Vulkan PostFX 1.15.0 — Native & Shadow Stabilization

Highlights

VPFX 1.15.0 focuses on stabilizing the new native rendering path and fixing several long-standing shadow artifacts. This release improves shader pack switching, native backend selection, shadow depth handling, and terrain shadow receiver logic.

Added

• Added native-first shader pack selection.

  • VPFX now prefers native-compatible external VPFX packs when available.
  • Unsupported packs can still fall back to the Minecraft PostChain backend.

• Added support for native shadow depth inputs.

  • Native pipelines can now recognize vulkanpostfx:shadow_depth and minecraft:shadow_depth.

• Added support for use_depth_buffer admission in native graph validation.

  • Valid scene/depth target usage is no longer rejected too early.

• Added configurable diagnostic throttling options for native and shadow logs.

• Added default in-world hard resource reload for development builds.

  • Shader pack switching inside a world is now much easier during testing.

Changed

• Reworked terrain shadow receiver logic.

  • Replaced unstable screen-derivative receiver normal estimation.
  • Replaced unreliable direct Normal attribute usage.
  • Added a stable axis/grid-based receiver mask for block surfaces.

• Reduced shadow artifacts on vertical block faces.

  • Vertical surfaces that should not receive strong parallel-light shadows are now filtered more safely.

• Reduced excessive native runtime and shadow diagnostic logging.

  • Legacy NR-1C / NR-1F diagnostic output is now silent by default.
  • Shadow pass and shadow sync logs are throttled by default.

• Improved failed-pack warning behavior.

  • Failed external pack warnings are no longer spammed every frame.

• Improved shader pack reload behavior in-world.

  • Development workflow is smoother when repeatedly changing VPFX ZIP packs.

Fixed

• Fixed shadow/light behavior appearing to rotate with the player camera.
• Fixed excessive striping on vertical faces perpendicular to the sun/moon movement plane.
• Fixed use_depth_buffer=true causing valid VPFX packs to be rejected from native admission.
• Fixed repeated warning spam when an external VPFX pack was marked as failed.
• Fixed old builtin/default configuration behavior that could leave users stuck on the Builtin Debug Pack.
• Fixed native backend selection not being obvious when external VPFX packs were available.

Developer Notes

• The current stable terrain shadow receiver strategy is axis/grid based.
• VPFX no longer relies on screen-space dFdx/dFdy normals for terrain shadow receiver masking.
• VPFX also does not yet implement the full Iris/Sodium-style extended terrain vertex normal pipeline.
• Native multi-pass execution and Showcase pack support continue to be developed.
• Entity and player shadows remain a later-stage task.

Recommended Test Points

• Test vertical walls under sun and moon lighting.
• Test rotating the camera while observing terrain shadows.
• Test F7 shader pack switching inside a loaded world.
• Test native-compatible VPFX packs with scene depth and shadow depth inputs.