Proper Shaders 11-26 (alpha access)
If you don't know what Proper Shaders is, check other posts or official MixMods post: https://www.mixmods.com.br/2026/05/sa-proper-shaders/
(other updates/hotfixes for this month are logged on comments, updated on this same post)
I highly recommend to use with newer Proper Fixes version, that improved mesh normals for better lighting, and better PBR shadermaps compatibility: https://www.mixmods.com.br/2026/06/sa-proper-fixes/
Updated PBR shadermaps textures pack is at the end of this post.
11-26 Update:
Sky, Clouds:
Ported by Jéssica from her III/VC Proper Shaders: completely new PBR atmosphere sky with new volumetric clouds.
(image soon)
These new clouds are absurdly better than previous Cloudworks clouds! The visuals are much superior with basically the same performance, fits better with the PBR sky (it is directly integrated), and no bugs on SAMP.
New clouds are also includes on the water and global reflections (so you can see the clouds reflection even if the clouds are not inside the screen).
New sky also includes a new dynamic Moon that moves on the sky with the night and really changes the night lighting and shadows. It comes with the HD source vanilla texture, and a shader simulates some lighting to it. Still no moon phases (soon!).
Distance Fog
Integrated with the PBR sky, the new distance fog is inspired on GTA V and GTA VI images: a blue darker than the sky.
(image soon)
It is still based on the sky horizon color, which also, still, includes the blending control with the vanilla timecyc values, if you want a fog closer to the original vanilla game (PC and PS2 presets increases this blending; if you want fully original sky and fog, just disable PBR Sky).
Water:
Ported by Jéssica from her III/VC Proper Shaders: completely new PBR water with dynamic foam, dynamic deform (boat wake), ocean simulation etc.
(image soon)
The water new is really based on light physics, with absurdly good and optimized Screen Space Reflections, including new underwater effect with support for half camera submerge, with shafts/godrays, high definition blur etc.
Jéssica and I are blown away by how such an advanced water could fit within the constraints of DX9 (yes, theoretically, if you took a powerful gaming PC from 2004, all of this would run on that hardware, we are still talking about RenderWare 3.6 and DX9. This is insane).
Decal Projectors and Bullet Holes:
Also by Jéssica, now the game graphics are using decal projector (partially yet). This means, bloods on the ground for example, are now rendered by projecting the texture onto another like modern games does, instead of generating a runtime mesh using the collider model (which is based on CPU).
(image soon)
This way, bullet holes are finally implemented too, using the decal projector system, like modern games.
For peds and vehicles, it uses a different robust solution, to avoid visual gliches. Always using PBR, including normal map, so the blood etc really looks wet and like a proper hole.
Each surface material uses different texture, 4 variations (a good quality-performance balance), and the hole size is based on the current weapon damage (so compatible with added weapons without replacing, customized weapon.dat etc).
Parallax Occlusion Mapping:
Also by Jéssica, the POM, very used by modern games, it is a screen space optimized parallax effect, cheap alternative to tessellation, that adds fake geometry to the material surfaces. Still experimental, but you can already start using it on your mods.
(image soon)
SkyGfx's Color Filters:
Proper Shaders is created using my SkyGfx Extended as a base, but I always wanted to keep compatible with SkyGfx, so you use both mods if you want PC/Xbox or PS2 color filters.
The problem is that many people still don't know that they can do this, or are just lazy enough for this. So now SkyGfx filters are implemented on Proper Shaders, and on mod download, there are visual presets for each style you want. So you can easily install this mod matching more with the PC vanilla graphics, or the nostalgic PS2 graphics (you may want to toggle off the "UsePCTimecyc" if you use timecycp.dat or some timecyc mod based on it, to look right, just like SkyGfx).
To make everything more friendly, you can easily tweak the color filter intensity (if you don't want PS2 graphics being too orange, for example), and other tweaks and overrides for the SimulateHDR, to avoid the graphics being too bright etc.
In-game GUI editor
Finally! From III/VC Proper Shaders version, a GUI editor for you to tweak the mod in runtime, while you play, seeing the results in real time, with detailed descriptions etc.
(image soon)
With this, the mod is also completely stable for full reloading, changing game resolution, minimizing the game window etc.
(image soon)
Even if you are not a supporter, you can check the public devlog on MixMods' server, "Proper Shaders" topic on Mod Showroom.
Jéssica Natália also helped a lot with this update, and she released Proper Shaders port for GTA Vice City and GTA III too, check it out!
(image soon)
Current progress
Full deferred rendering technique (like modern games)
Per-pixel lighting (hundreds of optimized dynamic lights)
Volumetric lights beams
Shadermaps (normal map, roughness map, metallicness map, parallax occlusion mapping). Easy-adapt; streamed.
Dynamic 4 cascaded per-pixel shadows (NVIDIA's PCSS)
Soft shadow mask technique with gaussian blur
Screen space global illumination with AO.
Skylight (sky occlusion for additional big ambient occlusion areas, occluding sky light ambient color).
Tricolored ambient lighting like modern engines.
Volumetric clouds
Volumetric height fog with godrays
Simulated dynamic ocean waves (boat wakes etc)
Water surface
Water caustics
Underwater
Decals projector (replacing the vanilla decals system, from CPU to GPU)
Bullet holes by deferred PBR decals (including skins and vehicles).
Ambient occlusion (SSAO, HBAO, or proprietary SSGI)
HDR simulation with tonemapping (ACES or Timothy)
HDR composition and postfx (fixes color banding, specially on dark)
LUT
Auto exposure
Bloom
Sun rays
SMAA with temporal
AMD Contrast Adaptive Sharpening
Adaptive Depth Of Field
Simple dithered sky shader
PBR sky shader with sky blend
New horizon fog
Improved z-fighting
Soft particles
GPU instanced optimized grass, with physical touch deform and auto LOD
Multithreaded procedural objects and grass generation with higher distances
Shaders lit by directional light
Stochastic procedural texturing
Realtime global reflections
World rain surface
Rain falling effect
Vehicle shader (PBR, fresnel, rain surface)
Volumetric plane contrails
Animated wind shader
Animated pickup shine
First person anti-clipping
Optional artistics (VHS, GTA:CW outlines, Cel Shading / Anime, Fur, Aurora borealis)
Support for unlimited TXDPs (TXD parents) files in .ide files, which helps this (shadermaps) and other mods
All 11+ thousand game textures are already configured with proper values for roughness, stochastic and shadows casting
ModLoader implementation (for mods adaptations)
Public API for modders
In-game GUI editor
In progress
Cel/anime shading.
Screen space reflections
Planned
Lens flare
Specular anisotropic hair
Subsurface scattering
Improve wind/vegetation shader
Terrain splat maps shader
Download version 11-26. For beta supporters on 01.12.26 (DD.MM.YY) and 01.01.27 for the public. Possible bug fixes will be updated in the same post (check comments and Discord).
Sharing is prohibited until specific dates.
Download for PBR shadermaps (vanilla lowres textures; normal maps etc): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rSRcSA9ZKO1z_rAaN2eOGPQvKqF1967_/view