Fog

Fog is a rendering feature intended for obscuring the player's view distance, usually for atmospheric effect or for seamlessly occluding sharp boundaries such as unloaded chunks. While traditionally referring to render distance, there are many other types of fog that can be encountered in-game under specific circumstances.

Distance fog
This refers to fog which is rendered in normal circumstances, and becomes the most notable with low render distance. Distance fog's color matches that of the sky.

Due to the fog's replication of sky color, its color changes depending on:


 * the player's current biome,
 * the current weather,
 * the current time,
 * the Night Vision effect,
 * lightning strikes,
 * the direction the player is facing during a sunrise or sunset

Water fog
When the camera is below water, a dedicated fog in shape of a cylinder is applied to simulate this. Underwater fog progressively recedes with time spent underwater. The color of the water fog changes gradually for 5 seconds. Notably, swamps and mangrove swamps have a thicker fog than most other biomes, which is controlled by biome tag.

Lava fog
When the camera is below lava, an even thicker fog effect will apply. While it is invariant with time, the Fire Resistance effect will mitigate it to a small degree.

Powder Snow fog
Being beneath powder snow will impart yet again another fog effect. There is no known workaround for this.

Nether fog
Being in the Nether has its own fog effect. While not visible on low render distances due to distance fog, increasing render distance beyond a certain point will yield no visual differences due to the presence of this fog. Its color also depends on the player's current biome.

This fog can be applied to any custom dimension by setting the dimension effect (the parameter) to. Do note that this will sacrifice the sky, sun, moon, stars and clouds.

Blindness fog
The Blindness status effect imparts a very thick fog on the player's vision.

Void fog


In prior versions of Java Edition (specifically Beta 1.8 Pre-release through 14w34b inclusive, up to its removal in 14w34c), a thick black fog was introduced. As the player descended below Y=17 in the Overworld, this fog would start to appear. As the player traveled deeper, the fog at the edge of the render distance would become closer until the player reached the first layers of bedrock, where visibility was reduced to just a few blocks, beyond which was complete darkness. The gray void particles appeared below Y=17, as well as in the void.

The existence of this fog depended on a lack of sky lighting. If vent holes were opened up to allow sky light to enter an otherwise secluded underground space, void fog would no longer be present so long as the player kept near this sky light source.

Void fog was removed late into 1.8's development for performance reasons and general community distaste.