AstraLex Shaders for Minecraft

Review AstraLex Shaders

AstraLex

We would like to draw your attention to a unique and very realistic shader pack for Minecraft, which allows one to turn the game world into a kind of hand-drawn cartoon. Have you ever seen old cartoons? A shader pack called AstraLex Shaders features a similar design, because of which many users have appreciated it.

Generally speaking, the mod can boast a huge number of techniques and settings, where each player will be able to adjust a unique style for themselves, thoroughly customize the graphics, and get a colorful visual picture, both in the cartoon style and in the one we are familiar with thanks to the vanilla Minecraft.

Cartoon Style

We will consider the features of AstraLex Shaders in the vanilla style without enabling the cartoon design. But we should briefly touch upon what the advantages of this style are, why it is so attractive, and how you can adjust it if you still want to enable this mode.

To create the cartoon style effect, a black-edged outline is used here for each character, which is more professionally called the toon contour. Thanks to such an effect, all the objects, items, and the environment become outlined in black and create an impression that you are a cartoon character yourself, and everything that happens around you is drawn or dynamically created with a pencil, especially when new chunks are loaded.

Is it possible to disable such a style? Sure. To do this, you need to open the shader settings. The steps are as follows:

· Click the 'Video Settings' button;

· Click 'Shaders';

· Click 'Shader Options' at the bottom (be sure to activate the shader pack under consideration in the list);

· Open the 'Visual' tab;

· Open the 'Cel Shading' section;

· Click 'BSL Cel Shading';

· In the 'Style' section, select 'OFF' and click the 'Done' button. The shader pack will reload, and you will be able to continue playing without the cartoon style.

Alternatively, if you need to turn this style on, follow the same steps, but turn the Black Outline on in the 'Style' section. The pack will reload again, and you will be able to continue your journey.

Note! In the 'Style' section, you can also enable another parameter called Colored Outline. In this case, the cartoon style will remain, but the black outline will not be so pronounced, and the visual picture will become closer to slightly modified vanilla Minecraft. One can say that this option is something in between the standard version and the cartoon style.

Overview of AstraLex Shaders

Well, we have considered the settings and the peculiarities of the style. Let us now turn to the basic parameters and features of AstraLex Shaders, which, by the way, are numerous.

Starry Sky, Planets, and Zodiac Signs

One of the features of this shader pack, as well as its highlight, is the recreation of the starry sky with zodiac signs, on which different constellations are visible. Turning your head in any direction, you will see all the constellations in the sky, visually forming each zodiac sign. All this looks very cool, as if you are in some astrological observatory or planetarium, not in a game.

Another feature of the in-game night sky with this shader pack is flying comets and shooting stars, which look amazing. Of course, at some point, it becomes boring to see such celestial bodies constantly flying in the sky, but all this looks unusual at first. It is a pity that the developers from Mojang do not implement such features themselves, and modders from different communities have to implement everything on their own.

But that is not all, as you might think. Another planet is also visible in the sky, which gets closer as the night approaches, imitating the movement of the solar system, the Earth's trajectory, and the overall structure of the galaxy. This is impressive and unusual, although such large objects sometimes simply block the entire view when you look into the distance.

Against the background of the entire starry sky and numerous other details, the moon only adds more colors to the visual side of the game and saturates it. Its glow extends over a large area, so even in those biomes where there is not enough light or complete darkness, you will be able to quite normally under the moon's illumination. So it must be clear that playing with such a pack at night is a sheer joy.

The last thing to note as regards the nights in Minecraft is the aurora borealis. It is quite unusual to see such a phenomenon in the cubic world since there is nothing similar even in many large-scale AAA projects. But here, the modders have implemented such a feature. Moreover, it can be disabled and adjusted in the settings. You will be able to set the intensity and other parameters not only for the northern lights, though, but also for the planet and constellations.

Water Effects

This shader pack can boast a huge number of effects capable of unlocking the entire potential of aquatic biomes, reservoirs, swamps, and all the locations where there is the slightest element of water, be it drops, splashes, huge oceans, or rivers. After installing the shader, it may seem that the effects are not that substantial, but this is not the case.

The modders have done a great job on water shadows. So any objects hit by the sunrays, moonlight, and other light sources, cast a shadow on the water. This looks as realistic as possible, as if this happens in the real world. In turn, thanks to a large list of settings, the user can adjust the intensity, saturation, sharpness, resolution, and quality of the shadows.

Another unique feature is the transparency of the water and the possibility of looking through it. Just dive into the water and try to look at some house or castle nearby in the vanilla Minecraft from there. Will you see a lot? Nope! Now install AstraLex Shaders and do that again. You will enjoy all the beauty of water distortion. Light rays are refracted, structures and blocks are slightly shifted, but you will still see a clear visual picture.

Speaking of water, it is also appropriate to consider the underwater world. When we dive with this mod installed, we see a wonderful environment and numerous additional effects: water droplets, splashes, and various air particles. If you try to reach the bottom, the field of view will start slightly expanding, and this is a very cool and unusual effect for such a shader.

Be sure to place ordinary or sea lanterns underwater and see how the light is refracted. Physics shows itself in all its glory, and you feel as if you have become Nemo conquering the underwater world. Each lantern emits particles, the light is scattered, and if you look from afar, you can see literally everything through the water even at night, including all the rays of light and blocks.

Lighting and Weather Effects

There are many various parameters related to lighting in this shader pack, and you can infinitely adjust them to achieve the best result, as different combinations create different effects. In general, the lighting is quite elaborate, and even the default parameters are enough to make the visual picture tens or even hundreds of times cooler than in the vanilla Minecraft.

Just look at how cool the lighting effects, say, from torches, candles, and lanterns, are in a large castle! A special lighting mechanics is used underwater, which is slightly different from the ordinary world and distorts the refraction. At night, all the light sources look amazing, even given that our screenshot shows far from the highest settings of this shader pack.

The in-game weather changes dynamically even in admin mode. Thus, if it is clear and bright now, if you change the parameters, clouds will thicken in the sky for about 30 seconds, then a little rain will fall, and, finally, large drops will appear. Not only do you see the improved drops, but there is also the wet screen effect that truthfully simulates real-world phenomena. The same applies to thunderstorms and lightning, which look spectacular, cool, and very atmospheric.

The snow now looks slightly different, although it has mainly remained as in the vanilla game version. However, the weather mechanics itself has changed: thus, your screen will now become slightly misted during a heavy snowfall in a winter biome. When you enter warm biomes, these effects gradually fade away.

You can also see a rainbow during clean weather after the rain. It will appear only occasionally, but if you see it, you will never forget it. It looks spectacular and realistic, so such mechanics only boost interest in the cubic world.

The Nether and the End

It has become much more interesting to visit the Nether in Minecraft because AstraLex Shaders add a lot of interesting effects to it. Lava flows out with a different animation, and it now looks not as primitive as in the vanilla game version. You will feel the heat from large volumes of lava, so your screen will be slightly distorted, which is quite normal. There is a lot of light from the glowstone dust and other sources there. All this looks completely different, fascinates, and simply attracts with its appearance.

The mobs now also look more interesting. It would seem that nothing has changed, but their textures have become smoother and more voluminous. The light falls on them a bit differently. In general, all this affects the graphics, no matter which biome the player gets into.

The ender dragon now looks very interesting, along with its defensive towers, and the shader pack has greatly changed the overall atmosphere of this location. Thus, you will see an updated starry sky in the End, made in pleasant pink-mother-of-pearl tones. In such an atmosphere, the end cities with shulkers also look cool. So there is now not just a dark sky there but a pleasant environment all around with support for a large number of effects.

We could continue indefinitely, but we have tried to touch upon the most significant and interesting features of AstraLex Shaders in this article. You can be sure that there is just a huge number of settings and that this pack is a great option for both weak and powerful PCs. You can choose which version to install, and each of them has many additional parameters.

Generally speaking, you get two options rolled into one: a cool shader pack with a usual appearance and realistic effects and a cartoon-style variant with the same advanced features but a different atmosphere. Which option to use is entirely up to you, but if you are a fan of shaders, be sure to download this pack and take advantage of its entire potential.

Images AstraLex Shaders