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The Foliage and Weather page
By Ryleigh Newman · Published
The Foliage & Weather page in Rockstar Shaders holds seven settings: Waving foliage, Wind strength, Wind in rain (x), Snow on leaves, Sea grass sway, Weather effects and Rain streak opacity %. The first five are about plants and the wind that moves them. The last two are the pack's own rain and snow, which is what is on screen by default instead of vanilla's weather particles.
I made Rockstar Shaders, a shader mod for Minecraft Java 26.3 on Apple Silicon Macs, and these help pages exist so every setting has a plain explanation beside it. This page is written from the code as it stands in 1.0.
All seven are tune settings: they apply when the page closes with Done, which rebuilds the shader pipelines in about a second.
Download free (1.0.0) Modrinth (pending)Minecraft 26.3, Fabric, macOS on Apple silicon. Install guide. Releases and bug reports on GitHub.
Waving foliage
Waving foliage moves leaves, grass and crops in the wind. It is on by default. The wind is not a constant: it breathes, rising and falling in clear weather, and it strengthens while it rains. Off holds leaves, grass and crops still; underwater plants have their own toggle, Sea grass sway, further down the page.
Nothing else has to be installed for it. The motion is built into the pack, there is no resource pack to add, and Fabric Loader and Fabric API are the only requirements, as for the pack itself.
Wind strength and Wind in rain
Wind strength is the wind at the crest of its breathing in clear weather. The default is 1.10; the slider runs from 0 to 3 in steps of 0.05. Because the wind breathes, this number is the peak of each swell, not a steady speed: between crests the plants settle.
Wind in rain (x) is a multiplier on the wind while it rains. The default is 1.4; the slider runs from 1 to 4 in steps of 0.1. At the defaults a rainstorm pushes the crest to 1.10 times 1.4, about 1.5. The slider's floor is 1, so rain can never make the wind calmer than clear weather, only stronger.
If the trees look too busy on a clear day, lower Wind strength and leave the multiplier alone. If the storms are what feel wrong, change the multiplier and leave the crest.
Snow on leaves
Snow on leaves whitens leaves and grass in snowing biomes. It is on by default and it needs no resource pack: the pack decides from the biome, so a spruce forest in a cold biome reads as snowed under while the same tree somewhere warm stays green.
This is a color change on the plants themselves, separate from the snow that falls. Falling snow belongs to Weather effects below, and the aurora that appears over cold biomes at night belongs to the Sky and Clouds page.
Sea grass sway
Sea grass sway makes underwater plants move with the water. It is on by default. Sea grass and kelp are part of the water engine's picture rather than the wind's: they move with the water, and the surface above them carries its own wave ladder, ripple field and caustics on the bed. The Water page covers those.
The toggle is separate from Waving foliage, so you can hold the trees still and keep the kelp moving, or the other way round.
Weather effects: the pack's own rain and snow
Weather effects is the pack's own weather: rain in the world, snow, and beads of water on the lens. It is on by default. The pack draws its rain as streaks on shells around the eye, adds rain drops on the lens, puddles, storm cloud decks and lightning, and draws its own snow. Vanilla's weather particles and the pack's rain are two systems; the pack's is the one on screen by default.
Whether a streak exists at all is decided per block column, from vanilla's own precipitation rule, through a 64 by 64 height map around you. The point of that is honesty about shelter: rain seen through a window stays, and rain under a ceiling does not exist, rather than being drawn and then hidden.
Rain reaches into other pages too. Rain and thunder push Cloud coverage toward overcast on their own, on the Sky and Clouds page. Rain drops ring the water's ripple field, on the Water page. And the wind strengthens by the multiplier above.
Rain streak opacity
Rain streak opacity % is how solid the falling rain is. The default is 50; the slider runs from 0 to 100 in steps of 5, and 0 removes the streaks. It is the setting to reach for if the rain reads as a curtain in front of the world rather than weather in it.
The tip says 0 removes the streaks, and that is all it claims: it is not the switch for the weather. To remove the pack's weather entirely, Weather effects is the toggle.
How a change applies, and what to look at next
Every setting on this page is a tune setting. It takes effect when the page closes with Done, which rebuilds the shader pipelines in about a second; the water's ripple field restarts from flat when that happens, so the rings from the rain begin again. A value set back to the shader default is stored as no override, and Reset to defaults on the front page forgets every override at once.
See-through on the front page fades the menu so the world shows through while you move a slider, and holding F1 on any Rockstar Shaders page hides the menu completely. Both are useful here, because wind and rain are motion and a screenshot cannot judge them.
Leaves also matter to speed. Smart leaf culling, on the Performance and Overlays page, skips leaf faces buried three leaves deep inside a canopy; at a leaf wall on the M4 Max it took the G-buffer pass from 6.66 to 7.14 ms down to 6.25 ms. Grass block sides on a slope showing grass instead of dirt is Better grass, on Textures and Details.
Download free (1.0.0) Modrinth (pending)Minecraft 26.3, Fabric, macOS on Apple silicon. Install guide. Releases and bug reports on GitHub.
Related
Questions
Does rain fall indoors with Rockstar Shaders?
No. Whether a rain streak exists is decided per block column from vanilla's own precipitation rule through a 64 by 64 height map, so rain under a ceiling does not exist and rain seen through a window stays.
Can I keep the weather but make the rain less solid?
Yes. Rain streak opacity % sets how solid the falling rain is; the default is 50 and 0 removes the streaks. Weather effects is the separate toggle for the pack's weather as a whole.
Why does the wind get stronger when it rains?
Wind in rain (x) multiplies the wind while it rains, 1.4 by default. The slider runs from 1 to 4, so rain never makes the wind calmer. Wind strength, 1.10 by default, is the crest in clear weather.
Do I need a resource pack for snow on leaves or waving leaves?
No. Both are built into the pack and on by default. Snow on leaves whitens leaves and grass in snowing biomes, and Waving foliage moves leaves, grass and crops. Fabric Loader and Fabric API are the only things the mod requires.
Are the rain rings on the water from this page?
No. The rings are the water's ripple field, on the Water page, where Ripple simulation is the toggle. The rain itself is Weather effects here. They are separate systems that both follow the weather.