Give one map its own light for morning, noon, evening and night, save time-of-day presets, fix a map at one time of day, and add drifting cloud shadows.
Map Time of Day & Cloud Shadows
Every map follows the world clock: morning, noon, evening and night. A map can have its own light for each of those phases, like RPG Maker U2U's Time of Day effect: a main light, a sub light, how strong its ambient light is, the colour around the map, and a flicker at night. You can save the four phases as a preset and use it on any map, fix a map at one time of day, and give a map cloud shadows that drift over it.
Where to author it#
| What | Where |
|---|---|
| Light per phase, presets | Map Editor → open a map → Map Properties → Atmosphere → Time of day |
| The light colour of each phase | Map Properties → Atmosphere → Light |
| Cloud shadows | Map Properties → Atmosphere → Shadows → Cloud shadows on this map |
Set up a map's time-of-day light#
- Open the map and click Map Properties, then the Atmosphere tab.
- Under Time of day, pick a Time-of-day light preset: Temperate, Desert, Dusk-heavy, or one your project saved. The four phase sections below fill in.
- Change any value in a phase section: tick a colour to use your own, drag a strength.
- To see a phase, pick it in This map is drawn at, or turn on the map view's Time of Day preview.
- To keep this light for other maps, type a name next to Save as preset and press it. The preset is saved for the whole project at once (Map Properties does not need saving for that).
- Click Save in Map Properties to keep the map's own values.
Fields of each phase#
Morning, Noon, Evening (the clock's dusk) and Night each have these. A field you leave alone is the engine's default, which changes nothing.
| Field | What it does | Range | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| Main light (colour) | Tints the whole map's light | any colour | white |
| Main light strength | Brightens or darkens the whole map | 0 to 2 | 1 |
| Sub light (colour) | A fill light that lifts the darkest parts (a blue sub light keeps night shadows blue, not black) | any colour | black (none) |
| Sub light strength | How much of the sub light is added | 0 to 1 | 0 |
| Ambient strength | Scales the phase's light colour from the Light section | 0 to 2 | 1 |
| Colour around the map | The colour players see past the map's edges, where nothing is drawn | any colour | the game's dark blue |
| Night light flickers (night only) | The night light wavers a little, like candle light | on / off | off |
| Flicker amount (night only) | How much it wavers | 5% to 100% | 30% when switched on |
Dawn blends between night and morning, afternoon between noon and evening.
Presets#
| Preset | What it is |
|---|---|
| Engine default | No light of the map's own: removes the four phases' values |
| Temperate | Soft warm mornings, white noon, orange evening, cool blue night |
| Desert | Bright hot noon, strong orange evening, clear night |
| Dusk-heavy | Long, deep red-orange evening and a dark night with a slight flicker |
| Your saved presets | The four phases (and their light colours) of the map you saved them from. Delete preset removes the one selected |
A preset sets the four phases; you can change any value afterwards. The menu then shows This map's own values.
Fix a map at one time of day#
This map is drawn at (Time of day) draws the map at one phase always, for example a cave at night. The clock on screen keeps the world's time, and spawns, events, shops and stealth still follow it. Night Only objects and lamps follow the phase the map is drawn at.
Cloud shadows#
| Field | What it does | Range |
|---|---|---|
| Cloud shadows on this map | On: soft dark patches drift over the map. Off: only the weather's own | On / Off |
| Darkness | How dark the patches are | 5% to 100% |
| Drift speed | Tiles a second | 0 to 4 |
| Drift towards | The way they move | 8 directions |
| Patch size | 1 = the weather's own cloud size | 0.5 to 4 |
When the weather brings darker clouds, the weather's are drawn instead.
Copilot#
zone-atmosphere-set takes todLight (per phase: mainColor, mainIntensity, subColor, subIntensity, ambientIntensity, backgroundColor, night flicker), cloudShadows and todPreset (a preset by name). Run it with a dry run first: it shows what the map would store and notes what phones do not draw.
Gotchas#
- Phones and Medium / Low graphics do not draw cloud shadows. High, Ultra and Auto do. The time-of-day light is drawn everywhere.
- Reduced motion stops the night flicker. Players who turn it on see a steady night.
- A fixed time of day changes only how the map is drawn. It does not move the clock.
- Presets belong to the project. Saving or deleting one is saved at once; applying one changes only the map you have open, until you Save.
- Built-in presets cannot be renamed, replaced or deleted. Save under another name.
- Imported RPG Maker U2U maps: Fix Time of Day becomes This map is drawn at (U2U's Time of Day 0 is morning, 1 noon, 2 evening, 3 night); Time-of-Day Lighting off becomes Night strength 0; a light preset other than U2U's first becomes the nearest built-in preset, and the import notes say which; a map's Cloud Shadow effect imports with its drift and size (its darkness starts at 35%). See RPG Maker U2U maps.