How to Enable the Depth Map View and Read Distance Gradients

Depth Style Shaders replaces normal block textures and lighting with a clean grayscale depth buffer image. Because it adds no performance overhead, you can toggle it on any PC without losing frames.

Activating the Shader Pack

1. Pause the game and open Options, then select Video Settings.

2. Open your Shader Packs menu (provided by a shader loader such as Iris or OptiFine).

3. Click Depth Style Shaders in the list and apply your changes.

4. Return to the game to see the world rendered as a grayscale depth map.

Understanding the Grayscale Shades

Once active, every visible surface is shaded strictly according to how far it sits from your camera:

• Darker shades mark blocks, mobs, and items closest to the player.
• Mid-tone grays represent middle-distance structures and terrain.
• Lighter shades show faraway terrain and distant horizons.

If distant terrain cuts off earlier than you want in your gradient, return to Video Settings and adjust your vanilla Render Distance slider so faraway chunks load into the lighter range of the depth view. When you want to return to normal gameplay colors, reopen the Shader Packs menu and switch back to Off or another shader.