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This pack is designed to work without mods so you can play 100% Vanilla without experiencing any visual glitch. But something will be missing, notably light effects and custom sky. To get all this pack has to offer you only need to patch your game with MCPatcher or mod it with Optifine.
NOTE: to make sure light effect will be visible, you need to set a few video options as follows:

• Brightness Level = Moody.
• Smooth Lighting = Minumum or Maximum.
• Custom Colors (from Optifine) = On.

Adobe

Changes stained hardened clay into pastel tinted adobe-like blocks good for building and pixel art (but bad in the Mesa).

Framed Glass

Adds a frame to stained glass and makes it slightly more transparent so it looks better for modern buildings.

Bright Stone

Makes any stone-based block brighter, pretty much as vanilla stone; this includes cobblestone, stone bricks, furnaces, slabs etc.

Untamed

Turns the 4 classic farm animals into their wild ancestors to make them look more natural when found in the wild. Cows -> Buffalos, Sheep -> Wild Mountain Sheep, Chickens -> Red Jungle Fowls, and Pigs -> Boars.

Unbound

It removes numbers and the letter "F" from the hotbar GUI, useful in case you changed your keybinds or just don't need to see them.

A lot of people was asking me to release lighting effects as a standalone pack in order to use vanilla textures instead of mine. This pack just does that: lighting only, all textures stay vanilla. I also included 2 more alternative versions for people who don't like reddish torch lights or dark nights.

Optifine/MCpatcher are mandatory otherwise you won't see any difference. See "Installation" above for making it work.

This addon pack is not included in the main Pixel Reality pack but has its own thread and Curseforge download.

Another addon pack you can use to add Pixel Reality's realistic sun, moon, clouds and sky to vanilla or any pack of your choice.

Optifine/MCpatcher are mandatory otherwise only the sun and the moon will change.

It doesn't change any other texture and it's high-res enough to work with HD packs too. It has its own thread and Curseforge download.

Underground Biomes

Underground Biomes and Underground Biomes Constructs mods add 24 new type of rocks in world generation layered in realistic geological strata, not to mention rare drops such as fossils. For Minecraft 1.7 and 1.10 only.

Why this pack?

Years ago I was searching for a nice looking, relaxing, realistic, easy to share pack for my SMP server but the best looking ones were either too cartoonish, jrpg-style , minimalistic or different from default, while the most realistic ones took away from Minecraft's feel. And, for unknown reasons, almost every single one was too colorful and/or too dark. So I started making my own.
Also check my interview in Curse Minecraft Spotlight!

Why should you give this pack a try?

• It's probably the most realistic pack you'll find at default resolution: a more believable world that doesn't give up the trademark blocky style of Minecraft.
• I didn't simply copy/paste and downscale photos, that's easy but it's not enough. Every single block has been retouched (or even designed) by hand to blend with the general blocky graphics concept. If you stick a photo on a simple polygon it just looks like a cardboard box with a photo glued on it, that's just ugly.
• Even when I entirely redesign a block by hand, I still use real life photos to pick the colors: when shapes are so simple, it's color what really matters to trick the eyes in believing your blocky world is real.
• Its optimal contrast, saturation and brightness makes for a more relaxing experience: your eyes won't be strained by weird mixes of colors.
• Whenever possible I tried to add advanced shading in order to make the graphics look even more tridimensional. This is not a flat world.
• I spent a lot of time in achieving the best seamless tiling I could: of course you can see repetitions in large surfaces, but I did my best to make it subtle. More and more block variations are being added for increased variety.
• Using MCPatcher/Optifine you'll get an even better lightning and coloring, especially a nice balance between sunlight, artificial light and shadow and custom sky effects; if your machine can't run shaders, this pack is the best alternative out there.
• I'm a lazy fanatic: you shouldn't aspect updates too often, but as long as I'm interested in this game I'll keep updating.

Behind the Scenes

The concept behind this pack is quite simple: squeeze real life photos in a 16x16px box and make it look good and recognizable.The practice was much more harder than theory, since scaling a photo to such a small size makes it an horrible mess...Every single block has been heavily retouched by hand to ensure recognizability both from short distance and from far away, fidelity to real life, natural colors, and optimal tileability. Many blocks where entirely made by hand, but you won't notice the difference.To make this pack I use GIMP on Linux and an outrageous amount of my spare time.

Notes

This is not a completely faithful pack. Some blocks or items were redesigned with one goal in mind: how would this thing look like if this was a realistic game?
Here we go:

• Husks look like mummies because it's literally an undead living in deserts, so...
• Light-emitting blocks (and a few that don't emit light but look like they should) have no shading because there's no such thing as a shaded light!
• Shield patterns have double the default resolution so they look identical to their related banner.
• Every horse has its own saddle/bridles colors, and they change a little if markings or armor are applied.
• The Banner decorations appear only on the front so you can have banner of two different color between back and front. The patterns have no "antialiasing" transparencies because I hate the way it looks like the colors are bleeding, too bad it breaks designs making use of mixed transparencies.
• Alex? looks definitely like a woman because, let's face it, nobody buys the genderless thing.
• Stained Glass is more opaque than vanilla and has no frame, it looks more realistic and generally better for big structures IMO, but see the Addendum packs above.
• Stained Hardened Clay looks like clay sedimented rock so it looks more natural when spawned in the canyon biome; all colors are reddish so it's bad for building or pixel art but see the Addendum packs above.
• Hay Bales look like straw and have no visible strings so they can be used for roofing without being an eye sore.
• Coal blocks look like natural anthracite so you can use it as an alternative block for building rock formations.
• Gravel is more akin to the old vanilla texture i.e. made of tiny pebbles instead of visible rocks.
• Glass is clear 'cause fake reflections as in default just suck (frame is needed to let you see it).
• Cutted trees sections are round 'cause, well, you know why...
• Iron blocks are bolted 'cause nobody builds big walls out of a single iron surface (gold block show no bolts for aesthetic reasons).
• The crafting table is a just a table with tools on the sides. The top is simple so you can use it as an alternative tile to cover floors.
• Diamond and Emerald block are made of many gems 'cause there's no such thing as a 1m³ gemstone cube in real life.
• Furnaces, dispensers and pistons are textured exactly like cobblestone so they can easily "disappear" in a cobblestone wall. This may change in the future.
• Netherrack looks more "organic" than default (you DON'T want to know what it really is). If red mossy stone looks like rotten flesh, just let it be rotten flesh.
• Since the Nether looks made of rotten flesh and the occasional faces on the floor, I made Glowstone look organic as well.
• Repeaters and Comparators have the diode and comparator electronic symbols on top, more rigorous and easy to know where they're pointing to.
• Rails have fewer, bigger timber planks than default. Default looks too much as an horizontal ladder to me.
• Since powered rails are crafted with gold and no iron, I made it entirely out of gold instead of iron with some gold wiring.
• Detector rails are entirely placed on a stone pressure pad. How are mine carts supposed to activate the pad if rails are not even touching it?
• Pumpkin have no carved face until you turn them into Jack-o-Lanterns, which are more Halloween-style shaped.
• Since you get wheat seeds from grass, I made tall grass look like wild wheat. It makes sense and makes single tall grass blocks look better as a single plant.
• Cake has only one cherry/strawberry on the top (handy to know where the center slice is) just to let the cake have some decoration, but no more than one. There's no fruit on cake's recipe, you know.
• Trapdoors bugs me 'cause they should be made of glass (light goes through it but water doesn't go) or be completely closed, but I don't like either. At the moment they're just the same as the grate on the wooden door, but I could reconsider that in the future.
• Double Stone Slabs look like a single, dark smooth stone surface with borders so you can use them to make more believable stone/concrete pillars, walls and floors.
• TNT has no fuse because it's not activated by lighting a fuse.
• Sugar Canes have no leaves because real canes have leaves only on top.
• Jukebox looks like a vintage turntable.
• Mycelium's color is cream white because that's how real mycelium looks like.
• Iron Bars have a regular square pattern, it looks better for cages.
• Bed's cover is beige just like a raw wool blanket would look like, since wool block's color doesn't matter.
• Enchanting Table features an "energy" pentacle with diamonds for vertexes, just an extra touch of magic.
• Chiseled Sandstone has no borders, so you can build a seamless wall full of hieroglyphs.
• Creeper is made of well separated leaves and has a more natural color, so its camouflage is much more efficient.
• Plants use different subtle colorations to make them look different and less monochromatic, especially if you use MCpatcher/Optifine.

This pack is made entirely by me. A big, big "thanks" to Crometeo, who helped me a lot with his criticisms and praises, and to Misa for inspiring me into starting my own pack since I saw her awesome work. Also thanks to Alvoria for being so helpful in the Resource Packs Discussion thread.

I also wish to express my gratitude to the following users who felt like donating a few bucks and, as I promised, got custom textures of their choosing:

• vekoma
• 宋 侑霖
• ScottKillen

• 17w14a: Again, just an update to 1.12 snapshots' new GUI, more colourful dawns/sunset and darker nights.
• 1.11: Just some update to the new GUI.
• 1.10.2: Complete support for 1.10+: polar bears, husks, strays, magma, red nether bricks, wart block and so on; also, more biome colors.
• 1.9.3: Complete support for 1.9+: command blocks, leafy leaves, wild animals, Realms gui and more.
• 1.8.9: Finally added the Dragon! Updated to most of new 1.9 features, includes an update for 1.7.10 too.
• 1.8.8_1: Finally added horses! Also released a new version for 1.7.10 including horses.
• 1.8.2: Updated for 1.8 with new blocks, items and mobs. Now with cloudy sky!
• 1.7.10 UB: Support for Underground Biomes/Underground Biomes Construcs mods, including downloads for 1.7.2 and 1.6.4.
• 1.7.10: Support for Realms GUI. Added animated fire, lava and furnaces, more natural looking particles.
• 14w07: Intended for 1.8 snapshots. Added new stone blocks, iron trapdoor, Slime mob etc.
• V1.7.4 - 1.7.4 update. Added new trees, the Wither, explosions and optional textures.
• V1.7.3 - 1.7 ready. Added Stained Glass and new plants; new biome color variations.
• First release of Pixel Reality - Luminance (V1.0)
• V1.7.2 - Updated to 1.6.2; lot of tweaks and old blocks redesigned, new lighting effects.
• V1.7.1 - Added Villagers and Witch; new Zombie Villager.
• V1.7 - Added a complete custom GUI.
• V1.6.3 - 1.5 final update. Added new blocks and added custom sky.
• V1.6.2 - 1.5 ready (new texture layout compatibility).
• V1.6.1 - 1.4.6 ready. Added fireworks and enchanted books.
• V1.6 - Halloween Overhaul. Added new stuff from 1.4 and made a ton of tweaks, including darker dirt and stone, new bark for trees, new gravel and clay, color variations in plants, etc.
• V.1.5.1 - 12w32a Snapshot ready.
• V1.5 - 12w23a Snapshot ready. Added items, armors and tweaked a lot of blocks. New Faithful version available.
• V1.4.6 - 1.2.4 ready. Added cats, new sandstone and wood blocks, restored sun & moon to low-res, better mob shading, new biome colors.
• V1.4.5 - 1.2.2 ready. Added jungle tree's sapling, Nether Warts, Redstone Lamps, Iron Golem, Ocelot, new stone/sandstone blocks, ferns instead of bushes, better biome colors.
• V1.4.4 - 12w03a Snapshot ready (jungle trees). Added dragon egg and water biome colors.
• V1.4.3 - Added Snowman, Blaze and cauldron, some tweaking.
• V1.4.1 to V1.4.2 - Better looking cows, mooshrooms and sheep.
• V1.4 - 1.0 ready. Added Sheep, Cow, Mooshroom, Pig, Chicken, Squid, Wolf and Pigman. Changed biome colors.
• V1.3.5 - 1.9pre5 ready. Added end stone and moon phases. Redesigned sun, moon and silverfish.
• V1.3.4 - 1.9pre4 ready. Added mycelium, lily pad, nether bricks and enchanting table. Better lighting of jack o' lanterns and netherrack.
• V1.3.1 to V1.3.3 - 1.9 ready.
• V1.3 - 1.8 update. Added new blocks and hostile mobs, some minor tweaks.
• V1.2.1 - 1.8 ready. Some minor tweaks (better contrast and lighting to tall grass, mushrooms, yellow flower and pumpkin). Added Steve skin.
• V1.2 - Added hostile mobs.
• V1.1 - Added water, clouds, weather, sun & moon.
• V1.0 - First release! Blocks and biome colors.