I will dump the progress here :)
I used this jams opportunity to improve two visual things. The first one is more dominant: material blending between blocks! While I personally think that it greatly improves the visuals, I still need to tweak the mask as it currently looks quite rough. And do some benchmarking. And betatesting.
Here another screenshot how it looks underground:
The second change is more decent and finally makes more use of the foliage system I build for the trees: Instead of a few weird grass and flower blocks, foliage will grow on most tops, will have a wavey animation and should give the world a more dynamic feeling. I would like to extend upon that with bushes and other foliage, as well as other props like roots to add some detail. Here a screenshot. Trust me, it looks better when its waving ^^
Oh and another change are some texture reworks, here a few samples of e.g. the new arrows:
It's important to notice that I did not push everything to the latest build, especially the new blending will definitely break some visuals and therefore shouldn't belong in a build.