ProjectLUMA
by DeDelner
The spiritual successor to KUDA Shaders. ProjectLUMA features refined volumetric lighting, natural color grading, and a clean visual style.
The ProjectLUMA look, effect by effect
Read this list for what it refuses to do. Every effect below is applied at a level where a scene looks well lit rather than theatrically lit, and the colour grading is corrective rather than stylistic. That restraint is the family resemblance to KUDA Shaders, and it is why builds under this pack still look like themselves. Compare the bloom tile against a fantasy pack to see the difference clearly.
ProjectLUMA ships 8 headline effects. The tiles below are hand-drawn illustrations of the effects rather than crops from ProjectLUMA. This pack does not publish screenshots of itself in any location its author links to, so there is nothing of its own to cut from, and borrowing an unrelated frame would misrepresent it. What each drawing shows is the effect in general; what the text under it describes is what ProjectLUMA does with that effect.
Volumetric lighting
Light hangs visibly in the air, applied with the restraint that runs through the whole pack and marks it as a descendant of KUDA.
Shadows
Sun and moon cast real shadows, resolved cleanly and softened just enough that they read as light rather than as an effect being demonstrated.
Reflections
Water and polished blocks return the world above them without a colour cast of their own, which fits the pack's naturalistic intent.
Bloom
A restrained glow around bright sources. Where other packs use bloom to make an impression, ProjectLUMA uses it only to keep highlights from clipping.
Custom sky
The sky gets its own gradient and stars, graded to stay believable rather than to add drama the rest of the pack would not support.
Waving plants
Foliage of every kind, grass and crops alike, moves in the wind, one of the few animated effects here and applied at a strength that never distracts.
Color grading
A light corrective grade over the frame rather than a stylistic one, which is precisely why builds under this pack still look like themselves.
ProjectLUMA in short
ProjectLUMA is generally regarded as the spiritual successor to KUDA Shaders, and the family resemblance is in what it refuses to do. DeDelner keeps the colour grading natural, the light clean and nothing pushed for effect, in a category where the easy move is always to turn the contrast up.
Volumetric light, godrays, reflections and a custom sky make up the feature list, and they are applied to make a build look well photographed rather than transformed. The performance is a large part of why the pack held its audience: it looks considerably more expensive than the GTX 960 with 2 GB of VRAM it actually asks for.
Two things date it. Iris support is limited at best, so this is an OptiFine pack in practice, and the version range stops at Minecraft 1.20.4 because development moves slowly. If you are on Iris and want this kind of restraint, Noble Shaders occupies roughly the same taste at a similar cost without the loader question.
Where ProjectLUMA works
Minimum system requirements
| Graphics card | GTX 960 / RX 470 |
|---|---|
| Video memory | 2 GB |
| System memory | 4 GB |
| Minecraft versions | 1.12 - 1.14.4 |
| Performance impact | Medium Impact |
ProjectLUMA against vanilla Minecraft
ProjectLUMA changes the lighting and leaves the game's character alone. Restraint runs through every entry, and that is the family resemblance. Read the list below for what it declines to do as much as what it does:
- Volumetric lighting: light hangs visibly in the air, applied with the restraint that marks this pack as a descendant of KUDA Shaders.
- Shadows: sun and moon cast real shadows, resolved cleanly and softened just enough that they read as light rather than as a demonstration.
- Godrays: sunlight breaks into beams around terrain and foliage, kept understated so a landscape looks well lit instead of theatrically lit.
- Reflections: water and polished blocks return the world above them without a colour cast, which fits the pack's naturalistic intent.
- Bloom: a restrained glow used to keep highlights from clipping rather than to make an impression on a screenshot.
- Custom sky: the sky is drawn again from scratch and feeds the voxel lighting a plausible primary source, so the traced result agrees with what is overhead.
- Overall direction: refined and deliberately quiet, an OptiFine pack for people who want their builds to look like themselves.
ProjectLUMA at a glance
Strengths
- Clean, refined visuals
- Natural color grading
- Good performance
- Spiritual KUDA successor
Trade-offs
- OptiFine only
- Development can be slow
- Limited Iris support
How to install ProjectLUMA
- 1Install OptiFine for your Minecraft version. Iris support here is limited, so treat OptiFine as the supported route rather than a preference.
- 2Download the ProjectLUMA .zip through the link given earlier and keep the archive intact.
- 3Start the game on the OptiFine profile and take the Options route through Video Settings into the Shaders screen.
- 4Click Shaders Folder, then place the archive into the directory Minecraft has opened for you.
- 5Select ProjectLUMA from the list and press Done, then let it compile the first time it loads. There are no presets to work through, so what you see on the first load is the pack. Its restraint is the whole character of the pack, so give it a full day cycle before judging it.
Treat this as an OptiFine pack. Iris support is limited at best, so if you are on Fabric, verify compatibility before building a setup around it rather than assuming it will drop in. The supported range also stops at Minecraft 1.20.4, so pin your client accordingly.
Performance and requirements
ProjectLUMA is a medium-impact pack, and it performs better than its results suggest. That efficiency is a large part of why the pack held an audience long after its update pace slowed: it looks more expensive than it charges.
The lowest card it names is a GTX 960 or RX 470 with 2 GB on the card and 4 GB in the machine. DeDelner kept the requirement modest, and the restrained effect set is what pays for it rather than any particular optimisation trick.
Support here spans Minecraft 1.12 to 1.14.4. Iris support is limited at best, so treat this as an OptiFine pack in practice and check compatibility before planning a Fabric setup around it.
Because the cost is modest, raising render distance is usually the better move than lowering anything. If frames do get tight, shadow resolution gives the most back without visibly changing the naturalistic look the pack is built on.
Related topics
What to turn down first in ProjectLUMA
ProjectLUMA is even under load and has no single expensive signature effect, so tuning is a matter of shaving rather than cutting.
- 1
Shadow resolution: the standard saving, and on this pack the least visible one of all.
- 2
Volumetric lighting: the main cost. Lower it a step rather than turning it off, since it carries the mood.
- 3
Godrays: the third, worth reducing in a forest and leaving alone in the open.
How many people run ProjectLUMA?
Almost two million installs on a pack that stopped receiving builds after 1.14.4, which was 2019. People still find it, which is why the page stays, but anyone downloading it now needs a client that is six years old.
| Downloads of ProjectLUMA on CurseForge | 1,878,147 on the maker's page |
|---|---|
| Where ProjectLUMA sits on this site | 20 of 26 packs we could count, see the full ranking |
The ProjectLUMA figures above were counted on 21 August 2026. CurseForge is the only platform with an open counter for ProjectLUMA, so anyone downloading it elsewhere is not in this number.
Where ProjectLUMA sits in our shortlists
An even, undemanding pack that earns its place on the mid-range shortlist:
Why ProjectLUMA is not on the 1.21 shortlist
The oldest ceiling in this group by a wide margin: the final file is for 1.14.4. Anyone who came here for its restrained, KUDA-style grading is better served by Nostalgia Shader or Noble Shaders, both of which run on 1.21.
Best shaders for Minecraft 1.21Ready to install ProjectLUMA?
In practice this is an OptiFine pack. Our walkthrough handles installing OptiFine on a version this shader still supports.
Installation GuideSomewhere to run ProjectLUMA
ProjectLUMA is calm and even, which is what you want in a world you look at for hours rather than one you sprint through. Long sessions usually mean a world with other people in it.
ProjectLUMA is installed in your client through OptiFine, not in the world. A calm pack for long sessions works best where the sessions are long, which is a world that is still there next week.
Set up a world for ProjectLUMACode GUIDE5 is ours, and it applies to a ProjectLUMA world from the link above.Last updated . This page is rebuilt when its own figures change, not on every deploy.