Minecraft’s March LIVE event revealed a number of Mojang’s upcoming update projects for the game, including the reveal of an official shader pack. These shaders, packaged under the ‘Vibrant Visuals’ moniker, will beMinecraft’s built-in answer to community-grown shaders, as well as a way to offer accessible shaders to Bedrock players.
Minecraft’s Vibrant Visuals updatewill allow fans to activate shaders straight through the game’s options. WhileMinecrafthas long allowed for graphics-enhancing shaders, they’ve been inaccessible to less tech-savvy players and, generally, most Bedrock players, considering the lack of modding capability on most Bedrock platforms. Vibrant Visuals, which can now be trialed out, will allow players to activate a blast of directional lighting, atmospheric effects, dynamic weather graphics, and much more—all available within the game itself, without the need of external tools.
What Vibrant Visuals Will Mean For Minecraft
Bedrock players can turn onMinecraft’s Vibrant Visuals shadersvia the game’s Experimental features, and Java players will eventually be able to try them out too. As with most any shader pack, Vibrant Visuals won’t affect gameplay, even with aesthetically different lighting; the toggleable shaders are purely cosmetic. The shaders' effects have been receiving their own improvements through this year’s ongoing snapshots, though, and there are some interesting graphical effects lined up for Vibrant Visuals' final release.
Visual Upgrades Through A Multi-Platform Release
Theworld ofMinecraftshadershas long been the domain of PC versions ofMinecraft, specifically the game’s Java edition—which, despite having a smaller player base, has by far the majority of community support. Vibrant Visuals will open up greater graphical fidelity not only to players generally, but (in particular) console and mobile fans. The latter is of special interest, considering the inherent difficulty of equipping mobile versions ofMinecraftwith greater fidelity and other dynamic effects. While Mojang is still working on optimizing Vibrant Visuals' performance across multiple platforms, the update is already playable on certain Android and iOS devices.
Lighting
Lighting changes are perhaps the most notable hallmark ofMinecraft’s upcoming Vibrant Visuals, with the shader pack adding glistening reflections, directional lighting, and shadows resulting from the sun and moon. These shaders also allow players to witness emissive lighting textures from sources such as a Spider’s eyes or the glow of Sculk; this emissive texturing means that sources such as these will glow even when enveloped in darkness, though not all emissive textures will cast true light.
Minecraft’s gloomy End dimension, which is housed in a sky of static dark devoid of celestial bodies, will also receive unique touch-ups thanks to Vibrant Visuals. While Vibrant Visuals is active, the End’s sky will occasionally come alive with flashing supernova events. Of course, as with the rest of Vibrant Visuals' features, these aesthetic events won’t signal anything impacting gameplay, but they’re certainly an interesting touch. It lends further credence to the idea of the End being somewhat adrift in space, as has long been implied by its alien nature and asteroid terrain. Players hungry for new End content, a large and growing portion of fans, will finally have something to chew on with this in-built option.
Weather And Volumetric Fog
Not only will Vibrant Visuals give the game generally more dynamic weather, but volumetric fog. Fog will increase in volume proportionally to the intensity of rain and the player’s own altitude, and this fog will create visual haze and improveMinecraft’s atmosphere.Minecraftwas once a game filled with fog, as this aspect was a hallmark of the game’s Alpha (and of tall tales like Herobrine, which were grounded in those early days). While this fog won’t achieve the same liminal effect, it’s a throwback that veteran fans will likely appreciate.
