Light Dust

Light Dust is a lightweight client-side mod that adds floating dust to your world. Built with interactive physics, dust reacts to light, weather, and the exact biome you are exploring.

Features

• Biome Based Dust: Dust naturally tints and changes behavior based on the biome you are in.
  
  
• Dynamic Dust Tints: Ambient dust gets tinted by the color of nearby light sources. Fast-moving action dust from breaking blocks or heavy landings also dynamically inherits these local colors.
  
  
• Weather Wind & Global Drafts: Dust actively drifts in a unified direction. The speed and intensity of this wind dynamically scale based on altitude and current weather conditions (Clear, Rain, or Thunder).
  
  
• Action Dust Physics: Block-breaking dust explodes outward in a full 360-degree sphere, naturally ricochets off walls and ceilings, and gracefully drifts to the floor.
  
  
• Dynamic Dust Settling: Airborne dust that lands on a solid surface will stop moving and permanently rest on the floor, allowing dust to visually "accumulate" in undisturbed areas over time.
  
  
• Physics Interactions: Dust reacts to movement, combat, and items. Swinging a sword, sprinting, or raising a shield pushes particles away within a configurable interaction radius.
  
  
• Dust Glinting: Dust particles subtly glint when you get close to them. In dark environments, dust near light sources softly illuminates and fades as it drifts away.
  
  
• Thermal Updrafts & Shockwaves: Particles catch thermal updrafts to swirl upwards over heat sources, and get pushed away by shockwaves from loud noises (like explosions or a Warden's roar).
  
  
• Heavy Landings: Falling 3 or more blocks kicks up a scaling ring of dust upon impact, pushing preexisting ambient dust away from the landing zone.
  
  
• Configurable: Almost everything is adjustable, with settings for performance, physics, and visuals.

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Configuration

All values are adjustable in the config/lightdust/ folder (split into main.toml and colors.toml). The main.toml is divided into categories:

Spawning & Performance

• ambientRadius (Default: 10): How far away from the player (in blocks) dust will attempt to spawn. Keep this lower than the Hard Cap.
  
• ambientHardCapRadius (Default: 12): The absolute maximum distance dust can exist. Particles further than this are deleted instantly to prevent buildup.
  
• ambientBlockCap (Default: 14): The maximum density of dust allowed in a single block.
  
• minBlockLight (Default: 6): The minimum block light level required for ambient dust to spawn.
  
• daytimeLightDiff (Default: 5): The minimum difference between Block Light and Sky Light required for dust to spawn during the day.
  
• falloffDistance (Default: 6): Distance from the player where dust density starts to decrease.
  
• falloffMultiplier (Default: 0.3): Multiplier applied to the max particle cap beyond the falloff distance.
  
• enableOcclusionCulling (Default: true): Uses LOS raytracing to prevent dust from spawning behind solid walls or in unseen caves. Highly recommended for performance.
  

Visuals & Environment

• ambientDustOpacity (Default: 0.22): Base opacity for ambient dust. (Recommended: 0.22 for Vanilla, 0.45+ if using Shaders).
  
• particleSize (Default: 0.022): Adjust the visual size of the ambient dust particles.
  
• particleLifetime (Default: 200): Control exactly how long (in ticks) dust particles stick around before fading away.
  
• windSpeedClear / windSpeedRain / windSpeedThunder: Adjusts the speed of the global wind drifts based on current weather.
  
• disableDuringRain / disableDuringThunder: Toggles to prevent outdoor dust from spawning or existing during specific weather events.
  

Interactions & Actions

• playerInteractRadius (Default: 4.0): The radius at which player movements physically interact with and push dust particles.
  
• breakParticleCount / breakParticleSpeed: Controls the amount and burst speed of dust when breaking blocks.
  
• actionDustGravity (Default: 0.002): How fast block breaking dust falls downwards over time.
  
• actionDustBounce (Default: 0.2): How bouncy block breaking dust is when ricocheting off walls or ceilings.
  
• heavyLandingMaxParticles / heavyLandingParticleMultiplier: Controls how many particles spawn when taking fall damage.
  
• heavyLandingUpwardSpeed / heavyLandingOutwardSpeed: Controls the speed and shape of the heavy landing dust ring.
  
• heavyLandingAmbientPush / heavyLandingAmbientRadius: Controls the shockwave that pushes ambient dust away when you land.
  
• heatBlocks: List of blocks that emit heat, causing dust particles to swirl upwards in a thermal updraft. Format: modid:block_name=speed,vertical_reach,horizontal_radius.
  

Experimental Features

• enableDustSettling (Default: true): Allows dust particles to visually settle and rest when hitting the ground.
  
• enableEntityDisturbance (Default: false): Allows non player entities (mobs/projectiles) to kick up and disturb dust. (Can be performance-heavy in mob farms).
  
• entityPushStrength (Default: 0.05): How strongly non player entities push dust when moving through it.
  

Color & Tinting Settings (colors.toml)

• tintStrength (Default: 0.6): Adjusts how strongly colored lights (like soul fire) tint the dust. 0.0 = no tint, 1.0 = full color.
  
• customTints: A list of blocks and their hex colors for dust tinting. Format: modid:block_name=#RRGGBB. Note: The block must actually emit light for the tint to apply.
  
• customBiomeTints: Define base ambient colors for any vanilla or modded biome using hex codes.
  
• caveBiomeTriggers: Map specific blocks (like modded ores or plants) to a hex color. The mod will automatically change the cave's dust to that color when enough of those blocks are nearby underground.
  

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Q&A

Q: Does this work with true dark mods?

A: Yes. It should work with them. However, you may need to change the opacity of the dust.

Q: Does this work with Shaders?

A: Yes. However, shaders often change how transparency renders. If the dust looks too invisible, increase ambientDustOpacity in the config (try 0.45 or higher).

Q: Will this cause lag in big modpacks?

A: It is designed specifically to be lightweight. The mod utilizes a distance falloff (LOD) system, a thread safe ConcurrentHashMap for multi threading compatibility (so it should work with ModernFix/ImmediatelyFast), and Occlusion Culling to skip particle rendering behind solid walls. If you still drop frames, you can lower the particle caps or disable enableEntityDisturbance in the configs.

Q: Can I change the color of the dust?

A: Yes! You can change the tint of light sources (customTints), the base color of any biome (customBiomeTints), and trigger colors underground using specific blocks (caveBiomeTriggers) in the colors.toml config.

Q: Does this work with modded biomes and caves?

A: Yep. Just add the modded biome ID or the modded blocks to the respective lists in the config, assign a hex color, and it should work just fine.

Q: How do I disable the Block Break particles?

A: Set breakParticleCount to 0 in the config.