Cloud shadows fall on terrain only, not on water or mobs.
[1.0.5] Improved DH visuals + other design choices
by TarkProjects on Oct 13, 2026
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Distant Chunks are more detailed and have more pleasant lighing.
Water design improved.
Added cloud shadows.
Water design improved.
Added cloud shadows.
[1.0.4] Menu changes, FXAA fixed, FSR improved sharpening picture
by TarkProjects on Oct 13, 2026
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The settings menu should be easier to navigate, FXAA is fixed, the sharpening filter has been imporved and implements RCAS FSR 1.0 sharpening filter
[1.0.35] 1.0.3 hotfix
by TarkProjects on Oct 13, 2026
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Fixed subsurface scattering, and visual minecraft version mismatched
[1.0.3] Major September Overhaul
by TarkProjects on Oct 13, 2026
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Menu and presets
Settings menu rebuilt into category pages
Many new sliders with finer steps
Block selection box toggle, hidden by default
Ink outline on every preset, with a stronger default
New defaults: saturation 1.15, exposure 0.95
New defaults: moonlight 0.80, night ambient 0.80
Presets no longer show "Custom" from mismatched slider values
Shadows
Rewritten shadow mapping: sharper up close, longer reach
Softer, smoother far shadows with less aliasing
Faster shadow rendering
Grass shadows limited to half the shadow distance
Distant leaves cast solid, calmer shadows
Entity shadow distance limit on Pretty and Max
Longer shadow distance on Pretty
No shadow pass in the Nether
Sky and atmosphere
Less blue, more natural daytime sky
Directional sunset colours and a sun glow
Sun drawn behind clouds instead of through them
Smooth, band-free sky gradients
Softer fog at the edge of render distance
Ugly implementation of Cel shading and sky banding removed
Dark tones no longer crushed to black
White balance and split toning sliders
Night
Nightly blue glow around the moon
Night-blue sky glow around the moon
Light shafts from the moon
Light shafts
Clouds now block light shafts
Light shafts skip work behind terrain
Water and reflections
Reflections mirror at the screen edges instead of fading
Less distant water shimmer on Potato
The End
Soft planet shadows in the End
End shadows stay still while moving
Light shafts from the End planet
Planet ring now passes in front of the planet
Planet now lines up with its light and shadows
Other
License now explicitly allows forks
Settings menu rebuilt into category pages
Many new sliders with finer steps
Block selection box toggle, hidden by default
Ink outline on every preset, with a stronger default
New defaults: saturation 1.15, exposure 0.95
New defaults: moonlight 0.80, night ambient 0.80
Presets no longer show "Custom" from mismatched slider values
Shadows
Rewritten shadow mapping: sharper up close, longer reach
Softer, smoother far shadows with less aliasing
Faster shadow rendering
Grass shadows limited to half the shadow distance
Distant leaves cast solid, calmer shadows
Entity shadow distance limit on Pretty and Max
Longer shadow distance on Pretty
No shadow pass in the Nether
Sky and atmosphere
Less blue, more natural daytime sky
Directional sunset colours and a sun glow
Sun drawn behind clouds instead of through them
Smooth, band-free sky gradients
Softer fog at the edge of render distance
Ugly implementation of Cel shading and sky banding removed
Dark tones no longer crushed to black
White balance and split toning sliders
Night
Nightly blue glow around the moon
Night-blue sky glow around the moon
Light shafts from the moon
Light shafts
Clouds now block light shafts
Light shafts skip work behind terrain
Water and reflections
Reflections mirror at the screen edges instead of fading
Less distant water shimmer on Potato
The End
Soft planet shadows in the End
End shadows stay still while moving
Light shafts from the End planet
Planet ring now passes in front of the planet
Planet now lines up with its light and shadows
Other
License now explicitly allows forks
[1.0.2] Fixed Screen space water Reflections + fixed small bugs
by TarkProjects on Oct 13, 2026
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Water now has working screen space reflections by default on the pretty and max preset, this was intended even before but a bug caused it to not work in the final zip.
Moon now still shows even when raining during night.
Settins menu has been slightly adjusted
Moon now still shows even when raining during night.
Settins menu has been slightly adjusted
[1.0.1] Settings cleaned up and End color tweaks, small bug fixes
by TarkProjects on Oct 13, 2026
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- The End skybox and fog are brightened and are now purple instead of black.
- Torch light calculations simplified.
- Cloud small rendering performance improvements.
[1.0.0] Aetherstone-Playability Update
by TarkProjects on Oct 13, 2026
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Loads of bug fixes, added features and tweaks: Tone mappping has been changed, all 5 presets have been tweaked, shadow bias issue has been fixed, Sun shafts reworked and visually greatly imrpoved, Nether and End have been worked on and now are visually interesting and not bugged anymore, swaying plants have been fixed, underwater water surface transparency has been fixed, Screen space reflections have been added and the fallback reflections improved, fog has been reworked, a lot more smaller changes and fixes that are not worth listing but expect better performance than Beta version on the same or better visuals.
