Vibrant Visuals

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Vibrant Visuals is a graphics mode that aims to improve the visual looks of Minecraft^[6] by adding directional lighting, physically based textures, pixel-aligned shadows, atmospheric sky, environmental effects, and various other visual features based on photorealism. It is built with the RenderDragon engine^[7] around a physically based rendering pipeline used for deferred lighting.^[8][9] It runs locally on the player's device, and can be enabled in the player's settings rather than world specific settings.^[10]

Most configurations and textures can be customized using resource packs, and various tagged Marketplace add-ons make use of custom Vibrant Visuals packs.^[11]

Vibrant Visuals affects only the graphical appearance of Minecraft; it does not affect gameplay. However, enabling Vibrant Visuals on lower-end devices (especially with high render distance and higher graphics settings) can decrease game performance significantly, which can affect the game experience.

Vibrant Visuals moves most visual shading to the deferred lighting passes on different resolutions, except water and transparencies handled by forward shading. The game calculates surface normals and depth to shade the albedo color image, for a similar result to ambient occlusion in classic graphics.^[7] Through high-dynamic-range rendering, it also calculates the image's luminance, which is affected by various lighting mechanics.

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After the base rendering passes, the game applies physically based rendering (PBR), which simulates realistic lighting behaviors between different surface materials. This is achieved by creating different texture maps for every block, entity, item, and particle, which define specific characteristics of the surface material per pixel.^[12] A texture set is used to specify these texture maps for an object in a resource pack.^[13] Four maps — metalness, emissive, roughness, and subsurface scattering (collectively known as MERS) — define the material's properties. Each property in MERS is assigned to RGBA textures (four channel): red to metalness, green to emissive, blue to roughness, and alpha to subsurface.

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Object reflections are heavily affected by their metalness and roughness properties. Metallic surfaces reflect light directly and combine that reflection with their own color. Non-metallic surfaces like grass, dirt, and tree barks show more solid color and less reflection. A surface with low roughness is very smooth, resulting in sharp, mirror-like reflections, compared with high roughness that results in blurry, diffuse reflections.

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The game uses screen space reflections (SSR) and image-based lighting (IBL) to create dynamic reflections which appear on these surfaces.^[14] SSR generates reflections by reusing what's already visible on the screen. They are limited by the objects and parts of the world that are currently visible in the camera's view, which can cause reflections to fade or disappear near the edges of the screen. In contrast, IBL reflections, used to reflect clouds and the sky, aren't limited by what is already displayed on the screen but often appear low resolution and distorted. They use cube maps, which are affected by environmental lighting and atmospheric scattering.^[15]

Directional light sources are reflected as specular highlights with the Cook-Torrance model,^[7] creating a single bright spot moving with the eye position. This is not limited by the current image, but always visible.

Most blocks and entities in Vibrant Visuals with high metalness only reflect light sources and do not completely mirror areas. Water surfaces are fully reflective and properly mirror the area surrounding them, including the fading by fog. The variety of metalness and roughness in texture maps makes nearby reflections appear pixelated. The indirect specular reflection quality can be configured under the video settings, which affects their resolution and distance at which they appear.

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Pixels can appear to glow in the dark environment through the emissive texture map. This map defines which parts of a texture should be self-illuminated. It uses the green color channel in the MERS texture; areas of the map that are solid green will glow at full intensity, with different shades of the color affecting their intensity, while black areas will be unaffected by the emissive property. Emissive surfaces do not cast light onto surrounding blocks or entities, and therefore do not cast proper shadows. However, their glow remains visible even in complete darkness, making them appear bright and distinct. They also produce a light bloom effect, which makes their color bleed into the surrounding areas.

Some entities and blocks — like drowned, spiders, sculk, certain dropped items, and firefly particles — use emissive texture maps and produce glowing effect. This effect is often contributed by their natural block lighting (like torches and glowstone), which makes the glow appear more intense and realistic. When emissive textures are reflected, their reflections are also emissive from Cook-Torrance BRDF.

The fourth map, subsurface scattering, simulates an effect of light shining through thin surfaces, like leaves.^[16] This effect is applied to blocks exposed to directional lighting, and blends to roughly one block deep for the strongest effects. Diffuse from directional light (see below) penetrates through the surface and will also apply to the backside of affected objects, occluded with the shadow mapping.^[7] Pixels affected by subsurface scattering can never be affected by metalness and vice versa, although they can still be smooth and create specular highlights.

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The primary light sources in Vibrant Visuals are global directional lights, including the sun and the moon in the Overworld, and End flashes in the End.^[14] Depending on the location of the light source in the sky, they illuminate all objects directly exposed to them with their color, using direct diffuse with Lambertian BRDF.^[7]

The roughness texture map affects how direct diffuse colors the objects, and subsurface scattering allows it to slightly penetrate through the surface. Light also shines through glass panes and other supported transparent blocks, where it has the same effects on objects behind it.

Directional light sources cast shadows on all objects, including held items on the HUD. The object that creates the shadow and the location of the light source affects the shape, size, and direction of the shadow. Unlike shadows in most shaders, shadows are pixelated to match the resolution of other textures and align with the pixel grid. Shadows can be created by any block that can obstruct lighting, most particles, and entities, including players. Animated objects, like animated player skins or the tentacles of a ghast, create animated shadows as well. Dropped items always create pixelated round shadows. Shadows are rendered at a lower quality at higher distances, which can be configured in the settings.

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End flashes in the End sky are special types of directional light sources. Where global directional light sources orbit around the Overworld with different effects depending on the daylight cycle, End flashes occur once every 30 seconds at random spots above the horizon. They illuminate the environment with a purple color and create shadow and reflection effects, which are faded at the beginning and the end. Like the sun and moon, the classic flash texture is not rendered, only the bright tinting of volumetric fog.

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If the "Render Dragon Features for Creators" experiment is enabled in Minecraft Preview/beta, and "point lights" are turned on in the settings, light-emitting blocks like torches emit directional light and cast dynamic shadows as well. The light is emitted from a single point at the center of a block, hence the name, and the strength is affected by the block's lighting. This light is colored, and blends additively.

The quality of point lighting and the shadows created by point lights can be adjusted in the settings, or turned off.

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In addition to point lighting, all other blocks with block lighting create static colored light. Both static colored lights and point lights tint volumetric fog and blend into the environment. The following blocks are affected by point lighting, or have unique static light colors:

Block	Color	Light level
👁 Image Torch	#f39a5e	14
👁 Image Lantern		15
👁 Image Copper Lantern (all oxidized and waxed variants)	#e8c398
👁 Image Soul Lantern	#36d9e6	10
👁 Image Soul Torch
👁 Image Redstone Torch	#c32c1f	7
👁 Image Copper Torch	#86ca59	14
👁 Image Copper Lantern (unwaxed, unaffected)		15
👁 Image Candle (all variants)	#d3852b	3, 6, 9, or 12
👁 Image Candle Cake (all variants)		3
👁 Image Blue Torch	#0000ff	14
👁 Image Purple Torch	#ff00ff
👁 Image Red Torch	#ff0000
👁 Image Green Torch	#00ff00
👁 Image End Rod	#da73de
👁 Image Sea Pickle (all waterlogged variants)	#b0dad3	6, 9, 12, or 15
Static lighting[note 2]
👁 Image Deepslate Redstone Ore	#c32c1f	9
👁 Image Redstone Ore
👁 Image Fire	#f39a5e	15
👁 Image Campfire
👁 Image Redstone Lamp	#e8c398	15
👁 Image Copper Bulb		4, 8, 12, or 15
👁 Image Firefly Bush		2
👁 Image Jack o'Lantern	#d3852b	15
👁 Image Lava
👁 Image Shroomlight
👁 Image Cave Vines		14
👁 Image Vault		6 or 12
👁 Image Trial Spawner		4 or 8
👁 Image Magma Block		3
👁 Image Ochre Froglight	#f9efa5	15
👁 Image Verdant Froglight	#b7f1bc	15
👁 Image Glow Lichen		7
👁 Image Sea Lantern	#b0dad3	15
👁 Image Soul Campfire	#36d9e6	10
👁 Image Soul Fire
👁 Image Sculk Catalyst		6
👁 Image Sculk Sensor		1
👁 Image End Gateway	#6c70b2	15
👁 Image End Portal
👁 Image Respawn Anchor	#a233eb	3, 7, 11, or 15
👁 Image Nether Portal		11
👁 Image Crying Obsidian		10
👁 Image Enchanting Table		7
👁 Image Amethyst Cluster	#b966e8	1, 2, 4, or 5
👁 Image Pearlescent Froglight	#da73de	15

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The final stage of illuminating the image is block, ambient, and sky lighting using indirect diffuse on the surface.

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Vibrant Visuals redefines the classic lighting model to realistic approaches with physically accurate values, while keeping the base light appearance from Minecraft. Block lighting simulates the classic octahedron shape with calibrated illumination and coloring, which also allows static light coloration.^{[note 3]} Instead of applying a pixelated texture for each light level, the luminance linearly decreases with distance.

Overworld sky exposure affects gameplay with the internal light level. To visualize this effect, Vibrant Visuals applies an additional global illumination to objects with higher sky light levels, even in shadows without directional light, making them blend in more with bright areas. In lower sky light levels, diffuse by directional lighting has a stronger contrast with the shadows. When the sky light level is 0, global directional lighting is disabled entirely.^[17]

Without directional light sources, objects are lit by ambient lighting, to prevent them from rendering pitch black. Ambient lighting has a dimension-dependent strength (0.02 lux in the Overworld, 0.5 in the Nether, and 0.125 in the End), which illuminates any object. This makes the Nether bright even without light sources, while Overworld caves are much darker.

Night Vision heavily increases ambient light during nighttime, making caves appear fully bright and shadows no darker than the environment at night. It does not change fog or brightness on the surface of the Overworld like in other graphics modes.

When the player has Blindness or Darkness, global directional lighting is deactivated and the scene appears as in a cave. Under fog effects other than Overworld atmospherics, Blindness and Darkness use the same colors as without the effect, instead of black.

Each biome and dimension has unique effects for lighting and color that greatly affect the scene. Biome-dependent effects include atmospherics, color grading, volumetric fog, and lighting (excluding point lights). In transitions between biomes, the game automatically blends the effects.^[18]

The sky color of a biome in Vibrant Visuals is defined at the horizon and the zenith using enhanced distance fog, which also fades distant objects.^[19] When these colors are different, the sky will blend these colors between the horizon and the zenith. For example, deserts and badlands have a light orange/green sky and fog color, snowy biomes have a light blue or white color, and pale gardens have a gray color. The color and intensity of sunlight and moonlight are affected by the biome as well, which affects directional specular highlights and the illumination of all objects hit by light sources.

The atmosphere is affected by rayleigh scattering which illuminates the sky colors.^[19] There is also mie scattering shaped around the sun near the horizon, creating an additional section of the sky tinted and illuminated by a mix of sunlight and atmosphere colors.

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Vibrant Visuals enhances fog effects with dynamic volumetric fog, creating a tinted haze around directional light sources.^[20] As directional lighting passes through volumetric fog, it gets scattered and absorbed, fading or even blocking the view. It appears in the air exposed to directional lighting; when the camera is inside the effects surround the camera, looking at the light source shows more illumination; when the camera is outside, the effects are visible as light rays falling between objects such as blocks and entities. Certain biomes, like swamps and pale gardens, have denser volumetric fog effects with unique strengths depending on the lighting.

With the Henyey-Greenstein phase function, volumetric fog can create light shafts for scattering in the air. When the camera is inside volumetric fog, directional lighting scatters into variable light shafts in diffuse directions, which depends on the biome. Volumetric fog can be disabled in the settings, and the quality of light shafts and distance fading can be adjusted.

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All atmospheric effects gradually change during the time of day,^[21] for example, mie scattering effects only apply during sunrise or sunset, and the sky, sun, and moon colors are constantly changing. The color of sunlight is darker orange and more dimly lit at sunrise and sunset, gradually increasing in brightness and turning yellow/white at noon. Moonlight is light gray/blue with a much lower illuminance.

At night, the sky color is black at zenith and blue at horizon, appearing almost entirely black due to the dim moonlight and weakened rayleigh scattering. The rising sun illuminates this while the horizon changes from purple, to pink, to bright orange, and eventually gray with high illumination, in contrast to a deep blue sky. Sunset applies these graphics in reverse, but instead of pink, the horizon turns brown for a while.

The colored horizon appears lower in the sky during the night, and gradually higher at daytime. Mie scattering at sunrise and sunset combines the changing sunlight and sky colors into unique appearances for each part of the sky.

Different temperature-based color grading settings distinguish biomes with different temperatures, making especially cold biomes appear gray/blue, and warm biomes colored orange.^[22] Color grading is applied as a post-processing effect to the whole image, including blocks, light, and the sky.

Most biomes, including unused biomes, use default settings for fog, atmospherics, lighting, and color grading, or share a common setting with a specific climate, while some biomes have unique settings.

• Fog settings are split into default, semi-humid, and humid. Ice spikes, mushroom fields, swamps and dappled forests,​^{[upcoming: Third Drop 2026]} pale gardens and sulfur caves, dark forests, and the End have unique fog settings.
  • For a complete overview of these settings, see Fog § Volumetric fog.
• In order from warm color temperature, color grading is split into desert, mesa, warmish, mangrove swamp, default, coolish, cold, and ice spikes.
  • Lush caves use warmish color grading with a higher contrast.
  • Mesa biomes have a lower saturation value than other biomes.
  • For more details about these settings, see /Configurations § Color grading.
• Most biomes share their lighting settings with the default, but some specific settings differ.
  • Mushroom fields have dynamic purple sunlight colors, while pale gardens and ice spikes have a static light gray sunlight color.
  • Dark forests, ice spikes, and pale gardens have significantly lower sunlight illuminances.
  • Warmish biomes have a more deep blue moonlight color. Deserts increase this effect, while pale gardens have a more light gray moonlight color.
  • Cold and coolish biomes have slightly stronger sunlight at sunrise and sunset.
  • See /Configurations § Lighting for more details.
• Various biomes have unique zenith colors. The final color of the sky also depends on directional light sources, fog, and color grading.
  • Dark forests have a slightly darker blue zenith color at daytime.
  • Swamps use a dull brown/green zenith color.
  • Mangrove swamps have a brighter blue zenith color.
  • Deserts use a turquoise zenith color, mesas slightly increase this effect.
  • Warmish biomes, deserts, and mesas have slightly brighter blue zenith colors at nighttime.
  • In ice spikes and mushroom fields, the daytime zenith is light gray. In pale gardens, this is dark gray.
• Some biomes also have unique horizon colors at certain times of day.
  • Mesa biomes have a brown horizon at daytime.
  • Pale gardens have a slightly more gray daytime horizon. Ice spikes also lack an orange sunset/sunrise.
  • Mushroom fields have a very bright yellow/green horizon at daytime, bright red at sunset, dark purple at nighttime, and bright purple at sunrise.

• The End sky uses unique black/dark purple atmospherics, rendered on top of the End sky texture, and a dense purple volumetric fog effect is visible during an End flash.
• The sky in all Nether biomes uses the same atmospheric colors as without Vibrant Visuals to tint the fog. The effect is achieved with static atmosphere colors, illuminated by red moonlight (although the moon is invisible) and minimal rayleigh scattering, with slight differences between the biomes. The red "moonlight" also gives a red tint to the Nether roof.

See /Configurations § Atmospherics for details about all atmospheric scattering values.

• 👁 The sky in warm biomes[note 4]
  
  The sky in warm biomes^{[note 4]}
• 👁 The sky in temperate biomes[note 5]
  
  The sky in temperate biomes^{[note 5]}
• 👁 The sky with coolish color grading[note 6]
  
  The sky with coolish color grading^{[note 6]}
• 👁 The sky with cold color grading[note 7]
  
  The sky with cold color grading^{[note 7]}
• 👁 The sky in a mangrove swamp
  
  The sky in a mangrove swamp
• 👁 The sky in lush caves
  
  The sky in lush caves
• 👁 The sky in deserts, desert hills, and desert lakes
  
  The sky in deserts, desert hills, and desert lakes
• 👁 The sky in mesa biomes[note 8]
  
  The sky in mesa biomes^{[note 8]}
• 👁 The sky in swamps and swamp hills
  
  The sky in swamps and swamp hills
• 👁 The sky in mushroom fields and mushroom field shores
  
  The sky in mushroom fields and mushroom field shores
• 👁 The sky in ice spikes
  
  The sky in ice spikes
• 👁 The sky in a pale garden
  
  The sky in a pale garden
• 👁 Sulfur caves have the same fog as pale gardens, but warmish color grading and default lighting.
  
  Sulfur caves have the same fog as pale gardens, but warmish color grading and default lighting.
• 👁 The sky in a dark forest and dark forest hills
  
  The sky in a dark forest and dark forest hills
• 👁 The sky with volumetric fog during an End flash
  
  The sky with volumetric fog during an End flash

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Clouds have more detail and are illuminated by directional light on the edges, making large clouds appear much darker than smaller clouds. Furthermore, clouds can block sunlight or moonlight and cast shadows on the ground. When a cloud covers the sun or moon, the sky and the environment darken and change colors. As a form of scattering, clouds are dynamically tinted by global lighting, which is unique for every biome, weather event, and the time of day.

Unlike other graphics modes, clouds are rendered past the horizon up to 128 chunks. The cloud distance can be adjusted in the Vibrant Visuals options.

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During weather events including rainfall, snowfall, and thunderstorms, global directional light sources are hidden and the denser fog atmospherics and clouds change to the static colors from classic graphics modes. Color grading still applies, making rain and snow look unique for every biome. Bright mie scattering is still visible at the position of the sun and colored white. Without directional lighting, dynamic shadows and volumetric fog aren't visible.

Unlike in other graphics modes, atmospherics and lighting do not change in dry biomes. During thunderstorms or when a wither is nearby, sky light is heavily reduced, making the contribution of directional light more visible. This results in more unique, yellow-brown colors of the sky, clouds, and lighting, and much darker shadows, even in dry biomes. This effect is barely noticable with rainfall in dry biomes, because reduces the sky light less than thunderstorms.

The water color texture is not rendered, making it completely transparent. Instead, water volumes scatter light and accumulate fog, creating a deep blue hue in oceans and tinting underwater objects.^{[23][note 9]} The surface uses MERS textures, making light reflect on smooth pixels in the invisible color texture. Despite this, small bodies of water appear almost invisible, and large bodies are more transparent in general, with a less saturated blue color compared to classic graphics modes. Biome-specific water colors are not applied to the surface or light scattering, but some "tweaks in different biomes" have been announced for future updates.^[24]

When the player's eye level is inside water, underwater fog appears more dynamically tinted by directional lighting, brighter in vertical directions and darker in horizontal directions. Looking at a bright area when the camera is in the dark, the fog is illuminated where light falls down. Additionally, underwater volumetric fog effects colors this bright blue, creating light beams falling through the water. These light beams can be obstructed and scattered by objects and fog effects.

When directional lighting hits a surface underwater, water caustics are projected on that surface.^{[note 10]} Water caustics are randomly animated, and certain parts appear brighter than others, depending on the light projecting the water caustics. The effect of Snell's window appears when looking at any water surface from underwater.

Water effects do not apply to water in cauldrons, which is rendered like in Fancy graphics.

• 👁 Sunbeams underwater
  
  Sunbeams underwater
• 👁 A dark aquifer with directional light falling inside
  
  A dark aquifer with directional light falling inside
• 👁 Water caustics in a desert. Note the caustics projected on the dry sand behind the waterfall.
  
  Water caustics in a desert. Note the caustics projected on the dry sand behind the waterfall.
• 👁 Coral structures and fish obstruct sunlight, the lack of water caustics simulates a shadow effect.
  
  Coral structures and fish obstruct sunlight, the lack of water caustics simulates a shadow effect.
• 👁 A close look of Snell's window. Inside, the water surface is fully transparent although fog still renders behind. Outside, the water surface is fully reflective.
  
  A close look of Snell's window. Inside, the water surface is fully transparent although fog still renders behind. Outside, the water surface is fully reflective.

Post-processing effects are visual elements that are not directly produced by either PBR or direct lighting sources, but are instead applied after the scene is fully rendered. There are multiple post-processing effects applied by Vibrant Visuals, such as:

• Light bloom which appears on high-luminance areas, notably emissive textures and reflections, directional light sources, direct specular highlights, and mie scattering. It creates a soft and hazy aura of light around the glowing object, with the colors bleeding out around the object. The effect's intensity can be configured on the video settings.
• When the camera is looking at a high luminance, either directional lighting, emissive textures, or bright diffuse,^[25] the whole view gets darkened by auto-exposure.
  • Auto-exposure gradually fades in or out when the luminance changes to as a simulation of eye adaptation.
• Upscaling which is done from low-resolution scene renders. The game usually renders the scene at a lower resolution and upscales it to the native resolution to improve video performance. This effect can be configured on the video settings, where the player can set between TAAU (Temporal Anti-Aliasing Upsampling) and Bilinear mode, and the final resolution quality. In general, TAAU makes the game use multiple frames to create a crisper upscaled frame, while Bilinear stretches the frame to fit the screen, more suitable for low-end devices.
• Color grading which controls the saturation, contrast, gain, and gamma of the final image.^[22]
  • There is an additional temperature-based color grading which makes the scene look "warmer" with more yellow and orange colors, and "cooler" with more blue color. 14 different color grading effects are applied based on the biome, some biomes also have different contrast or saturation.
• Tone mapping is also used to remap the colors from the initial HDR to SDR, as Minecraft is not supported in HDR.^[22] Mojang Studios developed a generic filmic tone mapping curve, which preserves tint in higher luminance regions, making the scene appear brighter and more vibrantly colored.

• 👁 The bloom effect around the sun and its specular reflections. Volumetric fog is disabled to show just the effect.
  
  The bloom effect around the sun and its specular reflections. Volumetric fog is disabled to show just the effect.
• 👁 A comparison of a firefly bush with bloom set to 0% (bottom) and 100% (top)
  
  A comparison of a firefly bush with bloom set to 0% (bottom) and 100% (top)
• 👁 Auto exposure is very noticable when attacking a zombie with Fire Aspect weapons.
  
  Auto exposure is very noticable when attacking a zombie with Fire Aspect weapons.
• 👁 A scene with a lowered target resolution using Bilinear upscaling. Diagonal edges appear jagged.
  
  A scene with a lowered target resolution using Bilinear upscaling. Diagonal edges appear jagged.
• 👁 The same image with TAAU. Instead of having jagged edges, pixels are smoothly blurred.
  
  The same image with TAAU. Instead of having jagged edges, pixels are smoothly blurred.

An exclusive panorama is shown when using Vibrant Visuals. The cubemap consists of HDR image files, which are rendered using the post-processing effects from Vibrant Visuals. Specifically, the image uses the default data-driven color grading settings, and the gamma, upscaling mode, and resolution settings affect it.

Vibrant Visuals can be toggled on in the video settings in the graphics mode dropdown menu.^[26] The graphics mode can only be changed in-game when "Allow In-Game Graphics Mode Switching" is turned on, but this can have negative impact on performance and not all devices support this.

If playing multiplayer, not everyone needs to have it activated to play in the world; one player could have it activated, whilst other players could have it inactive since it's a local setting.

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The quality of specific features from Vibrant Visuals as well as some technical options can be adjusted in the Vibrant Visuals options, below the graphics mode setting. These options can be preset to the "Favor Performance" for a better experience on lower-end devices, or "Favor Visuals" for a higher quality of Vibrant Visuals on high-end devices. The options can also be adjusted individually.

The render distance for Vibrant Visuals is controlled by the "Deferred Render Distance" slider instead of the regular render distance slider. This slider can be set between 2-28 chunks (limited per device), but can be changed to any value in options.txt. Higher render distances than 128 chunks will result in the game not loading any chunks further than 128 chunks away from the player, and even higher render distances can lead to glitched visual effects or crashes. Lower render distances will result incorrectly loading and unloading chunks, while particles and entities are still visible.

The regular brightness setting is not available when using Vibrant Visuals, but the gamma can be calibrated in a separate menu in the Vibrant Visuals options, as a post processing effect applied after all previous rendering.

All options related to Vibrant Visuals have configurations for specific devices, found in 👁 File directory.png: Sprite image for directory in Minecraft
 Content/data/renderer as JSON files, with all renderer configurations located in a 👁 File directory.png: Sprite image for directory in Minecraft
 lods sub-directory. The default settings, target resolution, and maximum framerate for each graphics preset differs between devices, defined in platform_configuration.json. There are separate configurations for two Android memory tiers,^{[note 11]} Xbox One (X) and Xbox Series X|S, all PS4 and PS5 consoles, three iOS devices memory tiers,^{[note 12]} and four Windows memory tiers.^[7]

Individual settings have rendering configurations per platform. For example, this controls the distance and resolution of shadows, type of reflections, maximum point lights, or available render distances on the slider. They can be edited to artificially increase quality, but this may decrease performance or cause issues.

There are also configurations for Nintendo Switch and one lower Android tier,^{[note 13]} indicating that Vibrant Visuals may become available on those devices in the future.

This directory also contains configurations for features that are not customizable in resource packs, including tone mapping curves, deferred shading parameters, light clustering, luminance configurations, weather effects, .bin material files (containing shader code), and a brdf_lut.png image used to calibrate BRDF specular and diffuse reflections.

Vibrant Visuals is available to use on the following platforms:^[27]

Platform	Supported devices
👁 Windows	Graphics card and graphics driver with support for DirectX 12 with Direct3D feature level 12_1. For Intel GPUs, Intel graphics driver 31.0.101.3430 or later is required for Minecraft to run on DirectX 12.[28]
👁 Android 👁 Android	Devices running on Adreno 640, Mali Valhall arch (G68, G77), Maleoon, PowerVR A-Series, Xclipse 530 or higher. Enabled by default on Adreno 740, Mali-G615, Mali-G715, PowerVR C-Series, Xclipse 920 or higher.[note 14]
👁 iOS	A12 Bionic or higher: iPhone XS or later iPhone SE (2020) or later iPhone Air
👁 iPadOS	A12 Bionic, A12X Bionic, M1 or higher: iPad (2020) or later iPad mini (2019) or later iPad Air (2019) or later iPad Pro (2018) or later
👁 Xbox	Xbox One (disabled by default)[note 15] Xbox One S (disabled by default)[note 15] Xbox One X[note 15] Xbox Series X Xbox Series S
👁 Nintendo ​[upcoming]	Planned for 2026[1] Nintendo Switch 2
👁 PlayStation	PlayStation 4 (disabled by default)[note 15] PlayStation 4 Slim (disabled by default)[note 15] PlayStation 4 Pro[note 15] PlayStation 5 PlayStation 5 Slim PlayStation 5 Pro

Vibrant Visuals is currently not supported on ChromeOS devices, Fire tablets, or Nintendo Switch consoles. Mojang Studios intends to bring Vibrant Visuals, either fully or partially, to as many devices as possible.^[29] Though not strictly official, Vibrant Visuals may also be supported on Linux systems by playing Bedrock Edition through a custom Wine compatibility layer (see related tutorial).

Some servers may disable Vibrant Visuals during the game using disable-client-vibrant-visuals in server.properties, even when available on singleplayer. All featured servers besides Mob Maze and The Hive^{[note 16]} have disabled Vibrant Visuals, although this restriction can be circumvented by using third-party modification software.^[30] Minecraft Realms has Vibrant Visuals enabled.

During local splitscreen multiplayer on consoles, the graphics mode is restricted to Fancy or lower.

Vibrant Visuals has limited compatibility with resource packs, which may be part of an add-on. Resource packs without the pbr capability restrict the graphics mode to Fancy or lower.^[31] When a pack has metadata.product_type set to addon Vibrant Visuals can be enabled, regardless of the pbr capability. Custom textures from the add-on's resource pack default to 0% metalness, 0% emissiveness, 100% roughness, and 0% subsurface scattering.

Vibrant Visuals is currently planned to be added to Java Edition at some point in the future. In preparation, developers are rebuilding the game's rendering code into a dedicated thread, and updating them with "modern approaches to rendering".^[2][3] To allow newer graphical features and sustain compatibility with all platforms supporting Java Edition, the game will switch to Vulkan, a modern graphics technology, replacing the deprecated OpenGL API.^[4] During development, this can be toggled in-game.

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Vibrant Visuals can be customized with a resource pack. A pack with pbr capability in its manifest.json can define PBR for each individual texture with a texture set.^[31] They can also configure light sources, atmospheric effects, volumetric fog and light shafts, color grading and tone mapping, and many more using JSON.^[8]

Vibrant Visuals is also compatible with resource packs that are designed for ray tracing (with raytraced capability). All ray tracing resource packs only support MER (metalness, emissive, and roughness) for its textures, and these can be applied for blocks only.^[13] Vibrant Visuals resource packs however, support MER and subsurface scattering (MERS), and its textures can be applied for entities, mobs, particles, and items.

Resource packs that customize Vibrant Visuals can quickly be created with Bedrock Editor.^[32] The Vibrant Visuals Settings window allows most JSON configurations to be changed in a graphical environment, and the effects are directly visible in-game. All settings are not saved, but each JSON file can be copied to the clipboard, or a resource pack with all settings can be auto-generated. Once generated, Download Resource Pack will import the pack in mctools.dev, where the pack can be directly exported or further customized.

Most JSON settings for atmospherics, lighting, and volumetric fog can be key framed.^[21] Instead of providing a single value for a setting, the setting can be treated as an object with a set of values from the same type. The key is a number from 0 to 1 which represents the in-game time, allowing to change atmospherics based on the time of day. The engine linearly interpolates between the values of the key frames, resulting in the actual atmospherics blending between specified times. A key of 0 is noon, 0.25 is sunset, 0.5 midnight, 0.75 sunrise, and 1 is the next noon.

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In the Editor, a set of different key frames can be adjusted individually. The amount of available key frames varies for each setting; new keys can be added by pressing , selected keys can be removed with . With the slider below each graph, the key value for the X-axis can be seen. The Y-axis shows all values for the setting. Each key can be moved horizontally and vertically, and all keys are connected with a line corresponding to the linear interpolation. Double-clicking on a key shows text boxes for the exact coordinates, and a color picker in RGB-supported settings.

Global lighting, atmospherics, color grading, cubemaps, and water effects can be customized for each biome.^[18] Multiple JSON configuration files can be stored in each directory as long as they have different names and identifiers, which are not the same as the global configurations. To apply settings to a biome, the identifier of the JSON file must be included in the client biome JSON file in 👁 File directory.png: Sprite image for directory in Minecraft
 biomes, in the minecraft:setting_identifier components. The configurations will be blended automatically on biome borders, except for tone mapping, caustics, and waves enabled/disabled, which should use the same settings globally.

In the Editor, settings for existing biomes or configurations can be changed, and even new configurations may be added. A biome can be selected with Target Biome ("Target Biomes By Location" selects the player's current biome), if custom biomes are used the namespace can be changed to disambiguate. Next, the Config Set for Biome selects which settings file is used for the selected configurations. This allows to reorganize vanilla settings in a biome, and the raw JSON text of the client biome file can be copied. A new configuration file can also be created, with a custom namespace and identifier (both have spaces), and it can be auto-filled by inserting the raw JSON content in the Inport button.

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A separate screen allows to pick per biome what configurations to use. On the left is a list of biomes, which can be sorted alphabetically and filtered on vanilla/custom biomes and name. On the right, each biome setting group shows an option to select an existing config file, reset it to previously saved files, or reset it to default. After changing settings, they need to be saved either for the selected biome or all biomes on the bottom, where they can be reset as well.

JSON settings for atmospherics, lighting, color grading, and water can be dynamically overridden by the game's scripting modules.^[33] In @minecraft/server-graphics, getBiomesettings or getPlayersettings can be used with the biome/player and settings component to retrieve the current values.^[34]

All settings can be customized per biome or per player in the format set<setting in camel case>(setting: input): void. The input is similar to the JSON format: either a float number or key framed float (number, number), or an RGB input red; green; blue, which can also be key framed. Each setting can be reset to the data-driven values using reset instead of set.

---

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Textures from blocks, entities, items (held, displayed, and dropped), and particles use texture sets to calculate how light behaves on the texture, regarding reflections and emissiveness.^[12] Texture sets cannot be customized with Bedrock Editor. On top of the regular RGBA texture maps, which control the colors and transparency, Vibrant Visuals uses six new maps for other properties of each pixel, including metalness, emissive, roughness, subsurface scattering, normal, and height maps. The first four are all created in one four-channel image file, collectively known as MERS values (or MER without subsurface scattering).

• Metalness is a texture map on the red channel that affect how metallic pixels look, which makes them more reflective. Pixels can use metalness values between black (non-metallic) and red (completely metalic), where metalness for values in between is affected by the brightness.
• The green channel emissive map is used for pixels that emit light. Black pixels do not emit light at all, and any brighter values result in emissive textures. Pure white pixels are emissive at its brightest. The desaturation of the pixel's colors can be adjusted per biome in 👁 File directory.png: Sprite image for directory in Minecraft
   lighting.
• Subsurface scattering is an effect created by light shining on translucent surfaces.^[16] It is a map based on the alpha channel where opaque pixels allow more subsurface scattering. This texture map cannot be used in conjunction with the metalness map; if both are provided only the highest value will be applied (subsurface scattering when tied).
• Roughness is a blue channel texture map affecting how "rough" pixels are, which can block reflection effects. Black pixels are very smooth and allow all reflections caused by the metalness map, while blue pixels only allow (distorted) light reflection.
• The normal map is an RGB texture map which affect the depth of the pixel and how light rays are reflected. The RGB elements correspond to XYZ coordinates of the pixel, with (128, 128, 255) being completely flat.
• Height maps are similar to normal maps but in grayscale, allowing less possible textures. Black pixels appear to extrude inward to the object, and white pixels extrude outward. Combining black and white pixels next to each other can create height variation on which light can reflect, while creating a shadow behind. Heightmaps cannot be used together with normal maps, and they don't work on items.

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Texture maps can be quickly created using Blockbench,^[35] which may require plugins to customize textures. The PBR textures need to be placed, named like block/particle/entity/item ID_mers / _mer / _height / _normal, in 👁 File directory.png: Sprite image for directory in Minecraft
 textures, in the sub-directory containing textures for the object type. Texture maps can be stored in .tga, .png, .jpg, and .jpeg formats. To make the game replace the default textures with a custom texture set, it needs to be specified in a texture set JSON file, on file for each texture, located in the same sub-directory as the texture itself. texture maps specified in the texture set are required in the same resource pack.^[13]

Instead of creating texture maps, the JSON file can also be used to apply uniform MERS or RGBA values to the whole texture.

texture_set.json format

When a resource pack does not contain one or more texture maps, the missing texture maps will default to the vanilla textures instead. However, for custom textures as part of an add-on, all pixels default to values specified in a customizable JSON file in 👁 File directory.png: Sprite image for directory in Minecraft
 pbr.^[36]

global.json format

Various types of light sources can be customized, which are split into global lighting and local lighting in the 👁 File directory.png: Sprite image for directory in Minecraft
 lighting and 👁 File directory.png: Sprite image for directory in Minecraft
 local_lighting directories.^[14] Global light settings are defined per biome and require different JSON files for each biome or set of biomes and need to be specified in 👁 File file.png: Sprite image for file in Minecraft
 biome.client_biome.json. Local light settings are applied for individual blocks specified in one global file. Local lighting currently only includes point lights, while global lighting includes directional lights, emissive textures, ambient light, and sky light.

Most global light settings support multiple key frames to adjust them with the daylight cycle.

• Directional lighting includes the sun and moon (orbital), and End flash. For each object, the total brightness can be adjusted, and the color of that lighting. This affects the sky and atmospheric scattering, and all objects lit by the directional light source, which are both also affected by texture sets, atmospheric settings, and color grading.
  • For the sun and the moon, the orbital offset can be customized, which affects how the orbit is rotated towards the south (can be rotated 360 degrees). This can also be key framed, which allows to customize the position of the sun and moon depending on the in-game time, to fully control their positions.

    👁 Image
    

• Emissive lights are produced by blocks, entities, and particles with emissive pixels in their texture set. The desaturation of the color of the pixel can be adjusted per biome.

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• Ambient lighting is always applied and makes blocks visible when there are no other light sources. The strength and color of this light can be adjusted.
• Sky lighting is applied to surfaces exposed to the sky. The intensity can be adjusted, which affects how dark shadows are compared to surfaces lit by directional lighting.
• Static lights are local light sources set per block. They do not create specular highlights or dynamic shadows and are fixed in space and in brightness. It can only be used by blocks with "regular" lighting, which affects the strength. The color of this static light can be customized. When multiple static lights with different colors are overlapping in an area, the total luminance will add up.
• Point lights are local directional light sources in blocks, only available in the "Render Dragon Features for Creators" experiment in Minecraft Preview/beta. Point lights are created by a single point in the center of the block, with a specific color similar to the color for global directional lighting. Static lights are automatically also added to blocks with point lighting. The strength of the point light is affected by the block lighting of the block.

global.json format

local_lighting.json format

The point_light type is only available in the "Render Dragon Features for Creators" experiment. Existing light settings can be changed in the Editor, which includes most blocks when the experiment is enabled. Adding new blocks requires to import custom JSON settings.

The colors and some other values for the sky can be changed in 👁 File directory.png: Sprite image for directory in Minecraft
 atmospherics.^[19] The atmospheric effects include separate horizon and zenith colors, and mie scattering. The horizon and zenith colors blend into each other depending on the specified heights for both colors. Rayleigh scattering affects global illumination of the horizon and zenith. Mie scattering, created by the sun and moon, can also specify a height and shape.

All atmospherics settings can be key framed to dynamically change effects with the daylight cycle.

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atmospherics.json format

The fog in Vibrant Visuals can be customized per biome in the same JSON file as regular fog in 👁 File directory.png: Sprite image for directory in Minecraft
 fogs, and using the /fog command.^[37] However, Vibrant Visuals has some options for more complex volumetric fog and Henyey-Greenstein G.^[20]

The density of volumetric fog can be adjusted, either for specified heights or every height, for each block where fog occurs in different situations (air, water, lava). For fog in the air, clouds, or water, the color of the fog can be specified. Finally, Vibrant Visuals allows to change light shafts inside fog for water and air. All fog settings are optional, if not specified they will equal to lower settings in the fog stack, first global values and then default values.

All volumetric fog settings can be key framed to let effects change with the daylight cycle.

For all settings and the JSON format, see Fog definition. None of the fog settings are accessible in the Editor.

Configurations for color grading and tone mapping can be adjusted for various situations and colors, making the final look of the scene fully customizable.^[22] Both post-processing effects are configured in JSON file per biome in the 👁 File directory.png: Sprite image for directory in Minecraft
 color_grading directory.

Color grading is split into three scales based on lighting applied to the objects, and there is an additional temperature grading option. The highlight parameters are applied to the brightest pixels, the shadows to the darkest pixels, and midtones to pixels close to the average luminance of a scene. Highlights and shadows need to be enabled for specified color grading, otherwise the midtone parameters will be applied to all pixels as a global setting. The minimum brightness of the highlights and maximum brightness of the shadows affect which pixels are considered highlights and shadows instead of midtones.

For each color grading parameter, different values for each RGB color can be specified.

• The contrast affects the pixels with different luminances from the average luminance. Higher contrast values will increase brightness of highlights and darken shadows, while lower contrast values result in a more gray image with less differences in color and brightness.
• Gain affects the luminance intensity of the whole image, regardless of the luminance of a pixel.
• Similar to gain, the gamma affects the overall luminance intensity of all pixels, but after all other post-processing effects have been applied.
• The offset adjusts the intensity of pixels based on the average luminance of the scene, which is added to all pixels and has a stronger effect on brighter pixels than darker pixels.
• Saturation changes the intensity of colors apart from their luminance. Higher values increase the intensity, while lower values result in a grayscale image.

Finally, the temperature can be adjusted for the whole image, affecting how "warm" (yellow/orange) or "cool" (blue) the scene becomes. The type of temperature grading can be inverted, to make higher temperatures result in a warmer or cooler image.

The tone mapping effect cannot be customized for individual curves, but there are six operators that can be selected. Reinhard is a generic operator which looks good in low-contrast scenes and has a lower quality for higher luminances. Reinhard Luma is an extended variant that preserves details in low dynamic range regions, and Reinhard Luminance is a variant that preserves colors in higher luminance regions.

There are also filmic tone mapping operators, which emulate real-life film and work best when other Vibrant Visuals configurations are based on physically accurate values. Hable and ACES are filmic operators which preserve subtle differences in extremely dark or bright scenes, but come at a higher performance cost. Mojang Studios has developed a generic filmic tone mapping curve which preserves a bit more hue saturation at high luminance regions.

color_grading.json format

Cubemaps are six 2D textures always rendered around the player which are affected by directional, ambient, and sky lighting, and scattering.^[15] They can be customized in 👁 File directory.png: Sprite image for directory in Minecraft
 cubemaps for each biome or set of biomes. Custom cubemaps only affect the Overworld, the cubemap used in the End sky is unaffected.

The influence of each type of light on the cubemap can be customized, but it is always dependent of the biome's lighting settings and which types of lighting are currently applied. Cubemaps can be affected by two types of scattering. Depending on whether the cubemap contains objects in the sky (such as clouds), or in space (such as stars), atmospheric scattering should be turned on or off, respectively. Volumetric scattering lets fog and light shafts affect the cubemap, for objects close to the surface.

cubemap.json format

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There are two settings for shadows created by blocks, entities, and some other objects.^[38] They can be changed with a JSON file in 👁 File directory.png: Sprite image for directory in Minecraft
 shadows and are applied globally.

• The shadow style affects which type of shadows are rendered. This can be soft, which is often used in third-party shaders and other video games, or blocky, which is used in default Vibrant Visuals. Both types are affected by the shape of the object casting the shadows.
• The texel size represents the resolution in texture to which shadows will be quantized. For the best effect, this should be the same as the pixel resolution used for block textures, which makes shadows align with the pixel grid.

global.json format

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Water effects can be customized per biome or for default water in the 👁 File directory.png: Sprite image for directory in Minecraft
 water directory.^[23] Instead of blending the effects per biome based on the camera's location, the water color is set for the location of the water block in the world, meaning that multiple biome effects for water can be observed at once.

There are three elements that can be customized: particle concentrations, waves, and caustics.

• Particle concentrations affect the fog color and underwater light scattering. There are three particle concentrations in mg/L, which aren't used in default Vibrant Visuals:
  • CDOM produces yellow to yellow-brown collors. Low values result in a fresh, blue appearance, like real-life oceans, and rivers have higher CDOM and more colored water.
  • Chlorophyll produces green colors, which varies based on the temperature in real life.
  • Suspended sediment produces red to red-brown colors, which appears more in real-life rivers.
• Waves are animations on the surface of water, disabled in default Vibrant Visuals. They can partially replace the water surface texture by actual three-dimensional textures, but this doesn't affect gameplay. Waves can be customized with various settings, which affect speed variations, smoother or sharper shapes, the amount of waves (and variations) per block, and the height of waves. Individual wave animations can blend into each other and pull into larger waves, which can be customized.
• Caustics are animated textures projected on any object surfaces behind a water surface when directional lighting hits the surface, which are enabled by default. The caustics use an internal texture with 64 frames of animation, but this can be changed to any custom texture. The speed of the animation (frame length) and scale can be customized, and the intensity can be increased.
  • A custom caustics texture must have all animation frames laid out vertically next to each other, each using the same square resolution. It should be located under the 👁 File directory.png: Sprite image for directory in Minecraft
     textures directory in the resource pack, declared in 👁 File file.png: Sprite image for file in Minecraft
     textures_list.json.
• The biome's water color is ignored by default in Vibrant Visuals, but the contribution of the regular water color to the fog can be increased. Depending on the setting, water fog and scatttering will be tinted with a color specified in the client biome file, which is applied prior to the effects from particle concentrations.

water.json format

Sounds
Sound	Closed captions	Source	Description	Identifier	Translation key	Volume	Pitch
​End Flash rumbles	Weather	When an End flash occurs	ambient.weather.the_end_light_flash	subtitles.weather.end_flash​	6.250	0.80–1.0

Vibrant Visuals was revealed at Minecraft LIVE – March 2025, planned for Bedrock Edition in the coming months, with more improvements over the next few years.^[39][40][24] On June 9, 2026, support for Nintendo Switch 2 was announced.^[1]

It is planned to come to Java Edition in the future, but without colored lighting.^[41] Developers are rewriting the rendering code before Vibrant Visuals will be added to all Java Edition supported devices.^[2] In order to implement more graphical features and sustain compatibility with macOS, the game will switch from OpenGL to the Vulkan graphics API in the summer of 2026, which can be toggled in-game until development is ready.^[4]

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Before Vibrant Visuals was released, the deferred rendering engine was available behind the "Render Dragon Features for Creators" experiment in Minecraft Preview/beta. This was built on the features for ray tracing, and gradually developed more exclusive rendering features.^[42] Unlike Vibrant Visuals, Mojang Studios did not provide any default configurations and textures, meaning that it needed to be configured first through resource packs, similar to ray tracing.

Since the vanilla implementation of Vibrant Visuals, the experimental deferred lighting mode has been merged with the graphics upgrade. However, the experiment is still used for other deferred rendering features that are not implemented in Vibrant Visuals, such as colored lighting.

Bedrock Edition
Preview 1.20.30.20				Added experimental support for deferred rendering in resource packs, under the placeholder name of "Deferred Technical Preview". It adds directional lighting, shadows, bloom, tone mapping, and works with the same PBR features and textures as ray tracing. It is available for Windows, Xbox, and Android, and does not contain any default configurations. More features and supported platforms are planned.
				It is enabled when loading a world with the experiment and resource pack enabled, classic graphics and ray tracing can be toggled by pressing .
Preview 1.20.30.24				Smooth Lighting and Beatiful Skies options now only appear in the Simple and Fancy graphics options, and no longer affect visuals in deferred or ray traced graphics modes.
				Removed Bloom option from Simple, Fancy, and Ray Traced graphics options
Preview 1.20.40.20				Soul torches are now treated as point lights.
				Point lights and colors are now data-driven and customizable via resource packs.
				Improved chunk rendering performance.
beta 1.20.40.22				Disabled deferred technical preview on Android devices without support for compute shaders.
Preview 1.20.60.21				Added volumetric fog and light shafts.
Preview 1.20.60.22				Adjusted the falloff of point light sources to use a square, Manhattan-based distance metric.
				Tinted ambient light color with point light color for better multi-colored lighting over large distances.
Preview 1.20.70.21				Enabled the Deferred Technical Preview for iOS and iPadOS devices.
				Added point light shadows, which allows point light sources to cast shadows.
Preview 1.20.80.20				Added a dedicated quality slider for Point Light Shadows in the Deferred Video Settings menu.
				Added subsurface scattering as a new feature to the lighting model, currently only affecting leaves.
				Increased the contrast and saturation of the world.
Preview 1.20.80.22				Added sky reflections for blocks, which will reflect the sky depending on roughness and other surface properties.
Preview 1.21.0.20				Extended texture set support to particles.
Preview 1.21.0.22				Added color grading and tone mapping, which allows resource packs to define their own color post processing for conveying distinct moods and themes.
				Added a "Remove Texture Limit" option, which makes the game load all textures until the system exhausts all available graphics memory, instead of applying the missing texture.
				Added light pre-exposure, which allows to specify sun or atmospheric intensities with values larger than 65,000.
Preview 1.21.10.20				Volumetric fog density settings are now supported for weather when a format version of 1.21.0 or higher is specified.
Preview 1.21.10.22				Added a brightness calibration screen to the deferred graphics settings.
Editor 0.6.7				Added Deferred Lighting Settings to Bedrock Editor, which can be accessed in worlds with deferred lighting.
				It has panels for atmospherics, global illumination, and color grading settings.
				After configuration, the JSON contents of each setting can be copied to the clipboard and pasted in resource packs.
Preview 1.21.20.22				Extended texture set support to items.
				Added the new bio-optical lighting model for water, which is not data-driven yet.
				Added screen space reflections, which are included as part of the Reflections quality slider in the deferred graphics settings menu. On mobile devices, screen space reflections are only available when running at Ultra settings.
Editor 0.6.8				Global Illumation can now be changed in the Deferred Lighting Settings.
				Added localized field names in the property editor dropdown.
Preview 1.21.20.24				Removed support for iOS or iPadOS devices older than the iPhone 8, iPad (8th generation), or iPad mini (5th generation).
Preview 1.21.30.21				Added the ability to data-drive subsurface scattering via texture sets.
				Changed the color grading JSON schema to now require explicit enabling of highlight and shadow specific color grading settings.
				Added the ability to data-drive emissive desaturation.
				Added support for enchanted items in texture sets.
				Reduced the smudging or "ghosting" artifacts that would occur when swinging the item in the player’s hand with Upscaling enabled.
Editor 0.6.10				Added highlight and shadow color grading controls to the Editor's Deferred Graphics Settings.
Preview 1.21.30.22				Added the ability to data-drive water parameters.
				Added a new realistic waves feature, which must be opted into via a resource pack and will not be enabled by default.
Editor 0.6.11				Added the water settings to the Deferred Lighting Settings.
Preview 1.21.40.20				Removed the dark aura around the moon.
Preview 1.21.40.21				Added a slider in the Deferred Graphics Settings for controlling the upscaling resolution factor.
				Improved lighting for maps when held in hand and when placed in item frames.
Preview 1.21.40.22				Updated some JSON schemas for Deferred Technical Preview resource packs. Some files are now split or relocated and require a format version of 1.21.40.
Preview 1.21.40.23				Added the ability to data-drive ambient lighting.
Preview 1.21.50.20				End portals now cast shadows.
				Improved the visibility of reflective surfaces when underground.
				Slightly reduced the intensity of the wrapping effect of subsurface scattering.
Preview 1.21.60.21				Subsurface scattering is now affected by point lights.
				Added a new radio button to allow players to select if they want to set the deferred video settings to predefined values for favor performance or favor visuals.
Preview 1.21.60.23				Add bilinear upscaling option.
				Enabled the Deferred Technical Preview for PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 in Preview.
Preview 1.21.70.20				Added support for controlling the intensity of sky light, which affects both the contribution of legacy sky lighting as well as sky reflections.
				Improved the quality of screen space reflections, specifically cases where holes would appear in reflections at certain angles.
Preview 1.21.70.24				Added 4 optional components to the Client Biome JSON 1.21.70 Schema, used for the deferred technical preview: atmospherics, color_grading, lighting, and water. Identifiers can now be specified per biome to apply different configurations for these features, otherwise the global configurations will be applied.
Preview 1.21.70.25				Reduced emissive intensity by a factor of 15.
				Adjusted air and fog densities for volumetric scattering for more visible light rays.
				Made slight adjustments to auto exposure and eye adaptation.
Preview 1.21.80.20				Added caustics to bodies of water, which is enabled by default, and can be further controlled by resource packs.
				Modified exposure to preserve details in scenes with high contrast in lighting (i.e., local exposure).
				Improved the lighting handoff between the sun and moon at sunrise and sunset.
				Made some slight adjustments to volumetric fog density, the sky probe strength and the emissive brightness of the sun and moon sprites
				Introduced new 'Off' option to the Point Light Quality slider to fully disable analytical point light evaluation.
Preview 1.21.80.21				Enforced minimum Android, iOS, and iPadOS requirements for devices running the Deferred Technical Preview for maintained performance, stability, and visuals moving forward.
				Disabled local exposure on all platforms because of a bug that can cause massive visual corruption. Developers will re-enable the technology in a future update once the issue has been resolved.
Preview 1.21.80.22				Disabled splitscreen for the Deferred Technical Preview. Deferred/Ray Tracing modes are not available in the video menu during splitscreen sessions, and starting a split screen session while in one of these modes will force the game back to Fancy mode.
Preview 1.21.80.25				The deferred technical preview now enables all features from Vibrant Visuals. The "Render Dragon Features for Creators" experiment is now only used for experimental changes outside of default Vibrant Visuals.
Preview 1.21.120.20				Deprecated point_lights/global.json in favor of a new file and schema, local_lighting/local_lighting.json.
				Extended per-block local lighting information to include a light_type which can be either static_light (unused) or point_light.
				The light_color property is now optional. If unprovided, the block will use a fallback light color instead.
				Added vanilla light colors for most light-emitting blocks that are not point lights, defined as static lights in the file but not customizable yet. Colored lighting is not available on Android/PlayStation while issues are sorted out.
Preview 1.21.120.21				Updated point light tracking to be able to link to custom blocks.
Preview 1.21.130.27				Added the ability to customize static light colors.
Preview 26.0.23				The colors of block lights have been slightly adjusted. Previous colors: Block Color[note 2] 👁 Image Redstone Torch  #df6a59 👁 Image Deepslate Redstone Ore 👁 Image Redstone Ore 👁 Image Torch  #f9c69b 👁 Image Lantern 👁 Image Fire 👁 Image Campfire 👁 Image Copper Lantern (all oxidized and waxed variants)  #f3dfc5 👁 Image Redstone Lamp 👁 Image Copper Bulb 👁 Image Firefly Bush 👁 Image Candle  #e8b869 👁 Image Candle Cake 👁 Image Jack o'Lantern 👁 Image Lava 👁 Image Shroomlight 👁 Image Cave Vines 👁 Image Vault 👁 Image Trial Spawner 👁 Image Magma Block 👁 Image Ochre Froglight  #fcf7cd 👁 Image Verdant Froglight  #d8f8db 👁 Image Glow Lichen 👁 Image Copper Torch  #b9e397 👁 Image Copper Lantern (unwaxed, unaffected) 👁 Image Sea Pickle  #d4ece8 👁 Image Sea Lantern 👁 Image Soul Lantern  #75ebf2 👁 Image Soul Torch 👁 Image Soul Campfire 👁 Image Soul Fire 👁 Image Sculk Catalyst 👁 Image Sculk Sensor 👁 Image End Gateway  #a6a9d5 👁 Image End Portal 👁 Image Respawn Anchor  #cb72f5 👁 Image Nether Portal 👁 Image Crying Obsidian 👁 Image Enchanting Table 👁 Image Amethyst Cluster  #d9a1f3 👁 Image End Rod  #ecabee 👁 Image Pearlescent Froglight
Preview 26.0.28				Added Android/PlayStation support for colored block lighting.
Preview 26.10.23				Removed the legacy point_lights/global.json configuration file.
Preview 26.20.20				Point lights no longer fade out when past a certain distance from the camera.
Preview 26.20.22				Migrated colored block light storage to the GPU.
				Colored block lights now influence volumetric fog.
Preview 26.20.26				Added static light shading to weather.
Preview 26.30.25				Point lights are now disabled on Android, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.[note 17]
Preview 26.40.20				Updated point lights to use a shadow atlas, improving performance and update rate while making them look similar as before.
Preview 26.40.22				Removed the Point Light Shadow Quality slider and merged its functionality into the Point Light Quality slider.

• 👁 The first image of volumetric fog and light shafts
  
  The first image of volumetric fog and light shafts
• 👁 The first image of water effects
  
  The first image of water effects
• Showcase video of customizing deferred lighting in the Editor
• 👁 The first image of subsurface scattering
  
  The first image of subsurface scattering
• 👁 The first image of waves
  
  The first image of waves
• Showcase of water customization in the Editor
• Showcase video of customizing atmospherics in the Editor

Bedrock Edition
1.21.80 Experiment			Preview 1.21.80.25				Added Vibrant Visuals, which can be enabled in worlds with the experiment enabled from a new "Graphics Mode" dropdown. It adds default configurations and textures for deferred lighting, and End flashes. Point lighting is not included.
							Added a new lighting model for clouds, which can not be configured at this time.
							Increased the range of cloud rendering.
							Added pixelated reflections and shadows, which will cause them to align to the texel grid of textures in the world. Shadows are data-driven and the style and texel size can be customized.
							👁 Image Added a unique pattern of clouds for when Vibrant Visuals is turned on.
			Preview 1.21.80.27				Re-enabled local exposure on all platforms.
			Preview 1.21.80.28				The illuminance and color of End flashes can now be customized.
1.21.90			Preview 1.21.90.20				Vibrant Visuals is now available without using its respective experimental toggle.
							Vibrant Visuals is now the default graphics mode on devices that support it.
							Added the ability to data-drive some of the Vibrant Visuals-related settings per biome. Creators can provide multiple versions of atmospherics, color grading, lighting and/or water configurations as long as each has a unique identifier and file name. The reserved JSON names for each group of settings (e.g., lighting/global.json) will continue to function as before. Creators can utilize the identifiers in client biome JSON files to connect particular rendering settings to a given biome. Certain parameters, such as tone mapping operators, caustics and wave simulation on/off cannot be customized per biome at this time. Parameters will be spatially blended as players move between biomes.
							Increased back-scattering of light underwater.
							Cloud shadows no longer pop in and out of view when looking around on Android devices.
							Paintings now render with correct PBR properties, shadows and illumination.
							Added MERS texture support for signs.
							Added new texture assets for trims, particles, spawn eggs, water and dark oak boats.
							Changed the appearance of metals, cave vines, chorus flowers, pumpkins, firefly bushes, and other blocks.
							Changed the bee, dolphin, ghast, pig saddle and strider textures.
			Preview 1.21.90.23				Made glass blocks more reflective.
							Tweaked metallics on cauldrons and ancient debris.
							Tweaked emissiveness on eyeblossom.
							Added emissiveness to the End crystal to match the item.
							Added MERS textures for happy ghasts and harnesses.
							Adjusted the glow lichen block emissiveness.
							Improved Snell's window effect when looking up from underwater.
							The End flash is now visible again in the End.
			Preview 1.21.90.25				Changed shadows in Vibrant Visuals so that they cast further at sunrise and sunset. Prior to this change, shadows were clamped at a 30 degree angle relative to the horizon. This clamp has now been reduced to 10 degrees. This also improves an issue where specular highlights, light rays and volumetric fog were not properly occluded when the sun or moon was behind a mountain at a low angle.
							Added temperature grading settings to the color grading JSON files for Vibrant Visuals. Schemas must specify a format version of 1.21.90 to access this new setting.
							Particles rendered without the minecraft:particle_appareance_lighting component are now renderered as expected.
							Removed the debug feature where ; could be used to toggle between graphics modes.
			Editor 0.9.9				Added key frame graphs to the Editor's Vibrant Visuals Settings.
							Projects are no longer in Vibrant Visuals mode by default and can now be toggled in the settings pane.
							Removed point lights from the settings pane when "Render Dragon Features for Creators" is disabled.
			Preview 1.21.90.26				the_end_light_flash sound effect now triggers when the light flashes in the End dimension.
							Customized atmospherics, color grading, fog and lighting for the End, the Nether, the Overworld dimensions and a variety of biomes. Some issues exist with atmospherics in End and Nether dimensions.
							Recalibrated all emissiveness values in MERS textures.
							Update shadow configurations for "Favor Performance" targets on all Xbox platforms.
							Changed the volumetric fog configuration for "Favor Performance" targets on Xbox One and Xbox One X.
							Reduced the intensity and speed of the caustics animation.
							Increased emissive intensity and adjusted tone mapping parameters.
							Added henyey_greenstein_g settings to the fog JSON files, which allows specifying value for both air and water used for light shafts in Vibrant Visuals.
							Updated the cloud pattern, and removed the Vibrant Visuals-exclusive pattern.
			Editor 0.9.9.9				Added functionality to export Vibrant Visuals settings into a resource pack.
							Added an optional action bar button for Vibrant Visuals Settings.
			Preview 1.21.90.27				Temporarily reverted weather-related changes to sky color while some issues are sorted out.
			Preview 1.21.90.28				Vibrant Visuals is no longer the default graphics mode on Xbox One, Xbox One S, and PlayStation 4.
1.21.100			Preview 1.21.100.21				Weather events now affect the scene illumination and the color of clouds and sky in Vibrant Visuals.
							Changed Reflections configuration for "Favor Performance" preset on Xbox platforms with Vibrant Visuals.
1.21.111			Preview 1.21.110.20				Updated volumetric fog configs for Windows to have more consistent steps in performance impact, while also maximizing image quality for cost.
							Added support for subsurface scattering on particle textures.
							The maximum render distance has been increased to 28 chunks for Vibrant Visuals on Windows.
							Increased thickness on block selection wireframe to make it more visible in Vibrant Visuals especially with TAAU enabled.
			Editor 1.1.0				Removed PBR Fallout Settings from the Vibrant Visuals Settings.
1.21.120			Preview 1.21.120.20				Renamed "Adjust Brightness" to "Adjust Gamma" in the Vibrant Visuals options.
							Improved quality of gamma correction on Windows and consoles and fixed the brightness of the creeper textures in the gamma calibration screen.
							Added a percentage indicator to the gamma calibration screen as well as a button to reset the gamma to the default state.
			Preview 1.21.120.22				Added unique biome settings for the dark forest biome.
							Reduced the intensity of temperature-based color grading in certain biomes, especially dry biomes.
							Slightly reduced contrast across all biomes.
							Adjusted the sky color in the End, which is now mostly black and slightly purple at zenith. Before this, it was bright purple at the horizon and black at zenith.
			release				Vibrant Visuals is now available for several Marketplace packs, and an official map has been made available for free.[11]
1.21.130			Preview 1.21.130.20				Added the ability to data-drive cubemap lighting and effects.
			Editor 1.1.6				Added cubemap controls to the Vibrant Visuals Settings.
			Preview 1.21.130.22				Introduced scripting module @minecraft/server-graphics to change atmospherics settings.
26.0			Preview 26.0.23				Introduced new parameter biome_water_color_contribution to the water JSON file, allowing to control the contribution of biome water colors in Vibrant Visuals.
			Preview 26.0.27				Added the ability to specify ambient light colors and illuminances, and sky light intensity according to the time of day.
			Editor 1.2.4				Added functionality to edit Vibrant Visuals Settings for each biome.
26.10			Preview 26.10.20				Static light colors can now be customized in Vibrant Visuals and no longer requires the "Render Dragon Features for Creators" experiment.
			Editor 1.2.5				Improved performance of Editor in Vibrant Visuals mode by preventing an extra deferred rendering call.
			Preview 26.10.23				Added static local lighting support for more entities and items, including pistons, moving blocks, signs, beds and chests.
			Preview 26.10.25				Added static/colorized light shading to particles.
26.20			Preview 26.20.20				Water settings and the description object for biome identifiers are now required in the 1.26.20 water JSON schema.
			Preview 26.20.22				Orbital offset can now be customized and will be blended per biome.
			Preview 26.20.23				minecraft:atmosphere_settings and minecraft:atmosphere_settings/description are now required in the 1.26.20 version of the atmospherics config file.
							Accessing atmospherics graphics overrrides through scripting is now done from getBiomeAtmospherics.
26.30			Preview 26.30.25				Volumetric fog settings can now be key framed in the fog JSON, to change effects with the daylight cycle.
			Preview 26.30.28				Lighting, color grading, and water settings can now be customized using scripting.
							Added per-player control over Vibrant Visuals settings in scripting.
							All renderer configurations are now sorted per platform in directories in 👁 File directory.png: Sprite image for directory in Minecraft  platform_config, and removed the ChromeOS configurations.
			Editor 1.3.9				Added a modal to the Editor that allows managing config settings per biome.
Upcoming Bedrock Edition
26.40			Preview 26.40.22				Clouds, stars, the sun, and the moon are now visible through Snell's window.

Java Edition
26.2			snap1				Implemented the Vulkan graphics API on an experimental backend, which can be toggled in the video settings. The game attempts to use Vulkan by default, but falls back to OpenGL if there are issues.
			snap8				OpenGL is now used by default and the toggle has a warning that Vulkan is experimental and possibly unstable.

Issues relating to "Vibrant Visuals" are maintained on the bug tracker. Issues should be reported and viewed there.

👁 Image

• Vibrant Visuals can be enabled in worlds locked in any older version using world templates and the "Render Dragon Features for Creators" experiment or a PBR resource pack. This ignores all resource packs from versions above the world's version, including Vibrant Visuals configurations and textures when set below 1.21.90. This results in interesting behavior for some features, while most others function normally:
  • All MERS textures are ignored, making environments without directional lighting appear identical to classic graphics modes.
  • Atmospherics and lighting configurations are not applied, defaulting to the hard-coded values, and some environmental effects do not appear at all. Sunset and sunrise for example, tint the zenith sky dark blue and the horizon red, much brighter than regular colors.
  • Shadows are not blocky but soft.
  • End flashes still occur, but are not colored and appear white.
  • The End sky is not colored below the horizon, resembling the classic End sky with Night Vision. At zenith however, the sky is tinted dark green/blue.
  • The Nether roof is completely glitched without any light.
  • Reflections or cubemaps don't appear, deep water looks shadow blue.
  • For a moment in the loading world screen before entering the world, the panorama renders with the missing texture.​^{[until: BE 26.40]}
• The introduction of Vibrant Visuals added MERS textures for any block, entity, and particle present in all vanilla resources, including unused textures and various old textures kept for backward-compatibility. However, these can never be encountered in-game because loading an old world will ignore the resource packs containing these textures.
• According to developers, the deferred rendering mode was build on parts from the RTX pipeline and the rendering pipeline from Minecraft Legends since 2020.^[44]
• The vanilla resources contain unused "hot" atmospherics, lighting, and color grading. This generally increases the effects from desert and mesa biomes, but the sky uses a dark blue color instead of turquoise green.

  👁 Image
  

• In physically based rendering, the block light of a torch is 1262.665039 lumens.^[7]

• 👁 The End sky in an older version with a flash
  
  The End sky in an older version with a flash
• 👁 The unusual sky colors at daytime
  
  The unusual sky colors at daytime
• 👁 A glitched Nether roof in older versions
  
  A glitched Nether roof in older versions
• 👁 The missing panorama
  
  The missing panorama

• 👁 The texture of the sun exclusive to Vibrant Visuals, which has more vibrant colors and layers.
  
  The texture of the sun exclusive to Vibrant Visuals, which has more vibrant colors and layers.
• 👁 caustics.png, containing 50 frames of the water caustics animation.
  
  caustics.png, containing 50 frames of the water caustics animation.
• 👁 brdf_lut.png, used to calculate the strength and scattering of specular and diffuse reflections.
  
  brdf_lut.png, used to calculate the strength and scattering of specular and diffuse reflections.

• 👁 A desert sunset with different sky and sun colors and stretched shadows
  
  A desert sunset with different sky and sun colors and stretched shadows
• 👁 Example of underwater lighting with Vibrant Visuals, on an ocean monument
  
  Example of underwater lighting with Vibrant Visuals, on an ocean monument
• 👁 The moon illuminates the environment with a weak blue tint and can create shadows, caustics, and specular highlights.
  
  The moon illuminates the environment with a weak blue tint and can create shadows, caustics, and specular highlights.
• 👁 Sunlight falling into a lush cave through a hole. Although the blocks look fully lit, the light level is still 0 and hostile mobs can spawn.
  
  Sunlight falling into a lush cave through a hole. Although the blocks look fully lit, the light level is still 0 and hostile mobs can spawn.
• 👁 Shadows on trees in an old growth pine taiga, as seen from the position of the sun. Notice the subsurface scattering on leaves, and the player's shadow.
  
  Shadows on trees in an old growth pine taiga, as seen from the position of the sun. Notice the subsurface scattering on leaves, and the player's shadow.
• 👁 An ancient city with point lights. The darkness makes blue emissive textures dominate the atmosphere, resulting in an entirely unique environment.
  
  An ancient city with point lights. The darkness makes blue emissive textures dominate the atmosphere, resulting in an entirely unique environment.
• 👁 Icebergs create detailed reflections on an ocean's surface, while clouds create blurry reflections.
  
  Icebergs create detailed reflections on an ocean's surface, while clouds create blurry reflections.
• 👁 The sky as it appears with a dry thunderstorm or when a wither is nearby
  
  The sky as it appears with a dry thunderstorm or when a wither is nearby
• 👁 Lush caves are much more vibrantly illumated.
  
  Lush caves are much more vibrantly illumated.
• 👁 The Nether. Screenshot taken over a lava sea in a crimson forest.
  
  The Nether. Screenshot taken over a lava sea in a crimson forest.
• 👁 The End after an End flash
  
  The End after an End flash
• 👁 Point lights and colored lights
  
  Point lights and colored lights
• 👁 Strong volumetric fog created by point lights in a pale garden woodland mansion
  
  Strong volumetric fog created by point lights in a pale garden woodland mansion
• 👁 On the transition between biomes, volumetric fog from both biomes are combined. With mushroom fields, this result in a strong purple glow.
  
  On the transition between biomes, volumetric fog from both biomes are combined. With mushroom fields, this result in a strong purple glow.
• 👁 The Nether has red "moonlight", used to tint the atmosphere but also tints objects on the Nether roof.
  
  The Nether has red "moonlight", used to tint the atmosphere but also tints objects on the Nether roof.
• 👁 The void lets light beams shine through the bedrock at higher distances.
  
  The void lets light beams shine through the bedrock at higher distances.

• 👁 The Vibrant Visuals options in the video settings
  
  The Vibrant Visuals options in the video settings
• 👁 The Vibrant Visuals gamma calibration screen
  
  The Vibrant Visuals gamma calibration screen
• 👁 A cave with gamma set to 50% (left), 100% (middle), and 150% (right).
  
  A cave with gamma set to 50% (left), 100% (middle), and 150% (right).
• 👁 Example of a render distance of 128 chunks with Vibrant Visuals enabled
  
  Example of a render distance of 128 chunks with Vibrant Visuals enabled
• 👁 Water and reflective copper with reflections off. Specular highlights from the sun and the redstone torch point light are still visible, as well as subsurface scattering.
  
  Water and reflective copper with reflections off. Specular highlights from the sun and the redstone torch point light are still visible, as well as subsurface scattering.
• 👁 The reflections set to Ultra adds SSR and cubemap reflections, visible on both the water and the copper.
  
  The reflections set to Ultra adds SSR and cubemap reflections, visible on both the water and the copper.
• 👁 A copper torch and an end rod with point lights disabled. The colored block lighting and a slight bloom effect is still visible.
  
  A copper torch and an end rod with point lights disabled. The colored block lighting and a slight bloom effect is still visible.
• 👁 With point lights on, the light sources are much brighter and cast shadows. Notably, the dropped stone has two different shadows.
  
  With point lights on, the light sources are much brighter and cast shadows. Notably, the dropped stone has two different shadows.
• 👁 The cloud distance set to Low
  
  The cloud distance set to Low
• 👁 The cloud distance set to Medium
  
  The cloud distance set to Medium
• 👁 The cloud distance set to High
  
  The cloud distance set to High
• 👁 The cloud distance set to Ultra
  
  The cloud distance set to Ultra

• 👁 The temporary Vibrant Visuals cloud pattern, also seen in cubemap reflections
  
  The temporary Vibrant Visuals cloud pattern, also seen in cubemap reflections
• 👁 Before 1.21.100, precipitation did not have any graphical effects apart from decreasing ambient lighting.
  
  Before 1.21.100, precipitation did not have any graphical effects apart from decreasing ambient lighting.
• 👁 An old view of a desert with Vibrant Visuals, which had more yellow-ish color grading and atmospherics.
  
  An old view of a desert with Vibrant Visuals, which had more yellow-ish color grading and atmospherics.
• 👁 Point lights used to be much brighter at the center, did barely affect volumetric fog, and static colored lighting did not exist.
  
  Point lights used to be much brighter at the center, did barely affect volumetric fog, and static colored lighting did not exist.
• 👁 The old End sky was much more purple, even without flashes.
  
  The old End sky was much more purple, even without flashes.

• 👁 A beach without Vibrant Visuals. There is a mangrove swamp and jungle behind it. There are firefly bushes in the swamp, emitting firefly particles.
  
  A beach without Vibrant Visuals. There is a mangrove swamp and jungle behind it. There are firefly bushes in the swamp, emitting firefly particles.
• 👁 The same beach with Vibrant Visuals. The firely particles are more visible, and have a blue color. The sun produces a strong glare.
  
  The same beach with Vibrant Visuals. The firely particles are more visible, and have a blue color. The sun produces a strong glare.
• 👁 Zuri on a boat on the coast of a bamboo jungle during sunset with Vibrant Visuals
  
  Zuri on a boat on the coast of a bamboo jungle during sunset with Vibrant Visuals
• 👁 A forest with Vibrant Visuals. On the left there is a large oak tree, and the leaves are reflecting some of the blue skylight.
  
  A forest with Vibrant Visuals. On the left there is a large oak tree, and the leaves are reflecting some of the blue skylight.
• 👁 A comparison of Fancy graphics and Vibrant Visuals in a cherry grove biome, showing shadows and roughness textures on grass blocks.
  
  A comparison of Fancy graphics and Vibrant Visuals in a cherry grove biome, showing shadows and roughness textures on grass blocks.
• 👁 A similar comparison outside a woodland mansion, with light falling into the window of "Triple bed bedroom", with a potted azure bluet.
  
  A similar comparison outside a woodland mansion, with light falling into the window of "Triple bed bedroom", with a potted azure bluet.
• 👁 A comparison with icebergs in a frozen ocean. The ice is actually less transparent in Vibrant Visuals, so the form of the ice berg underwater cannot be seen as easily.
  
  A comparison with icebergs in a frozen ocean. The ice is actually less transparent in Vibrant Visuals, so the form of the ice berg underwater cannot be seen as easily.
• 👁 A desert village with Vibrant Visuals, during sunset. The screenshot was taken in a river, so the yellow haze of the desert is not present. Instead, there is a blue haze, which makes the texture of the sand more visible.
  
  A desert village with Vibrant Visuals, during sunset. The screenshot was taken in a river, so the yellow haze of the desert is not present. Instead, there is a blue haze, which makes the texture of the sand more visible.
• 👁 A copper boat sailing through a jungle river, with a copper water mill on the right, a large bridge on the cliffs in the background, and multiple cliffside buildings
  
  A copper boat sailing through a jungle river, with a copper water mill on the right, a large bridge on the cliffs in the background, and multiple cliffside buildings
• 👁 A frozen ocean at sunset, with 3 polar bears and a snow fox, while Zuri does some ice fishing. Minor visual glitches can be seen on the icebergs.
  
  A frozen ocean at sunset, with 3 polar bears and a snow fox, while Zuri does some ice fishing. Minor visual glitches can be seen on the icebergs.
• 👁 A lake in a badlands biome, with a wooded badlands behind it. This image shows water reflections from sunlight, clouds, and the terrain.
  
  A lake in a badlands biome, with a wooded badlands behind it. This image shows water reflections from sunlight, clouds, and the terrain.
• 👁 A plains biome at sunrise with more vibrant colors compared to Fancy graphics
  
  A plains biome at sunrise with more vibrant colors compared to Fancy graphics
• 👁 The plains village from the previous image, showing different shadow effects
  
  The plains village from the previous image, showing different shadow effects
• 👁 A cherry grove with the sun hovering just over the cliff, creating light rays. The camera is in a plains biome.
  
  A cherry grove with the sun hovering just over the cliff, creating light rays. The camera is in a plains biome.
• 👁 A player-made wheat and carrot farm, with homes next to it. Kai, Sunny, and Zuri are standing in the farm.
  
  A player-made wheat and carrot farm, with homes next to it. Kai, Sunny, and Zuri are standing in the farm.
• 👁 An old growth pine taiga
  
  An old growth pine taiga
• 👁 A plains with a river running through it
  
  A plains with a river running through it
• 👁 A cabin in a snowy taiga
  
  A cabin in a snowy taiga
• 👁 A tree house in a jungle
  
  A tree house in a jungle
• 👁 Kai, Zuri, and Ari watching a sunset with Fancy graphics
  
  Kai, Zuri, and Ari watching a sunset with Fancy graphics
• 👁 The same scene with Vibrant Visuals has more unique atmospherics and reflections.
  
  The same scene with Vibrant Visuals has more unique atmospherics and reflections.

• 👁 Ari using the new leashing functionality to leash 3 mobs in a line, while holding a snowball to attract a ghastling.
  
  Ari using the new leashing functionality to leash 3 mobs in a line, while holding a snowball to attract a ghastling.
• 👁 A trio of happy ghasts ridden by Efe, Makena, and Kai, with mobs in boats underneath
  
  A trio of happy ghasts ridden by Efe, Makena, and Kai, with mobs in boats underneath
• 👁 Ari riding a horse while leashing a camel and a happy ghast
  
  Ari riding a horse while leashing a camel and a happy ghast
• 👁 A ghastling next to water. Ripples and reflections can be seen in the water.
  
  A ghastling next to water. Ripples and reflections can be seen in the water.
• 👁 Each image shows a swamp during sunset. The right image shows the reflection of the sunset in Vibrant Visuals. These images show how Vibrant Visuals enhances the scene.
  
  Each image shows a swamp during sunset. The right image shows the reflection of the sunset in Vibrant Visuals. These images show how Vibrant Visuals enhances the scene.
• 👁 A desert, stony shore, and badlands (right) during sunset
  
  A desert, stony shore, and badlands (right) during sunset
• 👁 A mangrove swamp during sunset
  
  A mangrove swamp during sunset
• 👁 Vibrant Visuals scene with the words "tomorrow"
  
  Promotional image just before the release of Chase the Skies with Vibrant Visuals

• Overworld Adventures, a series of online stories made to promote Vibrant Visuals.
• Vibrant Memories Add-On, an add-on made to promote the initial launch.
• Vibrant Adventures, an adventure world template featured in the Vibrant Visuals-tagged contents in the Marketplace.
• Shader, the previous system of graphics enhancement in Bedrock Edition using resource packs which is still used in Java Edition.
• Shader packs, similar but unofficial graphic enhancement mods for Java Edition and less commonly in Bedrock Edition.
• Super Duper Graphics Pack, a previously cancelled graphics update for Bedrock Edition.

• "Vibrant Visuals" – Minecraft.net, March 22, 2025.
• "Vibrant Visuals: Enable Enhanced Minecraft Graphics" – Minecraft.net.
• Deferred lighting starter samples on GitHub.
• Vibrant Visuals packs in the Marketplace.
• Vibrant Vanguard, an unofficial Discord server sanctioned by Mojang for developers and modders to discuss Vibrant Visuals development on Java Edition.

• Vibrant Visuals – Minecraft Feedback.
  • Vibrant Visuals FAQ Thread – July 30, 2025.
  • Known Issues (Read before you post!) – July 30, 2025.
  • Let's talk about water in Vibrant Visuals! – April 3, 2025.
  • Let's talk about lava in Vibrant Visuals! – April 3, 2025.
  • Let's talk about reflections & roughness on material surfaces and blocks! – April 3, 2025.
• Feedback Discord
• Java Techical Discussion faq, dev-updates, and rendering channels in the Feedback Discord, used by Java Edition mod and shader creators to discuss technical changes with developers.

v t e Game graphical and visual elements
Effects	👁 Image Enchantment glint 👁 Image Rendered brightness 👁 Image Starfield
Environmental	👁 Image Clouds 👁 Image Fog 👁 Image Particles 👁 Image Sky Celestial objects 👁 Image End flash 👁 Image Moon 👁 Image Stars 👁 Image Sun Cubemaps 👁 Image End sky 👁 Image Panorama
👁 Image Color	👁 Image Blocks 👁 Image Items 👁 Image Effects 👁 Image Other
Settings	👁 Image Graphics settings Bedrock Edition only Ray Tracing 👁 Image
Things	Display of blocks by entities Non-model-dependent block elements
Other	👁 Image Screen effects
Removed	Lower sky 👁 Image Spawn Egg colors
Joke	👁 Image Earth

v t e Resource packs
Components	sounds.json Java Edition only pack.mcmeta Textures Atlases Models Colormaps Texts regional_compliancies.json Equipment Shaders Bedrock Edition only manifest.json Client biomes Deferred rendering Ray Tracing Fog Texture sets
Built-in	Programmer Art High Contrast
Tutorials	Loading a resource pack Creating a resource pack

v t e Minecraft: Bedrock Edition
Editions	Merged Pocket Edition Windows 10 Edition Ports to consoles Xbox One Nintendo Switch Nintendo Switch 2​[upcoming] PS4 PS5 Xbox Series X|S Discontinued Gear VR Edition Apple TV Edition Fire TV Edition
Development	Version history 👁 Image Alpha 👁 Image Full release 👁 Image Development versions 👁 Image Minecraft Preview 👁 Image Removed features 👁 Image Unused features 👁 Image Unused textures 👁 Image Parity issue list 👁 Image Mentioned features 👁 Image Super Duper Graphics Pack 👁 Image Planned versions
Technical	👁 Image Known bugs 👁 Image Minecraft Launcher 👁 Image Quick Play 👁 File directory.png: Sprite image for directory in Minecraft com.mojang 👁 Image options.txt 👁 File directory.png: Sprite image for directory in Minecraft Installation files 👁 File directory.png: Sprite image for directory in Minecraft Cache files 👁 Image Bedrock Dedicated Server 👁 Image server.properties 👁 Image Experiments 👁 Image Commands 👁 Image Functions 👁 File directory.png: Sprite image for directory in Minecraft Identifier 👁 Image Text component format 👁 Image Map item format 👁 Image Coordinates 👁 Image Seed Anomalous 👁 Image Tick 👁 Image Random Tick 👁 Image Ticking area § Formatting codes Simulation distance 👁 Image Screenshot 👁 Image Block sound type 👁 Image RenderDragon 👁 Image Data values 👁 Image Block entity 👁 Image Mob AI 👁 Image Flattening Development resources [NBT Compound / JSON Object] NBT format [NBT Compound / JSON Object] Level format 👁 Image Structure templates Protocol 👁 Image Protocol version RakNet Creator 👁 File file.png: Sprite image for file in Minecraft Official documentation 👁 Image Editor 👁 Image Map Marker 👁 File directory.png: Sprite image for directory in Minecraft File extensions 👁 Image GameTest Add-ons 👁 Image Resource packs 👁 Image Sound definitions 👁 Image Fog definition 👁 Image Deferred rendering 👁 Image Client biomes 👁 Image Behavior packs 👁 Image Block definition 👁 Image Block components 👁 Image Biome definition 👁 Image Item components Family Spawn event 👁 Image Tag 👁 Image Block 👁 Image Item 👁 Image Biome 👁 Image Structure set 👁 Image Template pool 👁 Image Processor list 👁 Image Recipe 👁 Image JSON manifest.json 👁 Image UUID [String] Molang 👁 Image Scripting
Multiplayer	👁 Image Servers Featured servers GenWars Mob Maze SoulSteel Event servers 👁 Image Capture the Flag Server list 👁 Image Splitscreen 👁 Image Minecraft Realms 👁 Image Realms Hub 👁 Image Social
Exclusive features	👁 Image Achievements 👁 Image How to Play 👁 Image Encyclopedia 👁 Image Marketplace 👁 Image Minecoin 👁 Image Partner Program 👁 Image Add-ons 👁 Image Content bundles 👁 Image Marketplace Pass 👁 Image Mash-up pack 👁 Image Skin packs 👁 Image Texture packs 👁 Image Worlds 👁 Image Character Creator 👁 Image Emote Loading tips 👁 Image Ore UI Ray Tracing 👁 Image Seed Templates 👁 Image Starter Seeds 👁 Image [String] Configurations Blocks 👁 Image Allow and Deny 👁 Image Border Mobs 👁 Image Agent 👁 Image NPC Effects 👁 Image Fatal Poison Unused 👁 Image Unknown 👁 Image info_update 👁 Image info_update2 👁 Image reserved6 👁 Image tile.client_request_placeholder_block.name 👁 Image Nether Reactor Core 👁 Image Glowing Obsidian 👁 Image Chiseled Purpur 👁 Image tile.deprecated_purpur_block_2.name 👁 Image Deprecated Anvil 👁 Image Old Stonecutter 👁 Image Camera 👁 Image Old Villager 👁 Image Old Zombie Villager 👁 Image Legacy Frozen Ocean 👁 Image Biomes before 1.18
Removed	👁 Image Crafting descriptions 👁 Image Nether Reactor 👁 Image Old 👁 Image Virtual reality Pocket Edition protocol Legacy

v t e Minecraft events
Installments MINECON 2010 May August 2011 2012 2013 2015 2016 Minecraft Live 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 March September 2026 March May TwitchCon San Diego 2025 Rotterdam 2026 Event servers Server Test 2022 Boss Vote 2022 Mob Vote Minecraft Legends Trails & Tales 2023 Mob Vote Universal Studios MCC x Minecraft 15th Anniversary Party Eerie Mojang Office Party A Minecraft Movie Capture the Flag MC Championship Ender Cup Colour the World The Copper Crown Project G.L.O.P. Miscellaneous Mojam ModJam Creator Summit Minecraft Festival Community Celebration 15 Days of Minecraft Minecraft Experience Villager Rescue Moonlight Trail Expect the unexpected Chinese prediction poll
Segments Bookends Openings 2011 2012 2013 👁 Image 2015 Endings 2011 Panels 👁 Image Great London Robbery!! Short films 👁 Image Can a Mojang Employee Survive 👁 Image The Super Duper Minecraft Musical Cinematics 👁 Image Mojang Presents 👁 Image Villager (and Pillager?) News 👁 Image The Nether Update Encore 👁 Image Caves & Cliffs: The Musical 👁 Image Introducing New Default Skins! 👁 Image A Warden's Song 👁 Image A Tale of Two Friends 👁 Image The Monster in the Woods 👁 Image A Wandering Trader Springs to Life! 👁 Image Happy Ghast Music Video Dragon Ball Z 👁 Image Tiny Takeover Recurring 👁 Image Tech demos 👁 Image Community Vote
Participants Characters 👁 Image Alex 👁 Image Ari 👁 Image Denton 👁 Image Dr. Trayaurus 👁 Image Efe 👁 Image Kai 👁 Image Makena 👁 Image Noor 👁 Image Steve 👁 Image Sunny 👁 Image Villager No. 5 👁 Image Villager No. 9 👁 Image Villager No. 15 👁 Image Zuri Caricatures Agnes 👁 Image Tiny Agnes 👁 LegendsSprite hannah.png: Sprite image for hannah in Minecraft hannahxxrose Jens 👁 Image Jens 👁 Image Tiny Jens 👁 Image Tiny Lydia 👁 Image Tiny Vu Hosts 👁 Image BigB 👁 Image Lydia Winters 👁 Image Logdotzip 👁 Image Tubbo 👁 Image Notch Vu Bui Will Arnett Guests 👁 Image Bobicraft 👁 Image camman18 👁 Image CaptainSparklez 👁 Image DanTDM 👁 Image deadmau5 👁 Image Emma Myers 👁 Image GoodTimesWithScar 👁 Image Grian 👁 Image HBomb94 👁 Image Jack Black 👁 Image LDShadowLady Max Brooks Marsh Davies 👁 Image Mumbo Jumbo 👁 Image Seapeekay 👁 Image Smajor 👁 Image Stampy Studios Cartoon Network Element Animation Hive Games
Promotions Trailers 👁 Image Official Minecon trailer 👁 Image A Minecraft Adventure 👁 Image Will Arnett is Hosting 👁 Image 2018 👁 Image 2020 👁 Image 2021 👁 Image 2022 👁 Image 2023 👁 Image 2024 👁 Image All About Live 2024... 👁 Image March 2025 👁 Image Capes Trailer 👁 Image September 2025 👁 Image Watch Live 2025 👁 Image March 2026 👁 Image Why You Can't Miss March 2026 👁 Image Midoffs 👁 Image TwitchCon May 2026 Capes 👁 Image Minecon 2011 👁 Image Minecon 2012 👁 Image Minecon 2013 👁 Image Minecon 2015 👁 Image Minecon 2016 👁 Image Founder's Cape 👁 Image Cherry Cape Skin packs 👁 Image Minecon 2015 👁 Image Minecon 2016 👁 Image Minecon 2017 👁 Image Founder's Cape 👁 Image Mob Vote 2022 Worlds Minecon 2011 👁 Image Abstraction: Minecon Earth 👁 Image Minecon Live: Rush Race!
Releases Media Mine Chest Minecraft: Story Mode Minecraft Mini-Series Minecraft Dungeons Minecraft: The Island Minecraft: Builders & Biomes Minecraft: The Mountain Mojam Catacomb Snatch Battle Frogs Endless Nuclear Kittens Nuclear Pizza War Nuke the Dinosaurs Docktor Health Core Evolved Snake Oil Stanley Blackout Bureaucrap Manor Road Updates 👁 🍗 Adventure Update 👁 Image Exploration Update 👁 Image Update Aquatic 👁 Image Village & Pillage 👁 Image Nether Update 👁 Image Crossplay 👁 Image Caves & Cliffs 👁 Image Cloudy Climb 👁 Image The Wild Update 👁 Image Trails & Tales 👁 Image TU2 👁 Image Tricky Trials 👁 Image The Garden Awakens 👁 Image Chase the Skies 👁 Image Mounts of Mayhem DLC 👁 Image Purple Parrot Party Palace 👁 Image Inspiration Island 👁 Image Grid Runners Blitz Build Lessons in Good Trouble 👁 Image Batman Dragon Ball Z Technical Java account migration Twitch 👁 Image