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Documentation Index

Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify.com/Luna5ama/alpha-piscium/llms.txt

Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

This page documents the full version history of Alpha Piscium, covering every stable release from the initial launch through the latest update. For downloadable release assets and additional release notes, visit the GitHub Releases page.

v1.9.0

Specular GI — v1.9.0 introduces specular global illumination, bringing physically accurate specular light bouncing to the rendering pipeline and completing the GI feature set alongside the diffuse ReSTIR SSGI system added in v1.8.0.
New features
  • Added specular GI
Bug fixes
  • Increased auto-exposure speed at low FPS
  • Fixed screenspace shadow uninitialized warnings
  • Fixed handheld alpha test shadow
  • Fixed Voxy compatibility before version 0.2.6

v1.8.6

Voxy mod support — v1.8.6 adds integration with the Voxy mod, allowing Alpha Piscium to render distant terrain generated by Voxy with full shader support.
New features
  • Added Voxy mod support for distant terrain rendering
  • Added video render mode setting for cinematic/recording workflows
  • Switched to Adobe f82 Schlick fresnel, replacing the previous HCM model for more accurate specular appearance
Improvements
  • Switched to regular spherical cap GGX VNDF sampling for translucent specular
  • Shadow sample optimization for improved performance
  • Cleaned up SST and ReSTIR temporal reuse logic
Bug fixes
  • Fixed temporal reuse exploding after zooming in
  • Fixed shadow rendering on SSS (subsurface scattering) surfaces
  • Fixed water scattering overflow near sunset/sunrise
  • Fixed time_interpolate behavior
  • Fixed atmosphere depth break indirect dispatch
Bug fixes
  • Fixed a crash/breakage occurring when Voxy is not installed
Highlights
  • Voxy integration merged — distant terrain from the Voxy mod is now supported
  • Switched to Adobe f82 Schlick fresnel, replacing the previous HCM model for more accurate specular appearance
New features
  • Added video render mode setting for cinematic/recording workflows
Improvements
  • Switched to regular spherical cap GGX VNDF sampling for translucent specular
  • Shadow sample optimization for improved performance
  • Cleaned up SST and ReSTIR temporal reuse logic
Bug fixes
  • Fixed temporal reuse exploding after zooming in
  • Fixed shadow rendering on SSS (subsurface scattering) surfaces
  • Fixed water scattering overflow near sunset/sunrise
  • Fixed time_interpolate behavior
  • Fixed atmosphere depth break indirect dispatch

v1.8.5

New features
  • Re-added RCRS anti-firefly filter to GI denoiser pipeline
  • Added ReSTIR Temporal Reuse Limit setting for better user control over GI responsiveness
  • Added FXAA as a TAA history-missing fallback
Improvements
  • Major improvements to ReSTIR SSGI stability and quality
  • ReSTIR now uses full bilateral bilinear temporal resampling to improve stability and quality
  • Uses blue noise in ReSTIR for better noise distribution
  • GI denoiser history fix skips first 3 LODs for fewer fireflies
  • Reduced denoiser history fix leaks
  • Combined sun and moon Sky-View LUT
  • Optimized colored shadow precondition check
  • Improved shadow AABB calculation and cleanup
  • Updated default accumulation settings for less lighting lag
  • Reduced GI reprojection false anti-stretching history kills
  • Replaced bloom hard clipping with soft clipping
  • Switched TAA variance AABB history ratification from clamping to clipping
  • Optimized ReSTIR reuse passes
  • Water volume tweaks
  • Used AABB clipping for fast history clamping
  • Used bilinear filtering on fast history for free blurring and fewer artifacts
  • Used distance between probe pixel position and origin position as fade distance
Bug fixes
  • Fixed atmosphere Mie coefficient calculation for low turbidity values
  • Fixed DH water material detection
  • Fixed DH water shadow blending
  • Fixed random emissive from DH solid blocks
  • Slightly mitigated shadow acne
  • Fixed SSS singularity bug in sRGB rendering working space
  • Removed denoiser stabilization pass to fix bleeding
  • Fixed GI grid pattern artifacts caused by bad reprojectInfo.curr2PrevScreenPos precision
  • Fixed TAA reset missing
  • Fixed emissive bug on zero-albedo materials
New features
  • Added FXAA as TAA history-missing fallback
Improvements
  • Replaced bloom hard clipping with soft clipping
  • Switched TAA variance AABB history ratification from clamping to clipping
  • Optimized ReSTIR reuse passes
  • Water volume tweaks
Bug fixes
  • Fixed SSS singularity bug in sRGB rendering working space
  • Removed denoiser stabilization pass to fix bleeding
  • Fixed RGBA16F atlas size
Highlights
  • Major improvements to ReSTIR SSGI stability and quality
New features
  • Re-added RCRS anti-firefly to GI denoiser pipeline
  • Added ReSTIR Temporal Reuse Limit setting for better user control on GI responsiveness
Improvements
  • Combined sun and moon Sky-View LUT
  • Optimized colored shadow precondition check
  • Uses blue noise in ReSTIR for better noise distribution
  • Reduced denoiser history fix leaks
  • Improved shadow AABB calculation and cleanup
  • ReSTIR uses full bilateral bilinear temporal resampling to improve stability and quality
  • Updated default accumulation settings for less lighting lag
  • Reduced GI reprojection false anti-stretching history kills
  • GI denoiser history fix skips first 3 LODs for fewer fireflies
Bug fixes
  • Fixed atmosphere Mie coefficient calculation for low turbidity values
  • Fixed DH water material detection
  • Fixed DH water shadow blending
  • Fixed random emissive from DH solid blocks
  • Slightly mitigated shadow acne

v1.8.4

New features
  • Added limited built-in PBR support (Foliage SSS, Translucent, and Emissive)
  • Added double refraction for non-water translucents for more accurate light bending
  • Added more per-material translucent absorption settings
Improvements
  • Migrated TranslucentSST to the new SST implementation, greatly simplifying the code
  • Improved cloud spherical shell setup
  • Improved water scattering with a new phase function based on Petzold data
  • Increased default PCSS sample count for better shadow softness
Bug fixes
  • Fixed translucent sky reflection error
  • Fixed Distant Horizons (DH) support
  • Fixed missing TAA clamp mix logic
  • Fixed cloud spherical shell setup
  • Fixed insanely bright emissive from end rods and charged lightning rods

v1.8.3

New features
  • Added config profiles for different quality/performance tiers
  • Added “Assume NV GPU” option for NVIDIA-specific optimizations
  • Separated SSS sample count from blocker search count for better control
Improvements
  • Major performance optimizations on rasterization pass
  • Optimized gbuffer pass viewZ attribute by computing from gl_FragCoord.w
  • Optimized terrain draw normal vertex attributes
  • Optimized shadow pass attributes
  • Optimized denoiser reproject register usage
  • Optimized denoiser stabilization pass occupancy
  • Removed some vertex attributes for passes that don’t need them
  • Optimized SST register usage and ray sorting key layout
  • Optimized GI5 storing handle register usage
  • DenoiseBlur FP16 optimization
  • ReSTIR temporal reuse math simplification
  • Early return branching optimization
  • Updated TAA filter kernel for lower quality profile
  • Reduced TAA motion blur
  • Tone mapping tweaks
  • Moved cloud clear from GIReproject to ShadowSample pass to balance VRAM loads
  • Moved fast history storing to history fix pass to balance VRAM loads
  • Emissive color curve now performed in input color space for better consistency
  • Removed spatial reuse feedback due to firefly artifacts
Bug fixes
  • Fixed hit distance on disocclusion
  • Fixed backward analysis distance check
  • Fixed GBufferTranslucent material ID reading
  • Fixed RTWSM forward analysis writing position
  • Fixed extra water tinting
  • Fixed history length diffusion killing disocclusion fix

v1.8.2

Improvements
  • SSS (subsurface scattering) rewrite
  • Improved RTWSM Backward Perpendicular Function
  • Reduced shadow bias
  • Improved cumulus cloud modeling
  • Optimized ShadowSample pass register usage
  • GI history length filter tweaks
  • TAA YCoCg conversion optimization
  • Optimized RCAS
  • Optimized cumulus base coverage noise
  • Optimized ray sorting by skipping empty bins
  • ReSTIR temporal reuse register usage optimization
  • Optimized TAA shared memory usage
New features
  • Added Shadow hardening filter

v1.8.1

New features
  • Added GI SST steps option
  • Added Color McSpaceFace colorspace for rendering
Improvements
  • Improved water caustics and enabled by default
  • Improved PCSS soft shadow quality
  • Improved denoiser to reduce fireflies
  • Increased environment probe range setting maximum
  • Adjusted water waves
  • Improved Shadesmith tiling algorithm to reduce VRAM usage
Bug fixes
  • Fixed potential cloud banding caused by bad random values
  • Fixed cloud multi-scattering radius setting
  • Fixed solid shadow and caustics mixing
  • Fixed randomly appearing black lines in GI accumulation
  • Fixed missing denoiser stabilization
  • Fixed twilight color banding

v1.8.0

GI overhaul — v1.8.0 is a major release featuring a complete overhaul of the diffuse global illumination system, replacing it with ReSTIR SSGI (Reservoir-based Spatiotemporal Importance Resampling Screen-Space Global Illumination), paired with a new ReBLUR-based denoiser. This substantially improves both GI quality and temporal stability.
New features
  • Integrated Shadesmith for shader release optimization
  • Added translucent absorption saturation setting
Improvements
  • Diffuse GI overhaul with ReSTIR SSGI
  • Denoiser overhaul with ReBLUR-based denoiser
  • Optimized various passes with custom Z-order thread group tiling
  • Optimized various passes’ VRAM bandwidth usage
  • Optimized Hi-Z SST
  • Replaced imageLoad with texelFetch for performance
  • Refactored post-processing pipeline
  • Improved HiZ mip tiles
  • Enhanced TAA with more filter options
  • Improved TAA sharpness, reduced motion blur and ghosting
  • Improved image sharpening
  • Updated default tonemap setting
  • Migrated various images to Shadesmith tiles
  • Improved bloom stability
  • Tweaked auto exposure
  • Tweaked emissive default settings
  • Adjusted translucent SST thickness factor for less flickering and false hits
  • Removed unused sky LUT
Bug fixes
  • Fixed backward SST (Screen-Space Tracing) near camera
  • Fixed HiZ backward tracing failing in some cases
  • Fixed missing sky reflection at night
  • Fixed ghosting over sky
  • Fixed cloud curl noise default strength
  • Fixed incorrect cloud multiple scattering math

v1.7.3

New features
  • Added more cloud modeling settings
  • Added installation guide (contributed by @loveghosties on Discord)
Improvements
  • Improved water waves on smaller water bodies with more high-frequency detail
  • Improved sky view LUT encoding
  • Refactored volumetrics settings menu to reduce depth
  • Adjusted default cloud settings for a better out-of-the-box experience
  • Improved cloud ambient lighting
Bug fixes
  • Fixed normal mapped TBN with re-orthogonalization

v1.7.2

New features
  • Added Time Speed History Reset Threshold setting
  • Added more documentation to settings
Improvements
  • Optimized cumulus base coverage noise performance using LUT for higher octaves
  • Tweaked default history reset for less light lag
  • Updated Chinese translation
Bug fixes
  • Fixed water side face parallax glitch
  • Fixed sRGB to Rec. 709 conversions
  • Fixed cross-product handedness for bitangent calculation
  • Added missing cumulus base noise LUT

v1.7.1

New features
  • Added water volumetrics scattering refraction approximation
  • Added underwater bloom boost
Improvements
  • Improved water volumetrics shadow using importance sampling
Bug fixes
  • Fixed water shadow glitching
  • Fixed missing cumulus curl noise
  • Fixed translucent exploding Z values
  • Fixed GlobalData modifier in VolumetricsDepthLayers.comp.glsl
  • Fixed shadow AABB missing translucent geometry

v1.7.0

Cumulus cloud overhaul — v1.7.0 delivers a comprehensive rework of cumulus cloud modeling, lighting, and upscaling, resulting in significantly more realistic and visually detailed cloud formations.
Improvements
  • Cumulus cloud overhaul: modeling, lighting, and upscaling
Bug fixes
  • Corrected daylight sky brightness

v1.6.5

New features
  • Added option for entity/particle emissive multiplier
Improvements
  • Added depth write to water parallax
  • Improved water volumetrics with multiple scattering approximation
Bug fixes
  • Fixed wave parallax at larger scale settings
  • Fixed caustics rendering

v1.6.4

Improvements
  • Improved water parallax quality with secant search (fixes random lines on water waves)
  • Improved water wave shape

v1.6.3

New features
  • Added option for emissive particles
Improvements
  • Better fix for downward-facing reflection direction
  • Tweaked water wave detail noise
  • Tweaked water wave large-scale curl
  • Added PBR fallback for Distant Horizons
Bug fixes
  • Fixed wave normal grid pattern artifacts
  • Fixed epipolar scattering shadow vector setup
  • Fixed random exploding water scattering
  • Fixed Hi-Z SST max mip clamping
  • Fixed shadow AABB detection when using Distant Horizons
  • Fixed TBN for DH translucents

v1.6.2

Bug fixes
  • Fixed malfunctioned environment probe reprojection caused by a wrong deferred pass name
  • Fixed accidentally disabled water epipolar scattering shadow sampling

v1.6.1

Bug fixes
  • Fixed Distant Horizons support
  • Fixed AMD bvec compilation error
  • Fixed environment probe not resetting on time change

v1.6.0

Volumetric water rendering — v1.6.0 introduces full volumetric water rendering with reflection, refraction, and an experimental photon-tracing caustics system, making bodies of water look significantly more realistic and physically grounded.
New features
  • Added sponsor list
  • Added volumetric water rendering
  • Added water reflection and refraction rendering
  • Added experimental photon tracing caustics for water
Improvements
  • Optimized GI reprojection
  • Better refraction fade at screen edges
  • Optimized Hi-Z SST
  • Optimized uniform data access
  • Optimized aerial perspective raymarching
  • Optimized performance of atomic writes in epipolar atmosphere unwarp and exposure histogram building
  • Added environment probe temporal mix stabilization
Bug fixes
  • Fixed shadow depth linearizing
  • Fixed fireflies caused by a square-root negative value bug

v1.5.2

New features
  • Added translucent roughness settings
Improvements
  • Switched to cubemap for environment probe for higher quality GI and reflections
  • Improved environment probe reprojection
  • Improved screenshot mode
Bug fixes
  • Fixed armor glint rendering
  • Fixed sky incorrectly occluding entities
  • Fixed alpha test in translucent GBuffer pass
  • Fixed shadow AABB flickering
  • Fixed compilation error caused by shadow AABB update atomic access flag

v1.5.1

New features
  • Added specular highlights to translucent surfaces
Improvements
  • Slightly optimized SST performance
Bug fixes
  • Fixed reduced translucent reflection caused by incorrect Fresnel math
  • Fixed incorrect translucent refraction
  • Fixed SST thickness test for closer objects

v1.5.0

Translucent rendering — v1.5.0 adds full translucent rendering support with physically based refraction and reflection, enabling glass, water surfaces, and other see-through materials to be rendered correctly.
New features
  • Added translucent rendering with refraction and reflection
Bug fixes
  • Fixed normal mapping for handheld blocks
  • Fixed over-saturated color bug

v1.4.7

New features
  • Added wide color gamut rendering and color management settings
Improvements
  • Removed extra fake fade from cirrus clouds
  • Removed unused sky-view LUT layer
  • Added cumulus wind speed setting
  • Auto exposure tweaks
Bug fixes
  • Fixed cloud accumulation during day-night transition
  • Fixed sky going red at night
  • Fixed variance clipping at night
  • Fixed cloud accumulation occlusion issue

v1.4.6

New features
  • Added time-of-day turbidity setting
Improvements
  • Hi-Z-based early exit optimizations
  • Better DOF focus transition
  • Proper atmospheric layer blending
  • Adjusted cloud upscaling for a better balance between noise and sharpness
Bug fixes
  • Fixed vanilla feature disable flags

v1.4.5

New features
  • Added sharpening to volumetric clouds
  • Added PCSS to god rays
Improvements
  • Optimized volumetric cloud lighting performance
  • Reduced god ray noise
Bug fixes
  • Fixed bloom rendering
  • Fixed volumetric cloud horizontal banding artifacts
  • Fixed low cloud layer mixing

v1.4.4

New features
  • Added cloud upscaling
Improvements
  • Better low cloud ambient lighting
  • Optimized denoiser fast color blur
Bug fixes
  • Fixed missing final output color dithering

v1.4.3

New features
  • Added sky horizon fix
Improvements
  • Improved sky atmosphere rendering with sky view LUT
  • Optimized gradient noise with noise texture
  • Better normal mapping strength setting
  • Re-added environment probe direction match weight to mitigate incorrect occlusions
  • Better cumulus shapes
  • Improved shadow edges
Bug fixes
  • Fixed more shadow acne
  • Fixed shadow jittering/blinking
  • Fixed shadow weighting for far objects
  • Fixed missing dhDepthTex0
  • Fixed atmosphere light leaking in caves
  • Fixed cloud relative height by removing height clamping

v1.4.2

New features
  • Added option to change weighting between stratus and cumulus clouds
  • Added cloud horizon fading
  • Added detail wind to volumetric clouds
Improvements
  • Improved phase function for SSS (subsurface scattering)
  • Added transmittance-based early exit to volumetric clouds as an optimization
  • Jitter cloud ambient irradiance LUT sampling for smoother ambient lighting
  • Improved cumulus and cirrus cloud shapes
  • Removed color grading bloom fix
  • Added variable volumetric cloud ray step count optimization
Bug fixes
  • Fixed material albedo gamma decoding
  • Fixed GI reproject ghosting caused by an accidental regression
  • Fixed cloud noise from wrong lighting ray jitter
  • Fixed DOF manual focus

v1.4.1

New features
  • Added experimental Distant Horizons (DH) support
Improvements
  • Optimized atmosphere transmittance and multi-scattering LUT performance
  • Changed GI default strength settings
  • Changed auto exposure default settings
  • Slightly improved cloud lighting details
  • Updated cloud medium coefficient accuracy
  • Improved day-night transition temporal history resetting
Bug fixes
  • Fixed back-face emissive GI
  • Fixed history reset not applying to all cloud ambient lighting LUT layers

v1.4.0

Cumulus clouds — v1.4.0 introduces volumetric cumulus clouds, adding a full second cloud layer on top of the existing cirrus clouds. Combined with improvements to cirrus shape and lighting, this update marks a major milestone in Alpha Piscium’s sky rendering.
New features
  • Added volumetric cumulus clouds
Improvements
  • Improved cirrus cloud shape and texture
  • Improved cloud light source selection
Bug fixes
  • Fixed exploding atmosphere scattering when looking at the ground from high above
  • Fixed atmosphere multiple scattering factor bug
  • Fixed cloud darkening itself

v1.3.0

New features
  • Added cirrus clouds
  • Added Depth of Field (DOF)

v1.2.4

New features
  • Added constellation figures overlay
  • Added real star map rotation
Improvements
  • Improved atmosphere aerosol coefficients
  • Minor performance improvements with warp occupancy
  • Reduced alpha-tested object flickering
  • More accurate GI intensities
Bug fixes
  • Fixed selection/debug line grow issue
  • Fixed auto exposure stopping after suddenly changing time to night
  • Fixed AE trying to adapt to dark color blocks
  • Fixed gamma issue for dark colors
  • Fixed AgX curve black cutoff issue
  • Fixed more auto exposure blinking

v1.2.3

New features
  • Added Purkinje effect (blue shift of colors in low-light conditions)
Improvements
  • Better star map visibility
  • Better ozone absorption coefficients
Bug fixes
  • Fixed atmosphere glitch in space
  • Fixed atmosphere earth shadowing
  • Fixed crazy blue light caused by atmosphere multiple scattering before sunrise and after sunset
  • Fixed R2 sequence floating-point precision error at large index
  • Fixed GI ghosting caused by reprojection error
  • Fixed TAA toggle
  • Fixed auto exposure in space
  • Fixed uninitialized variable warnings
  • Fixed multi-scattering blinks
  • Fixed GI light leak near block edges

v1.2.2

New features
  • Added NASA star map
  • Added FidelityFX CAS (contrast-adaptive sharpening)
  • Added shadow percentage-based auto exposure
  • Added more emissive tuning options
  • Added more PBR settings
Improvements
  • New color grading defaults
  • Hugely improved auto exposure
  • Optimized geometry normal bitpacking for the denoiser pipeline
  • Added shadow map AABB bound optimization
  • Improved bloom
  • Improved emissive
  • Improved vanilla skylight falloff
  • Improved probe direction match distance falloff
Bug fixes
  • Fixed dielectric specular
  • Fixed GI overflow and NaN values
  • Fixed direct lighting ghosting
  • Fixed atmosphere multi-scattering in caves
  • Fixed skylight over-occlusion

v1.2.1

New features
  • Re-added emissive particles
Improvements
  • More accurate geometry-based rejection in GI reprojection
  • More accurate SSS with phase function
  • Better sun bloom effect
  • Optimized atmosphere scattering depth break-fix
  • Optimized denoiser performance
  • Added denoising to shadows; reduced PCSS sample count for performance
Bug fixes
  • Fixed TAA clipping visual bug
  • Fixed GI multi-bounce error
  • Fixed GI color shifting

v1.2.0

New features
  • Added emissive curve setting
Improvements
  • Greatly improved GI quality and temporal stability
  • GI accumulation now done in full resolution for higher quality and less flickering
  • Added shared memory optimization to GI denoiser filter
  • Added fast history clamping to denoiser for sharper shadows and more responsive updates
  • Optimized GI reprojection branching

v1.1.5

Improvements
  • Improved random sample pattern
Bug fixes
  • Fixed shadow blinking
  • Fixed incorrectly warped alpha test shadow

v1.1.4

New features
  • Added bloom pass count option
  • Added Simplified Chinese translation
Improvements
  • Improved GI upscale sharpness
  • Improved auto exposure
  • Used lightmap coordinate squared for base sky lighting
Bug fixes
  • Fixed light leaking at edges
  • Fixed probe reprojection
  • Fixed hand TAA

v1.1.3

New features
  • Added option to disable TAA
  • Added high-quality probe lighting occlusion
Improvements
  • Reduced GI firefly artifacts
  • Reduced GI edge reprojection trail artifacts
  • Used 2×2 bilinear instead of B-spline for GI reprojection backup
  • Improved probe filtering accuracy
  • Re-added lightmap-based sky occlusion
Bug fixes
  • Fixed LabPBR emissive
  • Fixed GI banding
  • Fixed GI dark pixel near screen edge
  • Fixed GI bilateral upscaling
  • Fixed bloom Karis average
  • Fixed emissive surface self-sampling

v1.1.2

Improvements
  • Improved GI sharpness with bicubic Catmull-Rom in reprojection
  • Improved environment probe lighting accuracy
  • Improved TAA history clipping with ellipsoid intersection in YCoCg space
Bug fixes
  • Fixed broken diffuse BRDF

v1.1.1

New features
  • Added emissive strength options
  • Added atmosphere coefficient options
  • Added SSS (subsurface scattering) options
Improvements
  • Render GI at half resolution for better performance
  • Improved denoiser
  • Improved TAA sharpness with bicubic Catmull-Rom
Bug fixes
  • Fixed dark specular
  • Fixed GI ghosting
  • Fixed hand reprojection

v1.1.0

Specular reflections & environment probe — v1.1.0 adds a screen-space environment probe for capturing off-screen GI, along with physically based specular highlights and reflections. The SSS system was also fully rewritten in this release.
New features
  • Added screen-space environment probe (GI from off-screen objects)
  • Added specular highlights and reflections
Improvements
  • Rewrote SSS (subsurface scattering)
  • Soft shadows now use a disk sampling pattern instead of a box pattern
  • Better atmosphere multi-scattering (more bluish twilight)
  • Higher atmosphere scattering resolution near the sun
  • More accurate directional sky lighting and directional occlusion
  • Improved performance
Bug fixes
  • Fixed translucent lighting glitch
  • Fixed AMD GPU issues
  • Fixed log spam on Iris
  • Fixed RTWSM out-of-bound projection glitch

v1.0.2

New features
  • Added AgX look presets
Improvements
  • Performance optimization
  • Added atmosphere depth break correction (fixes artifacts near leaf block edges)
Bug fixes
  • Fixed bugs on AMD RDNA GPUs
  • Removed emissive particles (caused issues)

v1.0.1

Bug fixes
  • Fixed AMD GPU issues

v1.0.0

Initial release — v1.0.0 marks the first public release of Alpha Piscium, a high-quality, physically based Minecraft shaderpack with a focus on realistic lighting, atmosphere, and rendering.
  • First public release of Alpha Piscium

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