RTX Reactor v0.2a Release

EDIT - September 2024:

Hey everyone!

The Vanilla RTX Patreon page just turned two years old! To celebrate, I’ve made this release free for all Vanilla RTX Patrons.

Just a heads-up—if you try out this version, keep in mind it's only the second alpha. By the time the fourth alpha comes around, a lot will have changed. This version barely represents a tiny fraction of what RTX Reactor is capable of today, as it is over a year behind in development.

There may also be issues in this version that have already been addressed in later alphas.
Think of it as a lite demo, and if you enjoy it, consider becoming a Gilded Patron to access the latest release which comes with a fancy GUI too!

Lastly...
A big Thank you to everyone who has been a part of this journey so far. Whether you're new or have been here from the beginning, your support means everything and is what makes all of this possible.

------------ Original Post (July of 2023) ------------

Hi everyone, today I am releasing the first major RTX Reactor update, after its release back in April of this year, this update introduces a key feature along with lots of fixes & quality changes.

Installation Guide
Firstly, if you're new to RTX Reactor, I recommend you to first read the initial release post for guides & more information.
Uninstall the previous version before installing a new one.

RTX Reactor v0.2 In-Depth Changelogs (July 4 2023)

• Detailed MER generation: With the release of 0.2, MERs of all blocks are now calculated per-pixel with much more detail & quality.
This results in a drastic improvement, heavily influencing the scene.

• RTX Water Converter:
Resource packs now have their water textures converted for Minecraft RTX. Previously water would have been replaced with clear water.

• Unique pack icons: resource packs generated with RTX Reactor now have a distinguishable icon, with a nice RTX Reactor badge.

• Underlying changes:
- Textures located in subdirectories of subdirectories are now converted, previously if a resourcepack branched deeper than 1 folder, it would have been ignored by RTX Reactor, this affects resource packs with custom paths.
- Fixed various errors.
- Corrections to the way resource packs are handled.


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RTX Reactor v0.2.1 (July 7 2023)
Setup file has been updated with RTX Reactor 0.2.1, this update addresses an issue with generated output packs not appearing.
Output is now always saved to the same location as input.
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RTX Reactor v0.2.2 (September 12 2023)
This update rectifies several issues that were preventing certain packs from being processed correctly, leading to errors during the operation.

The problem was initially identified with the “John Smith Legacy” resource pack. If you’ve been attempting to generate an RTX version of this particular pack, this patch will resolve the issue. This is a universal fix that will also correct similar issues in other packs

The setup file has been replaced. You can download the updated setup file from this post and reinstall RTX Reactor. (Also, newer setup is RTX Reactor themed!)
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Notes:
I once mentioned on Discord that it would be unrealistic to expect RTX Reactor to surpass human work, that was before I started serious development, and it's becoming false as RTX Reactor advances & the quality of the generated packs drastically improves.

One year later, I'm adding this paragraph in 2024, and what I had said is becoming true! RTX Reactor, in many scenarios manages to surpass average works of a resource pack author in terms of quality, and that's just the beginning...

To better understand what I mean: you might've seen several Vanilla resource pack conversions for Minecraft RTX out there, I believe RTX Reactor will be capable of generating results from vanilla template resources that will be better in many ways.
With this release, the process could take slightly longer, I expect the same trend to continue in the future as the process gets more and more complex, so have patience and let the app do its work!

In the previous post, I explained how you can help with development of RTX Reactor & lots of you reported issues that are now addressed in this release.
Feel free to contact me whenever you face any issues with any particular resource pack.
There are thousands of resource packs out there & you'll never know what to expect.

RTX Reactor 0.2 lays a firm foundation for even greater things to come, many things have changed in the background to allow future features to exist.
The general ideas for the next alpha are set so expect it soon! You can follow the development progress on Discord.
See you in the next post!