Revamp shading

[devendrn]

All changes made to this branch will be for testing, and will include redundant code and comments.

Changes in mind for this PR:

• New sky model
• Update lighting
• Improve clouds
• Improve fog

Please report any issue with these changes. Feedback will really help.

New Sky

Features

• Custom sun/moon rotation (yaw, tilt) . Also removes in-game sun/moon scaling effect when looking at it.
• 2d sky based on sun/moon direction (old one was 1d, with extra overlay effects)
• New cube sun texture (based on current moon texture)
• Rainbow positioning based on sun direction (also rainbow is now enabled by default during rain). Reduced rainbow width also.
• Sun/moon light present in sky reflections and fog now (TODO: Make this a brighter for reflection and dimmer for fog?)

Known issues:

• Moon abtruptly changing position right after midnight (FIXED)
• Disabled underwater streak. need to update it (TOFIX)
• Sun/Moon flickering near sunrise/sunset (FIXED)
• Dark blob artifact at sun/moon center in some devices (FIXED)

Updated Lighting

Features

• New lighting logic (also moved all lighting logic to vertex shader itself). No more hacky torchlight dimming in sunlight region. Now it blends properly with sun light.
• Improved day/night transition using sun direction
• Improved dawn lighting. Slight sunlight gradient fade during sunrise.
• Correct cloud shadow projection (also enabled cloud shadow on terrain by default)

Known issuer:

• Need to update actor,items shading to match terrain (TODO)
• Need to update underwater lighting (TODO)

Update clouds

Features

• Move clouds with minecraft world position (for rounded, realistic)
• Cloud reflection now matches correctly with actual cloud plane and is now present for terrain reflection aswell.
• Improve clouds lighting (TODO)

Other changes

Features

• Improve water and lava noise (TODO)

[xLynxiummcx]

🔥🔥🔥

[devendrn]

Can someone test sun moon rotation for windows?

[BatmanBinSuparman49]

ok

[BatmanBinSuparman49]

Sun/moon rotation in Windows | Minecraft - 1.21.114
@devendrn
https://streamable.com/th7wqb

[faizul726]

Batman saves the day 🗣️🔥🔥

[devendrn]

Can someone test simple, rounded, and realistic clouds movement on windows? It should change with camera position.

[faizul726]

Can someone test simple, rounded, and realistic clouds movement on windows? It should change with camera position.

doing a little bit later @devendrn

[BatmanBinSuparman49]

Clouds 3:
https://streamable.com/kn6fle

Clouds 2:
https://streamable.com/w121kn

Clouds 1:
https://streamable.com/wtn1bx

@devendrn

[faizul726]

doing a little bit later @devendrn

Batman saves the day again

[BatmanBinSuparman49]

doing a little bit later @devendrn

Batman saves the day again

Windows User

[faizul726]

@devendrn build pack -p windows fails

default Clouds was successful

[devendrn]

@faizul726 try again. I made a typo previously.

[faizul726]

@devendrn there's an animated artifact on the sun

see

bandicam.2025-10-28.00-36-38-556.mp4

bandicam.2025-10-28.00-38-16-128.mp4

also, the sun side during rain is a little too bright

[devendrn]

@faizul726 when you are free later, check if that sun artifact happens with fully transparent sun texture.

[faizul726]

happens with fully transparent image also

and moon is also affected by this issue

@devendrn

[BatmanBinSuparman49]

It's doesn't happen to me
@faizul726
It could be a GPU issue
@devendrn

Also Fazul, send that transparent sun.png and let me try

[BatmanBinSuparman49]

Sky is too bright when looking at the side of the sun during rain

[devendrn]

@faizul726 does this artifact happen when you set mg8 to 0.0?

# src/newb/functions/sky.h
-  float mg8 = (g8.x+g8.y)*mask*(1.0-0.9*env.rainFactor);
+  float mg8 = 0.0;

[faizul726]

@devendrn it's 12 am here right now. i will try to test in morning.

also i am updating minecraft to v1.21.120 (which broke materials again)

so you may want to update the material source once again.

[faizul726]

still happens @devendrn

[devendrn]

@faizul726 are you sure you applied the change properly?

Try again. If it still shows up, try with this change instead:

# src/newb/functions/sky.h
-  vec2 g = 0.5 - 0.5*vec2(dot(env.sunDir, viewDir), dot(env.moonDir, viewDir));
+  vec2 g = vec2_splat(0.0);

[devendrn]

Just a reminder that there are several visual changes. Feedback is needed for me to know whether these changes are moving in the right direction or wrong direction and no new issues are introduced. If lighting could use further improvement, this is the place to comment.

I update the PR heading message every commit to include current changes and to-do changes. Please refer that before testing or giving feedback. #52 (comment)

[faizul726]

@devendrn sky being bright in rain issue is fixed.
and the blob thing is still there, as well as the dot on sun/moon. build from latest commit. I have attached a video for you to see.

Video_2025-11-01_10-33-20.mp4

[devendrn]

@faizul726 try testing with this change:

# src/newb/functions/sky.h
-  vec2 g = 0.5 - 0.5*vec2(dot(env.sunDir, viewDir), dot(env.moonDir, viewDir));
+  vec2 g = vec2_splat(1.0);

[faizul726]

@devendrn no longer happens. but the glow is gone now.

[devendrn]

Maybe clamping this value could fix this issue. @faizul726 Try this:

# src/newb/functions/sky.h
-  vec2 g = 0.5 - 0.5*vec2(dot(env.sunDir, viewDir), dot(env.moonDir, viewDir));
+  vec2 g = clamp(0.5 - 0.5*vec2(dot(env.sunDir, viewDir), dot(env.moonDir, viewDir)), 0.0, 1.0);

[faizul726]

@devendrn it seemingly fixed the black blob issue.

also the animated dot issue is no longer present (at least i can't see anymore)

do you want me to test on windows as well?

[faizul726]

@devendrn build fails on windows
note: i have added Metal in the merged profile

[faizul726]

By the way, can I post merged builds in the Newb server for people to try?

[devendrn]

@devendrn build fails on windows

Does the same error come when building Sky material? Also check if this change fixes the error:

# src/newb/functions/sky.h
nl_skycolor nlSkyColors(nl_environment env) {
-  if (env.end) {
-    return nlEndSkyColors(env);
-  }
-  return nlOverworldSkyColors(env);
+  nl_skycolor s;
+  if (env.end) {
+    s = nlEndSkyColors(env);
+  } else {
+    s = nlOverworldSkyColors(env);
+  }
+  return s;
}

By the way, can I post merged builds in the Newb server for people to try?

Sure @faizul726

[faizul726]

@devendrn

Does the same error come when building Sky material?

From the image, I can see that it fails when building RenderChunk. Not sure if Sky supposed to have problem here.

I have already updated to latest commit d88dfdf, so I can't confirm whether Sky build or not.

But even with that commit, I get build failure on RenderChunk

Sky builds fine from that commit.

With mentioned fix, #52 (comment)
I get this error. Sky still builds fine after the fix.

[faizul726]

To be more specific,

RenderChunk (without Sky.h fix) builds fine for ESSL_300 and Metal. The error only appears when I use SM50. Haven't tried other D3D types...

[devendrn]

@faizul726 Try making this change :

# src/newb/functions/lighting.h
- float gameBrightness = texture2D(tex, vec2_splat(0.0)).g;
+ float gameBrightness = 1.0;

[faizul726]

@devendrn
now it builds successfully without the sky.h fix

[faizul726]

@devendrn

new issues:

• night terrain looks brighter than it should (perhaps i didn't notice it before)
• stars render in front of moon
• sun/moon flickers on Android (might be gpu specific?) (doesn't happen to me on Windows)

screen-20251103-110700.mp4

[faizul726]

can confirm happening with mcpelauncher as well.
i will need to confirm again on windows

[devendrn]

night terrain looks brighter than it should (perhaps i didn't notice it before)

@faizul726 Because it was made like that for testing purpose. Try to check if this compiles on windows:

# src/newb/functions/lighting.h
- float gameBrightness = 1.0;
+ float gameBrightness = texture2DLod(tex, vec2_splat(0.0), 0.0).g;

[faizul726]

@devendrn now it builds RenderChunk successfully with both windows and merged (3-in-1) profile

[faizul726]

@devendrn
Sun/Moon glow seems to render on fog layer now (?)

[devendrn]

@faizul726 Can you also check if this compiles in windows:

  float gameBrightness = texelFetch(tex, ivec2(0,0), 0).g;

Sun/Moon glow seems to render on fog layer now (?)

Intentionally added. Will remove it from fog next commit.

[Jesusmendozaxxx]

You're the best, though* even though the newbie version is discontinued, we'll continue it by creating variants. There's a problem, though: the endgame doesn't show its fog in version 1.21.120, and even though I have the fog settings, biome settings, and the biome client, it doesn't seem to work properly.

[faizul726]

@devendrn RenderChunk builds with merged profile (android, ios, win)

[devendrn]

There's a problem, though: the endgame doesn't show its fog in version 1.21.120, and even though I have the fog settings, biome settings, and the biome client, it doesn't seem to work properly.

@Jesusmendozaxxx I have not tested this shader on 1.21.120. If this is an issue with newb-x-mcbe (built using lastest commit), create a github issue with proper screenshots of the problem. Do not post issues of variants here. This repo is only for newb-x-mcbe only.

[faizul726]

@devendrn i forgot to mention that mcpelauncher doesn't support 1.21.120+ yet and all the screenshots you saw are from 1.21.113

…

On Thu, Nov 6, 2025, 1:49 AM devendrn ***@***.***> wrote: *devendrn* left a comment (devendrn/newb-x-mcbe#52) <#52 (comment)> There's a problem, though: the endgame doesn't show its fog in version 1.21.120, and even though I have the fog settings, biome settings, and the biome client, it doesn't seem to work properly. @Jesusmendozaxxx <https://github.com/Jesusmendozaxxx> I have not tested this shader on 1.21.120. If this is an issue with newb-x-mcbe (built using lastest commit), create a github issue with proper screenshots of the problem. Do not post issues of variants here. This repo is only for newb-x-mcbe only. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#52 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/BGXDUIM2E4WNIMY4NQK6GLL33JIFHAVCNFSM6AAAAACJ5VDGLGVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZTIOJTGA2DCNRXGQ> . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: ***@***.***>