Continuity Mod Wiki

Continuity is a specialized utility mod designed to bring advanced graphical features to Minecraft without the need for heavy external shaders or monolithic optimization suites. Its primary function is to provide a modern, high-performance implementation of the OptiFine/MCPatcher connected textures (CTM) and emissive textures formats.

Unlike older implementations, Continuity is built entirely on the Fabric Rendering API (FRAPI), allowing it to work seamlessly with modern rendering engines. It is a client-side only mod, meaning it does not need to be installed on servers and will not affect world data. It adds no new blocks, items, or mobs, instead focusing on enhancing the visual fidelity of existing vanilla and modded assets through resource pack support.

The mod provides three primary graphical enhancements that can be utilized by any compatible resource pack:

• Connected Textures (CTM): Allows adjacent blocks of the same type to share a unified texture, removing the grid-like borders between them. This is most commonly seen with glass, sandstone, and bookshelves.
• Emissive Textures: Enables specific parts of a block or item model to glow in the dark, regardless of the surrounding light level. This is frequently used for ores, glowing plants, or mechanical components.
• Custom Block Layers: Allows resource pack authors to specify which render layer (e.g., Solid, Cutout, Translucent) a block should use, enabling complex transparency effects that are otherwise impossible in vanilla Minecraft.

Continuity comes packaged with two internal resource packs that provide immediate visual improvements to the vanilla game. These must be manually enabled in the Resource Packs menu.

Continuity (Default)

This pack provides standard connected textures for several vanilla blocks to match the classic 'seamless' look. Affected blocks include:

• Glass Blocks & Panes: All colors of stained and regular glass.
• Bookshelves: Connects the wooden frames and book rows.
• Sandstone: Removes the harsh borders on top and side faces of all sandstone variants.

Continuity (Glass Pane Fix)

This utility pack addresses a specific rendering limitation in vanilla Minecraft. It culls the internal faces between vertically stacked glass panes, making them appear as a single, continuous sheet of glass rather than a series of stacked segments.

Continuity uses .properties files within resource packs to determine how textures should connect. It supports a wide variety of connection methods, allowing for complex patterns and transitions.

Emissive Specifications

Emissive textures are handled by looking for a specific suffix in the texture filename. By default, any texture ending in _e.png will be rendered with full brightness. This behavior can be customized using an emissive.properties file located in the assets/minecraft/optifine (or equivalent) directory.

Continuity features a configuration menu that allows users to toggle specific features for performance or personal preference. This menu is typically accessed via a mod list interface.

• Enable Connected Textures: Global toggle for all CTM effects.
• Enable Emissive Textures: Global toggle for all glowing texture effects.
• Enable Custom Block Layers: Global toggle for custom render layer overrides.
• Use Built-in Shaders: Determines if the mod should use its internal shaders for emissive rendering (recommended for most users).

Because Continuity relies on the Fabric Rendering API, its compatibility with other rendering mods is specific:

• Sodium: Continuity is not natively compatible with Sodium's custom rendering pipeline. To use them together, the Indium mod must be installed. Indium acts as a bridge, implementing the Fabric Rendering API for Sodium.
• Iris Shaders: Fully compatible. Emissive textures and connected textures will generally respect shader lighting and post-processing effects.
• Resource Packs: Fully compatible with any pack designed for OptiFine's CTM or emissive formats. No conversion is necessary.