Valheim Visual Enhanced

Valheim Visual Enhanced is a fully client-side visual mod for Valheim. It adds soft, wind-driven cloud shadows and optional underwater caustic lighting without changing gameplay or network state.

Features

• World-anchored cloud shadows that follow Valheim's wind.
• Direct-light attenuation integrated before fog, preserving atmospheric haze.
• Native Valheim shadow maps remain active.
• No directional-light cookie replacement, so the cookie slot remains available to Valheim and other mods.
• Optional animated underwater caustics on opaque terrain, rocks, structures, characters, and other depth-writing surfaces.
• Caustics respond to sunlight, weather, water depth, viewing distance, and wind.
• Flowing caustic motion bends layers independently and varies filament thickness without requiring an external texture or additional texture samples.
• Automatic fading at night and under roofs or inside caves.
• No Harmony, Jotunn, network synchronization, or additional cameras.

Underwater caustics are enabled by default and can be controlled independently through Water Caustic Lighting.Enabled in the configuration file or BepInEx ConfigurationManager.

Requirements and compatibility

• Valheim 1.0 / Deep North on Windows.
• BepInExPack for Valheim 5.4.2350 or newer.
• Unity Built-in Deferred Shading with directional shadows enabled.
• Direct3D 11. The included shader bundle is built for D3D11; Vulkan is not currently validated.

This build's AssetBundle was rebuilt with Unity 6000.0.75f1, matching the Valheim 1.0 Windows engine. Valheim Visual Enhanced is client-side. Servers and other players do not need to install it.

Installation

Thunderstore, r2modman, or Gale

Install Valheim Visual Enhanced with the mod manager. Its BepInEx dependency is declared in the package manifest.

Manual installation

1. Install BepInExPack for Valheim.
2. Copy the ValheimVisualEnhanced folder into Valheim/BepInEx/plugins/.
3. Start Valheim once to generate BepInEx/config/dev.local.valheimvisualenhanced.cfg.

Do not install the mod on a dedicated server unless you only want to keep a copy there; it has no server-side behavior.

Default configuration

Hotkeys are unassigned by default. BepInEx ConfigurationManager is optional.

Existing configurations for Valheim Visual Enhanced retain their saved values when the mod is updated. The former CloudShadows package uses a different GUID; remove it before installing this renamed package.

Known limitations

• Cloud shadows affect opaque lighting only and require Deferred Shading.
• Caustics require a depth-writing receiving surface; depthless transparent objects cannot receive them.
• The caustic pattern is an efficient visual approximation and is not derived from Valheim's actual water normals or wave simulation.
• Stereo/VR cameras are disabled rather than using an incorrect mono projection.
• Vulkan and non-Windows graphics backends have not been validated.

Troubleshooting

• If cloud shadows are absent, confirm that Valheim is using Deferred Shading and directional shadows are enabled.
• If another visual mod produces unexpected results, temporarily disable it to identify command-buffer or post-processing conflicts.
• The optional diagnostic hotkey writes debug_output.txt beside the plugin DLL. Assign it through the configuration file or ConfigurationManager first.

Plugin GUID: dev.local.valheimvisualenhanced
Version: 0.2.1

Changelog

0.5.7

• Hosted the visual-example screenshots in the public Bellorite-oss/ValheimVisualEnhanced-Media repository and replaced local Markdown paths with direct HTTPS image URLs, so previews render on Thunderstore.
• Removed documentation screenshots from the installable archives; the package README now loads them from the public media repository instead.

0.5.6

• Rewrote the public description to present the mod as a vanilla-style visual enhancement and to make clear that it is not ReShade.
• Added four numbered visual examples for caustics, Meadows fireflies, Enhanced Environment, and cloud shadows to the packaged documentation and Nexus page source.

0.5.5

• Renamed the user-facing Fantasy Environment feature to Enhanced Environment. Existing palette settings and ToggleFantasyEnvironment hotkeys migrate once to the renamed configuration section and ToggleEnhancedEnvironment key.
• Added two deliberately stronger all-day palettes: amber/crimson Emberfall and teal/violet AuroraVeil.

0.5.4

• Added Automation.AutoDisableMeadowsFirefliesUnderRoof, enabled by default, to smoothly fade Meadows fireflies while the player is under a roof or in an interior.
• Expanded Water Caustic Lighting.Intensity from 0..1 to 0..3; values above 1 now reach the shader without being clamped.

0.5.3

• Stopped replacing live fireflies shortly before their natural fade-out.
• Reduced the brightness variation and lengthened the final fade, eliminating sharp distant blinking while retaining a subtle living quality.

0.5.2

• Added smooth per-particle fade-in and fade-out for Meadows fireflies.
• Added a gentle, desynchronized brightness pulse to avoid abrupt distant firefly flicker without introducing C# per-frame particle work.

0.5.1

• Fixed Meadows fireflies on Valheim clients that do not expose built-in particle shaders through Shader.Find.
• The firefly renderer now clones the already-loaded material from Valheim's native Thistle particles, while keeping the effect's own 1x1 texture and yellow particle tint.

0.5.0

• Added enabled-by-default Meadows fireflies for outdoor nighttime Meadows.
• Kept the effect to one particle renderer with a yellow 1x1 source texture, no lights, shadows, colliders, extra cameras, or per-firefly GameObjects.
• Added firefly count, radius, brightness, and enable settings plus diagnostic state output.

0.4.0

• Added selectable Fantasy Environment palettes that visibly grade dawn, day, dusk, and night: warm GoldenSaga, lush VerdantWilds, and cool Frostbound.
• Added Custom palette mode with configurable daylight sun and fog RGB channels alongside the existing morning, evening, and night controls.

0.3.1

• Disabled Fantasy Environment by default.
• Added the unassigned Hotkeys.ToggleFantasyEnvironment toggle and its in-game status message.
• Split the sun-path adjustment into the disabled-by-default Fantasy Environment.OverrideSunAngle setting, preserving Valheim's normal sun position whenever only the palette is enabled.

0.3.0

• Added an enabled-by-default Fantasy Environment palette with configurable morning, evening, and night sunlight/fog RGB colors, blend strength, and sun elevation.
• Applied the palette through a narrow EnvMan.SetEnv Harmony hook without modifying Valheim's stored biome or weather environment definitions.
• Added palette patch state to the diagnostic dump.

0.2.1

• Changed newly generated configuration defaults to CloudSizeMeters=85 and WindSpeedMultiplier=0.8, matching the recommended defaults.
• Fixed the flowing-caustics wind response so sustained strong wind reaches its configured carrier speed with reduced calm-weather drift and no gust steps.
• Made FlowingMotion=false a genuine classic-motion A/B path.

0.2.0

• Updated the marketplace icon with the current Valheim Visual Enhanced artwork.
• Added enabled-by-default flowing caustics motion with a classic-motion fallback setting, without new textures or texture samples.
• Rebuilt the AssetBundle with Unity 6000.0.75f1 for Valheim 1.0 / Deep North.
• Updated the required Valheim BepInExPack dependency to 5.4.2350.
• Renamed the mod to Valheim Visual Enhanced.
• Breaking change: the plugin GUID, configuration file, DLL, AssetBundle, and installation folder now use ValheimVisualEnhanced.
• Changed the default cloud-mask quality for newly generated configurations to Low512.
• Improved caustic contrast in shallow clear water without adding texture samples or full-screen passes.
• Replaced broad caustic brightening with a soft contrast response that keeps dark water-bottom areas dark while retaining midtone filaments and crossings.
• Raised wet-weather caustic attenuation from 25% to 50% of configured strength.

0.1.0

• Added soft, world-anchored cloud shadows driven by Valheim's wind.
• Integrated cloud attenuation into the directional screen-space shadow mask so fog and native shadows retain their normal rendering order.
• Added optional two-layer underwater caustic lighting with sunlight, weather, depth, distance, deformation, and wind response.
• Ensured water refraction moves opaque surfaces and their caustics together.
• Added automatic cloud-shadow fading at night, in wet weather, and under roofs or inside caves.
• Added independent caustics fading at night, under cover, and during wet weather.
• Added configurable hotkeys and a detailed diagnostic dump.