HSN-Shaders Changelog
Version 26.3.7 (Current Release)

This release consolidates the visual style of 26.3.6 with performance improvements and a large set of stability and visual fixes. Soft shadows are available on all profiles. Water stays close to the vanilla appearance (no strong tint or mirror reflections by default). Experimental SSAO and god rays remain available but disabled by default.

Highlights

• Soft shadows on every profile (configurable quality)
• Per-light-type glow (warm, lava, portal, soul) that only affects bright texels
• Wider, more visible bloom on light sources without hazing the sky
• Improved fog that matches the sky color and fades smoothly
• Cleaner color grading (saturation applied once)
• Better night, rain, and Nether lighting behavior
• Experimental menu for SSAO and god rays

Detailed Changes in 26.3.7
Visual and Atmosphere

• Daytime fog restored to previous strength (thicker during the day, thinner at night)
• Ambient tint reintroduced for a softer, warmer daytime look
• Fog color now derived from the sky to eliminate horizon seams
• Clouds fade cleanly into the haze without rings or hard cutoffs
• Night horizon corrected to blue-gray (no purple haze)
• Rain sky follows the vanilla gray appearance; sun and moon glare fade during rain
• Moon glow tightened so it no longer washes out clouds
• Nether uses plain lightmap lighting and vanilla fog color (no overworld night grading)

Shadows

• Soft shadow filter optimized (8 taps) with night-time early-out for performance
• Shadow edge fade fixed (no dark ring at the map boundary)
• Shadow acne on distant slopes reduced by distance- and slope-aware bias
• Moon shadows flattened to avoid striped night lighting
• Shadow matrices properly declared

Water and Materials

• Water lighting uses a consistent up-vector (no view-dependent shifts)
• Only actual water receives water-specific shading; glass, ice, slime, and portals no longer receive teal tint
• Water ripples converted to world-space coordinates
• Night water no longer glows unnaturally next to dark terrain
• Water remains close to the vanilla texture appearance

Bloom and Post-Processing

• Bloom blur widened for a visible but controlled halo on lava, portals, and lanterns
• Bloom no longer hazes sky or cloud edges
• Saturation applied only once to avoid over-saturation

Other

• Translucent programs share the water shader path
• Glow system limited to bright texels only
• Profiles and defaults aligned with the refined 26.3.6 look
• Performance improvements relative to the prior 26.3.6 build

Features carried forward from 26.3.6

• Experimental SSAO (off by default) with strength control
• Experimental god rays (off by default) with strength control
• Dedicated Experimental menu page
• Soft glow on sun and moon
• Waving plants limited to grass, flowers, crops, and leaves (vines stay still)
• Improved configuration menu (profile values match available options; no duplicate profile picker)

26.3.6

• Added experimental SSAO toggle (off by default) with strength slider
• Added experimental god rays toggle (off by default) with strength slider
• New Experimental menu page for SSAO / god rays
• Sun and moon get stronger warm / cool glow so they are not dim
• Sky halo around sun and moon boosted slightly
• Compatible with OptiFine / Iris for Minecraft 26.3
• Removed waving vines (cave, weeping, twisting, hanging roots, and wall vines)
• Grass, flowers, crops, and leaves still wave when Waving plants is on
• Config menu: profile values now match the slider lists so settings actually stick
• Config menu: Performance page no longer stacks a second profile picker
• Config menu: defaults line up with the Medium profile
• Fix: Water waves toggle now turns the ripple off
• Pack version kept as 26.3.6

26.3.5

• Removed god rays, ambient occlusion, volumetric lighting, and water reflections
• Removed 2D clouds option, sun/moon size sliders, and leftover menu pages
• Post processing toggle (bloom, vignette, sharpen, color grade, chromatic aberration)
• Small bloom / glow on the sun only (moon and clouds stay vanilla)
• Vanilla sun, moon, and clouds are left as-is (they were going see-through on Medium and High)
• Shadow map stays at 512. Medium and High just push shadow distance out
• added wide Version support
• Entity shadows on
• Pack name uses 26.3.5 instead of 26_3_5
• Fix: players and mobs no longer go black in their own shadow
• Fix: night does not fade the world to black
• Fix: shadows no longer pop to full sun at the edge of the shadow map
• Fix: underwater is not crystal clear. Distance fog actually builds up
• Fix: moon sprite no longer gets the sun glow boost
• Fix: bloom only hits the sun, lava, and lamps instead of random blocks

26.3.4

• Night grass and leaves stay green instead of turning blue
• Fog uses height, distance, and rain so it actually shows
• Night fog is a dim warm gray, not purple haze
• Bloom is tighter so the whole frame does not smear

26.3.3

• Torches and lanterns keep their orange color
• Hanging lanterns, chains, and cave vines swing from the top
• Night fog is a bit thicker near the horizon

26.3.1

• Fix terrain_translucent compile on Iris 1.11.6 / MC 26.3
• Restore older config menu (Performance, Lighting, Bloom, Water, Atmosphere)
• Bloom toggle works on every profile
• Water reflections (lite SSR) on High by default, manual toggle elsewhere
• Vanilla sun / moon sprites — no drawn circle
• Add terrain_solid / terrain_cutout / terrain_translucent program files

26.3

• Cut VL/SSAO/godrays/composite3 for Intel HD / i3
• Default shadow map 512
• Stable full-res bloom only
• Menu trimmed for 26.3 Iris 1.11.6

• 26.3
• lighting fixes
• bloom fix

• adds bloom
• adds light shadows
• adds light glare
• adds performsnce optimized color grading
• adds smooth / soft lighting
• >is performance optimized