Super Secret Settings

This page describes content that has been removed from the game.

 

This feature was present in earlier versions of Java Edition, but has since been removed.

Super Secret Settings was a button in the options menu that enabled built-in post-processing shaders.

When clicking on the button, a random sound played with a very low pitch, and the game cycled to the next shader. Once the last shader was reached, the game cycled back to the default shader blit which did not have any effect. The currently enabled shader was shown in the debug screen and could be toggled on and off by pressing F4.

This option was removed from the game in Java Edition 15w31a, two years after its addition. The underlying shaders remained unused up to their removal in Java Edition 24w11a.

List of shaders

Note that the differences between certain shaders can be subtle, and therefore, to notice the differences, it might be necessary to observe a picture with higher resolution by clicking on the provided sample images.

Name	Description	Sample Images
Default (Blit)	This does not utilize shaders. Use as a baseline for comparing to the screenshots below.
Notch	Uses 8-bit color with half the resolution, with a dithering effect. This is a reference to how many of Notch's other games use a similar overlay.
FXAA	This shader adds a small amount of anti-aliasing (smoothing jagged edges), most visible in trees along the horizon.
Art	Pixels are blurred outward, causing moving objects to twinkle.
Bumpy	Outlines color differences, and gives textures a 3D look. More visible when viewing screenshot at full resolution.
Blobs2	Similar to Art, but less graphically intensive.
Pencil	Meant to give the world a pencil-sketch appearance.
Color convolve	Intensifies/adds more colors, adding vibrancy.
Deconverge	Offsets the red, green, and blue color channels.
Flip	Flips the player's view vertically.
Invert	Inverts and slightly desaturates colors. Used when viewing the world as an enderman in Spectator mode.
NTSC	Gives the player's view the impression of a CRT Monitor/Television Screen.
Outline	Outlines color differences similarly to Bumpy, but less complex. Has no effect on some computers.
Phosphor	Pixels on screen linger, being "dragged out" when in motion before fading away.
Scan pincushion	Similar to NTSC, but without the blurring and much less graphically intensive.
Sobel	Turns the view black except for the edges of textures.
Bits	Lowers the resolution and uses an 8-bit color scheme.
Desaturate	Reduces intensity of colors drastically, causing, as the name suggests, a desaturated effect.
Green	Scan Pincushion and Bits, but with a green overlay.
Blur	Blurs the screen overall, independent of what is being displayed.​
Wobble	Colors cycle through the hue range constantly. All displayed pixels move up and down via a sine calculation. It should be noted that this affects only the screen plane and not the vertices being displayed by it; observing the edge of the screen reveals the pixels being moved.
Blobs	Similar to Blobs2 and Art, but the spots are tiny when close up and big when far away.
Antialias	Blurs the edges of pixels to reduce jaggedness. This is blurrier than FXAA, but is better at eliminating jagged edges in textures and blocks.
Creeper	Similar to Green, but with no black borders and with a higher but still reduced resolution. Used when viewing the world as a creeper in Spectator mode.
Spider	8 "eyes" onscreen with blur in between, similar to a spider's face. Used when viewing the world as a spider or cave spider in Spectator mode.

Passes

The shaders consisted of different passes. Each super secret shader used one or multiple of these passes, and consisted of a fragment shader and a vertex shader.

History

References