Best 1.21 Minecraft Bedrock Shaders & how to install them

Jessica Filby
minecraft bedrock shader

Minecraft Bedrock Shaders let you adjust the visuals of Mojang’s beloved sandbox game. There are a lot of available options, so we’ve put together a full list of recommendations, and how you can install them below.

The classic graphics of Minecraft have remained mostly unchanged over the years but that’s left room for fans to develop Bedrock Shaders to enhance the visuals. With them, the in-game shadows, textures, and lighting can change.

So, whether you’re seeking a picturesque seed or yearning for a stunning location to build your next house idea, you should try these Shaders for Minecraft Bedrock.

Best Minecraft Bedrock Shaders

There are a lot of Shaders out there, which makes it tricky to find the very best ones in 2024.

Luckily, we’ve got you covered with our standout recommendations below. All of these will significantly enhance Minecraft’s visuals in one way or another.

Sonic Ether’s Unbelievable Shaders

Working wonderfully with Optifine, Sonic Ether’s Unbelievable Shaders is a fantastic shader to use in your Minecraft Bedrock world.

Sonic Ether Minecraft Shader

Unlike many others, Sonic Ether’s Unbelievable Shader brings a realistic feel to the game, with upgraded wood textures, bookshelf designs, and beautiful water aesthetics. It’s not a world away from traditional Minecraft, but is enough to feel like a significant upgrade.

Slidurs Vibrant Shaders

Slidur has always been one of the best Bedrock Shaders to download and this still remains the case in 2024.

A bright forest in Minecraft using a shader pack

Offering what are arguably some of the most stunning shaders available for the game, this download will add vibrant colors to your world.

EBIN Shaders

Slidur’s EBIN Shaders feature similar elements to others but include a particular and unique emphasis on the sky — resulting in some fantastic sunlight and realistic clouds.

Ebin-Shaders-Screenshot-5

Along with the sky is a beautiful design on the waters, allowing the two to contrast perfectly.

Oceano Shaders

Next on our is Oceano’s pack, which offers some lovely graphical changes to the game — including sweeping waves and a warm color palette in the evenings.

A lake with turtles in Minecraft using a shader pack

It’s a beautifully calm design that primarily focuses on changing the design of the water. Perfect if you want to build a great underwater base.

Continuum

Similar to Slidur’s, Continuum’s pack has been one of the most popular as it features extraordinary graphics, including realistic light and shadows to make your world look alive as you journey through it.

continuum-shaders-2

It’s by and large one of the best Bedrock shader packs within the game, and you may even forget that you’re playing Minecraft when using it!

BSL Shaders

The BSL shaders are essentially Slidur’s but with a slightly more soft and dulled effect. It’s calming, gentle, and brings out all the necessary graphics many know and without taking away its callsic look.

BSL Shader Minecraft

It might not be groundbreaking but it’s constantly updated and brings a great addition to the graphical design of the game. Especially at night.

Spectrum Shader

So many Minecraft 1.21 Shaders work solely for PC or Console so it’s only fair to include a shader that only works for mobile players.

mobile Minecraft Bedrock shader

The Spectrum Shader includes a realistic sky, wind coloration, beautiful water, and so much more to help immerse you into your chosen world. If you’re playing on mobile this is by far the best Shader to use.

RedHat BE

Sometimes a great Shader isn’t just about altering the land in front of you, sometimes it’s all about enhancing the sky, allowing every player to stop and admire the beauty around them.

RedHat BE Minecraft shader

The RedHat BE shader will do just that, making the clouds, sun, moon, and entire sky feel like a dream. It’s a beautiful addition and one that cannot be missed.

Vanilla Plus Shaders

As the name suggests, Vanilla Plus Shaders have the original Minecraft vanilla look but with dynamic shadows and better clouds. It also adds mist particles that change color as the night sets in.

Vanilla Plus Shader in Minecraft

Vanilla Plus is a good pack to start with as it doesn’t change much of the original look. However, it does adjust how the light reflects making it an absolute joy to look at the terrain.

Sunflawer Shaders

Sunflawer Shaders is a modified version of BSL Shaders. With highly detailed reflections and shadows, Sunflawer builds upon the BSL Shaders. While BSL is gentle and soft, Sunflawer offers extremely detailed imagery of clouds, water, and terrain.

Sunflawer shaders in Minecraft

The standout feature of this pack is obviously the clouds which make for a vivid and beautiful scenery.

Photon Shaders

The Photon Shaders are relatively new, but since they launched have remained incredibly popular.

Its highlight is the beautiful cloud shading, which changes color and shape depending on the weather and time of the day. It also includes clean and transparent water that can reflect the sunlight to give players a more realistic experience.

photon-shader-pack-for-minecraft-14

Other features include improved ambient occlusion, depth of field, motion blur, volumetric lightning, and much more.

How to download & install Bedrock Shaders for Minecraft

To download and install Shaders, simply follow the steps below:

  1. Find the Minecraft shader pack you’d like to install.
  2. Download the shaders and make sure you’ve got the latest version of Optifine installed.
  3. Launch Minecraft, head over to ‘options‘ in the Main Menu, and scroll to the ‘video settingstab.
  4. Select ‘Shaders‘.
  5. Hit the ‘Shaders folder button‘ on the bottom left of the screen.
  6. Locate the Shader you want to install, and click on it to load the file into the game.
  7. Once this has been done, you’ll be able to see the visual changes reflected when you next launch the game.

For even more Minecraft content, check out our guides for the best cheats and commands, how to make a Crafter block, how to fix eroded badlands error, and all armor trims & recipes.