I plunked my $10 down to try out Sonic Ether’s Unbelievable Shaders (SEUS), PTGI E6, for Minecraft. These shaders include ray-tracing, path-tracing, and other effects. They’re not the easiest thing to install: you need Forge, then need OptiFine, then SEUS (but not the old SEUS), and adding something like the Realistico resource pack with high-res normal and specular maps makes it all that much better.

I toured around our ancient (circa 2010-2014) world and made a short video of the results. Here’s an album showing some of the effects (and some of the limitations).

Overall I love the look – it adds a solidity and realism to the world. That said, it’s a bit difficult to see while underground vs. vanilla Minecraft. OptiFine has a “have the torch in hand illuminate the area” which SEUS doesn’t support, so dark areas are, by default, quite dark indeed. So, great for touring around, more challenging if building underground.

Here’s a shot with bump and specular maps, some reflection of the environment, and ripples from rain. If you just can’t get enough, here’s a way-too-large album I made mostly for our players.