Keeping the Vanilla Look While Using Old Lighting Shaders

Many players want retro lighting without the dramatic, heavy look of modern shader packs. Optifine Old Lighting Shaders preserves the original vanilla art style in every dimension and only brings back the classic light shades. Here's how to check that it looks right and keep it that way.

Check every dimension

1. Overworld: walk from open daylight into a cave and through a sunset. You should see the old-style shading, while blocks and the sky keep their normal vanilla style.

2. Nether: go through a portal and look at lava, glowstone and netherrack. The atmosphere should still feel like the vanilla Nether.

3. The End: check the End stone and the void. Again, the art style should stay recognizably vanilla.

Pair it with the right resource packs

1. Because the pack doesn't restyle the game, it works well with vanilla textures or vanilla-style resource packs.

2. Load your resource pack from Options > Resource Packs as usual. Resource packs and shader packs are managed separately.

3. If the result looks too different from vanilla, turn off your resource pack first. This tells you whether the change comes from the textures or from the shader.

For a full retro setup, keep vanilla textures on and let this pack supply the classic lighting.