v1.4 — Stable torch shadows, player shadow fade & fog wall

What's new

• Torch shadows reworked — the unstable directional approach is gone; a 5-ray bundle (straight up + four 45° tilts) now tests each torch-lit floor, so objects above and beside it cast clean, artifact-free shadows that fade with distance
• Player shadow fade (fake penumbra) — your own shadow softly fades toward its tip the longer it gets; world shadows stay solid (new Player Shadow Fade slider, player detection via entity.properties)
• Fog wall — new Fog Wall Distance slider (64–512, default 128): fog reaches full opacity at a fixed distance with a long smooth fade from 20%, and the sky blends to full fog toward the horizon — the look no longer depends on render distance
• Water & fog — underwater fog now scales with the Fog Density setting; water uses vanilla transparency again so the ground stays visible; surfaces under water get 1.6× shadow strength
• Robust edge normals — depth-aware normal reconstruction removes the bright/dark outlines around objects and players
• Moonlight dimmed ~30% for darker nights

Bug fixes

• Stripe/ring artifacts from the old directional torch shadows eliminated
• White rims on sunlit objects and dark rims in shadows fixed
• Player shadow no longer disappears (shadow-pass alpha test issue)
• Water no longer hides block textures beneath it

Requirements

Iris (Fabric/Quilt/NeoForge) or Oculus (Forge), Minecraft 1.16.5 – 26.x. No OptiFine needed.

Download

Lost_Tape_v1.4.zip (attached above) — drop it into .minecraft/shaderpacks/

Updating from v1.3? Rename shaderpacks/Lost_Tape_v1.3.zip.txt to Lost_Tape_v1.4.zip.txt to keep your settings.

v1.3 — Directional torch shadows

What's new

• Directional torch shadows — the shader estimates the light direction from the block light falloff gradient and ray-marches the depth buffer toward the source: blocks next to torches now cast visible shadows on the ground, pointing away from the light
• New settings under Shadows & Light Shafts: Torch Shadows (Directional) toggle and Torch Shadow Strength slider (0.25–1.0), wired into all 13 presets
• Pack file renamed to Lost_Tape_vX.X.zip

Notes

• Torch shadows are a screen-space effect: they only come from geometry currently visible on screen, and there is deliberately no shadow under uniform light (e.g. glowstone ceilings)
• If you're updating from v1.2 and want to keep your tweaked settings, rename shaderpacks/LOST_TAPE_v1.2.zip.txt (or Lost_Tape_v1.2.zip.txt) to Lost_Tape_v1.3.zip.txt

Requirements

Iris (Fabric/Quilt/NeoForge) or Oculus (Forge), Minecraft 1.16.5 – 26.x. No OptiFine needed.

Download

Lost_Tape_v1.3.zip (attached above) — drop it into .minecraft/shaderpacks/

v1.2 — Shadows, light shafts & 13 presets

What's new

• Dense breathing fog with adjustable density, start distance, and sky swallowing
• Real shadow-mapped shadows (entities included) — strength, softness, resolution, distance, and sun path tilt all adjustable
• Volumetric light shafts (god rays) with shadow-streak darkening along shadow edges
• Contact shadows (SSAO), boosted around block light so torches cast visible shading
• Smart torch light: block light is exempt from the darkness curve; caves stay pitch black
• Adjustable moonlight for brighter nights on sky-exposed surfaces
• PSX retro mode: vertex snapping (terrain-only or incl. mobs), pixelation, Bayer dithering
• Analog overlay: film grain, vignette, chromatic aberration, scanlines, flicker, VHS wobble
• Sun & moon toggles — remove them from the sky while the light keeps falling
• 13 hand-tuned presets, including Verity, Backrooms, Director's Cut, Silent Fog, Dead Channel, and Sunless
• Full English & German settings localization

Bug fixes

• Shadows and fog now render correctly behind glass and water (translucent-aware depth)
• Glass no longer casts full opaque shadows
• Shadow acne / flicker fixed via screen-space normals and slope-scaled bias
• Torches stay bright in dark presets
• Round modded entities no longer deform (vertex snap excluded from entities by default)

Requirements

Iris (Fabric/Quilt/NeoForge) or Oculus (Forge), Minecraft 1.16.5 – 26.x. No OptiFine needed.

Download

LOST_TAPE_v1.2.zip (attached above) — drop it into .minecraft/shaderpacks/