Skip to main content

Rendering pipeline

The client replaces parts of Minecraft's renderer to get the compositing that a game engine needs. The stages below run in order each frame.

Render phases​

The image is built in phases, and post-processing effects pick a phase:

  • World render: the scene, including entities, blocks, and the fog.
  • Post render: composited full-screen passes on top of the world.

Effects choose their phase through PostEffectConfig. Cutscene fades (black, star, circle, cinematic) run on POST_RENDER with a high priority so they sit on top of everything.

Post effects​

A post effect is a screen-space shader bound to a priority and a set of uniforms. The PostEffectManager owns the effect handles:

  • Conditional effects run only while their condition is true and fade when it updates.
  • Blur and vignette take a uniform like Radius or Intensity, either constant or driven by a supplier.
  • Screen effects are timed: a name, an intro, a hold, an outro, and a lerp type. The intensity is computed per frame and pushed into the Intensity uniform.

Because intensities are lerped on a curve, fades look smooth rather than instant.

Depth​

Depth passes capture the world depth in a texture that post effects can read. The depth snapshot is what lets depth-aware effects know where the nearest surface is before they blend.

Particles​

Particles are little quads with a lifetime, a render layer (opaque or translucent), and keyframed data. Keyframe sequences define size, color, and velocity over time; the particle interpolates between keyframes with the chosen easing. Particles render in their layer, so translucent ones blend and opaque ones write depth normally.

Skybox​

The custom skybox is a separate render path. When CUSTOM_SKYBOX is enabled, the engine replaces the vanilla sky with its own renderer. The config also controls whether that path is active at all.