Once Catnip Shaders is placed inside your shaderpacks folder alongside a compatible shader mod like Iris or OptiFine, you can activate it directly from the pause menu without restarting your game.
Selecting the Shader Pack
1. Load into a world or stay on the title screen, then open Options and click Video Settings.
2. Open the Shaders or Shader Packs menu.
3. Click Catnip Shaders in the list to highlight it, then confirm or click Done so the game reloads its rendering pipeline.
Confirming Visual Changes
Because Catnip Shaders deliberately preserves the classic vanilla art style and avoids oversaturating colors, the difference at noon in flat terrain can look subtle at first glance. To verify the pack is running properly:
- Walk up to a tree, fence, or wandering mob and check the ground beneath it for clean, real-time shadows.
- Step inside a roofed structure or cave entrance to observe the softer ambient lighting compared to standard vanilla block light.
- Watch shadow edges move smoothly across blocks as the sun travels across the sky.
If you see standard blocky lighting with no directional shadows under mobs or trees, reopen the shader menu to make sure shader rendering is toggled on and the pack is highlighted.