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## 🆕 What's New in v1.1.0 — *True Volumetric Godrays, HDR Pipeline & Experimental Physical Sky* Version **1.1.0** replaces the screen-space godray approximation with a fully volumetric raymarched implementation, switches the entire G-buffer pipeline to true HDR (RGBA16F), and introduces an experimental, fully physical realtime atmospheric-scattering sky mode as an opt-in alternative to the stable gradient sky. This is a focused two-pillar update on top of the **v1.0.7** bug-fix baseline. ### 🌤️ True Volumetric Godrays The old `computeGodrays()` screen-space approximation has been replaced by `computeVolumetricGodrays()` — a genuine single-scattering volumetric raymarch: * **Per-step shadow-map occlusion** — every raymarch sample now tests the shadow map individually, so light shafts are actually carved by real geometry (trees, buildings, cave ceilings) instead of being implied by a "forward-looking boost" toward the sun. * **Interleaved Gradient Noise dithering** (Jimenez 2014), rotated per-frame via the new `frameCounter` uniform when TAA is active — 8–24 raymarch steps now integrate as smoothly as hundreds, with no banding. * **Exact per-segment Beer–Lambert integration** — `Tr₀ · σs/σt · (1 − e^(−σt·Δx))` per step, which is energy-conserving regardless of step size (no more over-brightening at low sample counts). * **Dual-lobe Henyey-Greenstein phase function** (forward + weak backscatter lobe) with an isotropic floor, so crepuscular rays stay visible when looking *across* them, not only when staring directly at the sun. * **Colored radiance** — shafts are now warm Kelvin-driven sunbeams by day, deep orange at sunset, and faint blue moonbeams at night, instead of a flat white/yellow overlay. * **New `GODRAYS_STRENGTH`** setting (*Subtle / Balanced / Dramatic*) added to every quality profile. * `GODRAYS_QUALITY` sample counts and distances increased: Fast 8 samples/96m, Balanced 16/128m, High 24/160m (up from 4/72m, 6/110m, 8/150m in v1.0.7). ### 🌈 Full HDR G-Buffer Pipeline * **`colortex0`, `colortex1`, and `colortex2` are now explicitly `RGBA16F`.** Bright sources — the sun disk, lava, specular highlights, portals — no longer clip to `1.0` before tone mapping, so the ACES/AgX curves in `final.fsh` finally compress genuine HDR highlights instead of receiving pre-clamped input. Bloom now samples real HDR luminance rather than an already-saturated LDR buffer. * `colortex2`'s alpha channel carries a 5-value material tag (`0.0`/`0.1`/`0.62`/`0.8`/`1.0`); RGBA16F guarantees these are preserved exactly, whereas a lower-precision format would have aliased and collided material tags (e.g. foliage vs. water). * Godray intensity constants were re-tuned (roughly halved vs. the old LDR values) now that the additive shaft survives in full instead of clipping against a saturated scene; a stronger soft shoulder (`0.50` vs. the old `0.30`) keeps the sun-facing core from blowing out under HDR. ### 🧪 Experimental: Realtime Physical Sky (Off by Default) A brand-new **`[EXPERIMENTAL]`** menu tab exposes an alternate sky renderer in `gbuffers_skybasic.fsh`, disabled in every shipped profile (`SKY_MODE=0`) so the stable gradient sky remains the default: * **`SKY_MODE`** — `0` (Gradient, legacy v1.0.7-style sky) or `1` (Physical Realtime): a genuine per-pixel ray-marched atmosphere with exact 1st-order single scattering (Rayleigh + Mie + Ozone, full sun-ray optical-depth march with ground-occlusion detection) plus a blue-biased, bounded multiple-scattering ambient term that fills in the zenith/horizon without producing the typical LUT-based "yellow band" artifact. No lookup textures, no cross-frame reads. * **`SKY_QUALITY`** — controls raymarch sample counts (*Fast 8×4 / Standard 12×6 / High 16×8*) for the physical mode. * **`SKY_STYLE`** — new artistic-direction toggle independent of `SKY_MODE`: *Realistic* (true angular sun/moon size, neutral colors, minimal glow — an authentic astronomy look), *Semi-realistic* (readable ×2.8 sun/moon size, richer color, soft aureole — the default), or *Fantasy* (grand ×5.5 sun/moon, huge corona, vivid saturated teal/crimson/indigo palette for a stylized sky). * Physical mode renders the sun disk with real limb darkening and a physically-derived angular radius, and computes its color from actual sun-ray transmittance (ozone-aware) rather than the legacy Kelvin/airmass approximation. * Because this feature is explicitly experimental and disabled by default, it introduces no behavioral change to any existing profile. ### 🛠️ Smaller Fixes & Cleanup * **Dark-sky/moon-halo banding fixed at the source** — a linear-space triangle-distributed dither (`±1/255`, matching the BSL/Complementary technique) is now applied in `final.fsh` *before* tone mapping, where gamma expansion makes a tiny linear noise term large enough in the darks to smooth the gradient, while staying invisible in bright regions. The old post-gamma dither (which couldn't fix pre-tonemap banding) has been removed and replaced with an explicit final `clamp()`. * `shadow.vsh` no longer relies on the deprecated fixed-function `ftransform()`; it now builds the clip-space position explicitly via `gl_ModelViewMatrix` / `gl_ProjectionMatrix` for broader driver compatibility. * Updated localization strings for `GODRAYS`, `GODRAYS_QUALITY`, and the new `GODRAYS_STRENGTH` / `SKY_MODE` / `SKY_STYLE` / `SKY_QUALITY` options and the new Experimental tab.