Westera
Bringing Minecraft into the modern age of computer graphics.
Circle in a square hole
Minecraft was created to look retro. This is not saying that Minecraft looks bad, just that it has a very specific pixelated and simplistic art style. When the now popular shaders mods first appeared, it almost seemed impossible that Minecraft could look like anything other than what it was designed to look like. Today, shaders add functionality that I could only ever dream of when I started playing Minecraft over a decade ago. Modern graphical techniques can now be used in combination with specially-designed resource packs like Westera to introduce physically based materials into Minecraft. Cubes have never looked this good!
Split in four
Whereas Minecraft typically uses a single texture to represent each block, Westera uses up to four. One texture defines the typical color data, but shaders allow me to utilize other kinds of maps. Normal maps are used to control bump data and parallax occlusion mapping. Specular maps use different color channels to control smoothness, Fresnel, metallic data, subsurface scattering, and porosity for when it rains in the game. An optional emission map allows me to control which parts of the block or model are emissive, which opens up some lovely opportunities for more realistic lamps and light sources. Shaders have essentially opened the door to the industry standard PBR workflow in Minecraft. Specifically, LabPBR is a format made just for creating packs like Westera.
Tools for the job
For the longest time, I had been creating all my maps manually using Krita. It was incredibly slow, and allowed for minimal flexibility once I had saved the maps as PNGs. I was introduced to PixelGraph, a program created by a developer that intended to assist texture artists with the PBR workflow. It was a lifesaver, and I now use it exclusively. I occasionally still utilize Krita for more detailed image editing, but PixelGraph adds features that have significantly sped up my texture workflow. I'm incredibly thankful that I was introduced to it. Textures for the pack are sourced from websites like textures.com and from photos I take with my own phone. Creating the pack is essentially free, and marketing it is as easy as making engaging videos on Tiktok.
