iterationT
by rutherin
A cinematic shader featuring screen-space path tracing for highly accurate lighting. Known for its natural color palette and film-like quality.
What iterationT is
iterationT approaches Minecraft as a cinematographer would rather than as a graphics programmer showing off. Screen-space path tracing gives soft indirect light, the colour grading stays natural instead of punched, and depth of field puts a focal plane in the frame. Every decision serves how a shot reads rather than how many effects are switched on.
Coloured shadows are the detail people notice second. Light passing through stained glass or ice arrives tinted, so what falls underneath picks up that colour instead of going neutral grey, and a window becomes a window rather than a hole in a wall. Volumetric lighting and reflections do the remaining work without drawing attention to themselves.
Caves can go dark on it, which is the direct consequence of lighting that behaves realistically rather than lifting shadows for your convenience, and the settings menu is on the complex side. It asks for a GTX 1070 with 4 GB of VRAM and covers Minecraft 1.16.5 as far as 1.21 on both loaders. rutherin has since moved on to newer shaders, so treat this page as a record of what the pack is.
iterationT loader support
See what iterationT does to a scene
Read this set as a camera rig rather than a feature list. Screen-space path tracing supplies the light, depth of field supplies the subject, and the bloom is held back precisely so the image stays photographic. The coloured shadows tile is the surprise: it is a small effect until you build with stained glass, at which point it changes what a window is for.
iterationT ships 8 headline effects. Each preview below carries one of iterationT's own screenshots behind the effect name rather than a crop taken from it. Very little of this pack is published as separate scenes, and cutting one frame into 8 different close-ups would mean claiming to isolate effects that the frame does not clearly show. The tiles therefore show the pack itself, and the line under each one describes what that effect does in game.
SSPTSSPT
Screen-space path tracing softens indirect light across everything in view, which is where the pack's film-like quality comes from rather than from grading.
Volumetric cloudsVolumetric clouds
Clouds carry depth and catch light on one side, kept understated so they set a scene rather than becoming the subject of it.
Screen-space reflectionsScreen-space reflections
Water and polished surfaces reflect what is on screen, handled quietly enough that a reflection supports the shot instead of announcing itself.
BloomBloom
A restrained glow around bright sources, held back deliberately because heavy bloom is exactly what would break the naturalistic look this pack is after.
Depth of fieldDepth of field
The focal plane is the pack's most-used tool: what you look at is sharp, everything else falls away, and the shot gains a subject.
Custom skyCustom sky
A redrawn sky graded to match the pack's natural palette, so the light coming from it agrees with the light landing on the ground.
PBRPBR
With a PBR resource pack underneath, surfaces gain roughness and metalness, giving the traced indirect light genuinely different materials to work with.
Colored shadowsColored shadows
Light through stained glass or ice arrives tinted, so what falls underneath picks up that colour. Build with glass and the difference is immediate.
iterationT against vanilla Minecraft
iterationT changes the lighting and the camera rather than the blocks. Each entry is a tool for composing a shot rather than a graphics feature. Read the list below as a rig rather than a feature set:
- SSPT: screen-space path tracing softens indirect light across everything in view, which is where the film-like quality comes from rather than from grading.
- Volumetric clouds: clouds carry depth and catch light on one side, kept understated so they set a scene rather than becoming its subject.
- Screen-space reflections: water and polished surfaces reflect what is on screen, handled quietly enough to support a shot rather than announce themselves.
- Bloom: a restrained glow around bright sources, held back deliberately because heavy bloom is what would break the naturalistic look.
- Depth of field: the focal plane is this pack's most-used tool, giving every frame a subject and letting the rest fall away.
- Custom sky: the sky is authored afresh and graded to the natural palette, so the light coming from it agrees with the light landing on the ground.
- Overall direction: a cinematographer's pack rather than a technology demonstration, with dark caves as the honest consequence of realistic light.
Hardware iterationT asks for
Why players pick iterationT
- Natural, film-like visuals
- Screen-space path tracing
- Beautiful color grading
- Dual compatibility
What to watch out for
- Heavy performance impact
- Complex settings
- Can look dark in caves
How to install iterationT
- 1Put OptiFine in place, or Fabric with Iris, whichever suits your setup. iterationT works under both, so there is no loader decision forced on you before you start.
- 2Download the iterationT .zip from the link above, which points at rutherin's current home rather than the site the pack originally lived on.
- 3With the game running on your chosen profile, go Options, Video Settings, and then into the shader list.
- 4Click through to shaderpacks with the button on that screen and place the archive inside it.
- 5Select iterationT and confirm. Expect to spend time in its settings afterwards, since the defaults are not where most of its screenshots were taken. Start with the depth of field and the tracing samples, since those two shape the picture most.
Two things to know before you go looking for the file. The author has moved on to newer shaders, so the download here points at rutherin's current home rather than at the site this pack once lived on. And expect to spend time in the settings afterwards, because the default profile is not where most of its screenshots were taken.
How iterationT performs
iterationT is a high-impact pack, with screen-space path tracing carrying most of the load. Because the tracing works from what is on screen, the cost varies more with scene complexity here than in a voxel or fully traced pack.
It lists a GTX 1070 or RX 5700 with 4 GB of VRAM and 6 GB of RAM. Treat those as minimums for a playable result; for a steady 60 frames at a decent render distance, a modern card with 6 GB or more is the realistic target.
Coverage spans Minecraft 1.16.5 as far as 1.21 on Iris and on OptiFine. rutherin has since moved on to newer shaders, so there is no guarantee of support for future Minecraft releases beyond that range.
Shadow resolution and the tracing sample count are where the frames are, and lowering the samples costs less than it sounds like because the result is already soft by design. The settings menu is on the complex side, so expect to spend a session in it.
Tags
What to turn down first in iterationT
iterationT traces within the screen, so its cost follows what is visible rather than what exists. Tune with that in mind.
- 1
SSPT quality: the main cost. In an enclosed build you can drop it further than you expect without noticing.
- 2
Depth of field: off unless the shot needs it, as everywhere at this level.
- 3
Volumetric clouds: the cost you pay outdoors and get nothing for underground.
Ready to install iterationT?
Both loaders work here. Our walkthrough gets one of them ready so the pack itself is a two-minute job afterwards.
Installation GuideSomewhere to run iterationT
iterationT is dark where other packs lift the shadows, so caves and night are genuinely dark. That is a different game to play with other people than it is alone, and worth trying on a world you share.
iterationT renders on your machine, so the dark it creates is yours alone: a player without it sees an ordinary cave. Shared worlds are where that difference becomes something to talk about.
Set up a world for iterationTCode GUIDE5 is ours, and it applies to a iterationT world from the link above.Last updated . This page is rebuilt when its own figures change, not on every deploy.