Particle materials

A particle effect names one material (basic_render_parameters.material) and one texture; every quad of the effect draws with them. Sourced · bridge. (vanilla resource pack copy) Materials are declared in materials/particles.material as name:parent entries that add defines (+defines), render states (+states), sampler states (+samplerStates) and blend factors (blendSrc, blendDst) over their parent’s, in the same format as entity materials. Sourced · bridge. (vanilla resource pack copy)

Vanilla materials

Material	Defines and states	Confidence
particles_base	The texture sampled with Point filtering (samplerIndex 0); no defines or states	Sourced · bridge. (vanilla resource pack copy)
particles_opaque	ENABLE_FOG, DisableAlphaWrite	Sourced · bridge. (vanilla resource pack copy)
particles_alpha	ALPHA_TEST, ENABLE_FOG, DisableAlphaWrite	Sourced · bridge. (vanilla resource pack copy)
particles_blend	ENABLE_FOG, Blending, DisableCulling, DisableDepthWrite	Sourced · bridge. (vanilla resource pack copy)
particles_effects	particles_alpha + EFFECTS_OFFSET	Sourced · bridge. (vanilla resource pack copy)

The fragment shader

The fragment shader samples the texture, then multiplies the texel by the vertex colour (the effect’s particle_appearance_tinting colour) and applies fog to the colour channels. Sourced · RenderDragonSourceCodeInv With ALPHA_TEST it discards a fragment whose texel alpha is below 0.5, tested before the tint, and after the tint and fog it writes an alpha of 1.0. Sourced · RenderDragonSourceCodeInv Without ALPHA_TEST it discards nothing. Sourced · RenderDragonSourceCodeInv

Two consequences follow from that order. Inferred An alpha-tested material ignores the tint’s alpha: a particles_alpha effect whose tint gradient fades the alpha to 0 stays fully drawn until it expires, and only a texture’s own cut-out shapes it. Inferred An alpha-tested material that also blends (a pack’s ALPHA_TEST material with Blending and blendSrc: SourceAlpha, blendDst: One) adds each surviving texel’s colour at full weight, and draws nothing at all from a texture whose alpha stays below 0.5 everywhere, such as a soft glow. Inferred

Does the current renderer’s particle shader keep this order?

The shader above is reconstructed from the 1.20.20 renderer; later renderers’ particle shaders are not published.