Vanilla RTX v1.21.40 Release: Tricky Trials Time!

Hey everyone,

A new major Vanilla RTX release is here! This update finalizes support for Minecraft 1.21, which is expected to roll out later today alongisde numerous other quality improvements.

Vanilla RTX & Vanilla RTX Normals v1.21.40 / Release Notes:

• Performed full texture parity check with Vanilla Minecraft for 1.21 (June 2024)
- Trial Spawner and Ominous Trial Spawner textures were found to be changed, PBR texture have been updated accordingly.
- Unknown tile/Missing tile (or UPD-ATE!) block was found to be updated in latest resources, PBR textures were updated accordingly
- Regular vault textures were found to be slightly updated, PBR textures have been updated accordingly
- Various other textures were also updated that were slightly off (usually not by more than a single RGB digit)

• Decreased overall roughness of ice variants

• Revamped all amethyst block and crystal normal maps with better tiling, improved heightmaps, now less noisy and more logical than before.

• Revamped Grindstone:
- Now consistent with smooth stone and stone (edges are considered to be made of smooth stone while the rest is regular stone)
- Revamped normal maps and heightmaps to reflect its shape.

• Revamped cobbled deepslate with better defined heightmaps and normal maps.
- Now follows a similar style and logic to ancient debris, where there is no part on the texture that is considered mortar, it instead appears as though there are layers of stone laid on top of each other, faithful to what the artist intended with the vanilla texture.

• Bamboo Updates
- Improved bamboo mosaic heightmap, there is now more elevation between different parts
- Improved bamboo stem normal map, now slightly curved
- Updated all new 1.20 bamboo blocks with perfected normal angles similar to planks, also aligned them with new appearance of the bamboo stem's nodes
- Updated scaffolding normal maps and heightmaps to match other bamboo normal maps
- Improved bamboo leaf heightmaps

• Other Adjustments:
- Fixed more jarringly dark pixels from certain angles on cobblestone normal maps
- Removed unused torchflower files
- Readjusted all log top normal maps, the curve now more strongly applies to non-mortar parts
- Removed cached textures and file lists as they caused unexpected errors instead of preventing them, and came without any significant effect on load times.
- Improved iron block normal map
- Increased cake normal map intensities and adjusted top
- Updated various normal maps that had plank texture in them to match intensity of planks (i.e crafting table, cartography table, etc...) / other general corrections to wooden 'table' blocks
- Minor overworld fog adjustments, dialed back on the red tone
- Minor corrections to lighting rod

▣ Experimental Changes:

• Added 1.21 particle adjustments for ray tracing
All new tricky trials particles now blend in with the world, such as breeze and wind charge explosions, mace slam particles as well as trial-chambers related particles.

• Fixed more issues with redstone ores reactivity in Experimental option.

• Further decreased brightness of windy body of Breeze

To address all the ray tracing bugs related to 1.21 left by Mojang, I highly recommend turning on the Experimental option in the resource pack settings. This will enable various workarounds, allowing features like the Breeze, the wind charge, and many others to display correctly with ray tracing.


Ending Notes:
Vanilla RTX is now ready to go for Minecraft's Tricky Trials update!

I'm somewhat relieved it's over. Vanilla RTX 1.21 has technically been in the works since December 2023. Despite there being many fixes and improvements with the 1.21.X line of updates for Vanilla RTX, that was just me trying to fit in more into an update that would otherwise be entirely focused on keeping up with Minecraft Previews.

Now, we have a long summer ahead without any major additions or changes to Minecraft (until the next Minecraft Live!). It's a great chance to rework some of the more delicate parts of Vanilla RTX. I have 4-6 major revisions planned for the future (before 1.22) depending on how much I can accomplish with each.
What's next, you might ask? I can't tell for sure yet; my to-do list will either be empty or filled with new ideas by then. But at least I get to declare Vanilla RTX has truly fulfilled its goal.