Vanilla RTX

Vanilla RTX's fifth major revision for 1.21 is here! This update is largely about working around a huge number of Minecraft bugs and enhancing vanilla resources for ray tracing.
It vastly expands the Experimental option and adjusts assets beyond blocks to enhance their compatibility and appearance with ray tracing.

Check out the updated Experimental section and the changelogs below for new images and information on each bug fix and workaround included in with update.
 

Vanilla RTX & Vanilla RTX Normals v1.21.50 / Release Notes:

• Revamped blast furnace normal maps, new style that aligns with similar items.

• Other adjustments:
- Improved chiseled bookshelf normal maps
- Improved cauldron top heightmap with better edges
- Adjusted slime and honey opacity, now per-pixel
- Decreased End dimension fog density to allow sky color to appear more purple

• Updated Chinese and Taiwanese translations for better accuracy (Thanks to hermitisla).

▣ New Experimental Updates & Changes in v1.21.50:
Note: Experimental features and bug fixes are disabled by default and require you to switch to Experimental option within Vanilla RTX / Vanilla RTX Normals through resource pack's settings!

• Ender Dragon's mouth, Magma Cube's inside lava and their eyes, and Enderman, Spider, and Phantom's eyes now glow with RTX.
Note: This doesn't come with ray-traced emissivity, there may be unintended effects when ray tracing is off. In general its worth remembering changes in experimental option are primarily aimed at RTX mode, with game resources modified for proper functioning in ray tracing only.

• Fixed invisibility effect not properly hiding models of the following entities when ray tracing is enabled: Spider, Cave Spider, Phantom and Enderman

• Restored Warden's bioluminescent layer with ray tracing. Warden heart now glows and beats, spots display properly with ray tracing.

• Fixed Villager texture issues (biome clothing, professions, and levels) to display correctly with ray tracing. 
Notes:
This was the same issue listed in the now-deleted known ray tracing issues list from the Minecraft website. Models for Villagers have been adjusted to allow textures to display correctly with RTX while maintaining the vanilla game appearance. Minor disparities or issues may be present, this may be improved with future updates

• Fixed missing clothing and profession gear on Zombie Villagers with ray tracing.

Known issues with villagers and zombie villagers:
- Performance impact may be larger when too many villagers are present.
- Texture Z-fighting occurs at high distances without ray tracing.
- Villager heads may occasionally flicker with ray tracing.

• Glasses of Cartographers, Librarians, and their Zombie counterparts are now rendered as glass.

• Improved chiseled bookshelf book front texture workaround, you may now be able to place books in all possible combinations.
Textures have been manually defined for all remaining states in all directions (North, West, South, East) to allow for PBR texture assignment.
Notes: Prior to this update, texture bug was fixed in the Experimental option, but they were static (only empty and occupied states with PBR textures). In vanilla Minecraft, this is handled internally and Mojang did not account for ray tracing leading to Z-fighting and the impossibility of PBR textures. This fix could break in future Minecraft updates if the handling of chiseled bookshelves changes, since the current one comes with its own set of issues.

• Adjusted Nether Update biomes' ambience particles for ray tracing.

• Fixed snow golem head remaining unaffected by ray tracing, the pumpkin head is no longer rendered similar to particles.
Known issue:
Invisible Snow Golem head still renders as a particle.

• Improved breeze wind animation

• Fixed an issue where tamed cats would not cast full shadows
Known issue: Tamed cats' collar color no longer displays without ray tracing
Note: Vanilla RTX and especially the experimental subpack are focused on ray tracing mode of vanilla Minecraft only, there can be side effects without ray tracing, I will try to address these as time goes on, however they are lower priority.

• Fixed an issue where Slime and Magma Cube mobs would flicker and pixelate their surroundings with ray tracing.

• Improved fix for dried kelp bottom texture; in-world and inventory textures now better match vanilla Minecraft

• Fixed an issue in Vanilla RTX Normals where the world would appear warped and bent when viewed from certain angles in End Portals.

• Reverted all flame/lava and soul flame particles to be fully opaque (smokes remain semi-transparent)

• Adjusted beacon beam texture for ray tracing

• Updated the fix for TNT Minecart and Command Block Minecart blocks rendering as particles:
- Updated models to better match vanilla Minecraft, eliminated lines due to slightly disjointed models
- Fixed Z-fighting issue when blocks in minecarts were viewed from afar; removed rasterized parts
- Fixed an issue where Minecart's geometry would shift around briefly after being placed on a turned rail

• Cleared unnecessary files & references.