Changing Sun Azimuth Angle with Vanilla RTX
Added 2023-08-18 18:05:01 +0000 UTCHello everyone!
I have some great news to share with you, with the latest Minecraft Preview, you can now change the sun’s azimuth angle with ray tracing! This means that it is possible to adjust the direction of the sunlight and the shadows in your world, creating more realistic and dynamic environments.
This uses features available in the latest Minecraft Preview (1.20.30.22)
So as of now, if you want to try it out you are limited to preview versions, however this might change with the future and I will be keeping this post updated.
How to use it?
1. Make sure you’re using the Minecraft Preview version 1.20.30.22.
2. Download and install the “Sun-Azimuth.mcpack” file from this post.
3. Go to the World Creation/Edit menu and enable the “Caves & Cliffs” option under the Experiments tab, as shown in this picture:
4. Enable the “Vanilla RTX” and “Sun Azimuth” resource packs in your world settings, as shown in the picture below:
(You can download Sun Azimuth patch from this post, and if you're not a patron, download Vanilla RTX from this page or its GitHub repository)
5. Join your world and enjoy!
Notes:
Ultimately, this is a great enhancement for ray tracing. As soon as I first tried Minecraft RTX, I realized that this feature was missing. It is also a highly requested feature on the Minecraft feedback website, but it seems to be an accidental result of the features that the deferred renderer introduced. There is no mention of it in the changelogs, and the documentation even states that it is not supposed to work with the ray tracing pipeline. And indeed, it has some glitches, such as the sun’s azimuth angle flipping signs at sunrise and sunset. But I think that’s a minor issue compared to the benefits of this feature. So, all hail sun's angle!
