RMMV Community Lighting MV & MZ

[AfroditeOhki]

You can get a similar effect without a plugin
A simple implementation but quite effective
View attachment 167364
By using the summon portals and tweaking its opacity you can get this effect in an event which you can then copy and paste across any windows in your game.
View attachment 167365
Can also switch between yellow and blue portal if you want moonlight.

I do similar already with doodads, but would this draw "above" this plug-in's darkness? The intention here is to have something lit up, so I need the shape to void the dark tint made by the plugin.

 

[Monkeynugget]

So the gif in the screenshot is with plugin applied to that map so yes. though doodads in theory would work the same provided your load order is correct

 

[Frostorm]

Thank you for this plugin! I've tried Khas, OcRam, and finally this plugin. I must say, this one is the winner for me cuz all I needed was a simple fog of war for my caves. I didn't need all the extra feature fluff that other plugins come w/. So thx for making this so lightweight.

 

[AfroditeOhki]

I have another question!

Is there any way to make this work with Mog's Time System? If I configure it to the same variables for Hours, Minutes and Seconds that Mog's plugin uses, would that work or would they conflict?

Edit: I made it work by setting Mog's Time to call common events, and set common events to adjust the lighting.


Aaaand a suggestion if anyone would be so kind to: could we get the ID number system of the lights to work for (map) flashlights too? And a function to offset the lights so we could adjust their center correctly?


Specifically, I'm trying to use these to light my city map:


And using the flashlight function, I get this:

I can't center the light to its correct place, even if I place it in another, transparent event - and if I mess with the placing of the lamp's sprite to match the light instead, the entire map looks wrong.

 

[Monkeynugget]

i'd need to see the event setup on the lamplight to see where your going wrong.

As for linking with mog's, this plugin has its own time tracker both a simple and more gradular one, just make them both the same variable or have a variable track the mog time and run it as a parallel process in your maps so it updates community lighting in synch with Mog

 

[AfroditeOhki]

Thank you for looking into it

The event is just this.

Notetag says

<CL: Flashlight 6 8 #FFFFFF 0 3>

In-game it becomes this.

If I remove the note from that and put the tag into a transparent event...


... the best I can get is this, which is still very off.

 

[Monkeynugget]

so on a cursory glance the flashlight might not be ideal as its designed to also illuminates the player (that light above the post)

I reckon a north only firelight will give a better particle effect for such a visual. But i'll recreate the scene on weekend and see if i can come up with a working solution

 

[AfroditeOhki]

I reckon a north only firelight will give a better particle effect for such a visual.

I gave it a try. I think the flashlight works much better xD I don't mind the also illuminating the player/event halo around the flashlight, it would work for a lamp pole anyway.


The lighting system I was using before has an optional offset parameter for every light - you can set an X and Y value to change the center of the light source to the location you need. That would be the perfect solution for me, I believe.

Again, thank you so much for looking into this for me <3

 

[seaotter]

GREAT JOB !

 

[Monkeynugget]

Alas i couldn't get a better flashlight working in
best i could do was moving the lantern to the right via doodad plugin

 

[AfroditeOhki]

Alas i couldn't get a better flashlight working in
best i could do was moving the lantern to the right via doodad plugin
View attachment 168698

Yeah I thought about doing that but then my light poles would be positioned weirdly xD


Thanks for giving it a look, anyway!

 

[DarkSearinox92]

@ImaginaryVillain @Aesica Come baaaaack pleaseee!!! ç_ç

 

[Aesica]

Wait what? Who dares summon me!?

 

[DarkSearinox92]

Wait what? Who dares summon me!?

I, your humble servant. I demand your power as no mortal here is able to get their hands on this project. (if you don't intervene, everything dies here).

Please, see my post #351!

 

[Aesica]

I'm always nervous when messing with the deeper code of this plugin because of how disorganized it can be. While I can take a look at it at some point, there's currently a lot on my to-do list (updating/porting over my AES_* plugins to MZ, finishing up a game I've been working on for nearly a year now, etc) so it won't be for awhile.

In the meantime, you can get around that issue with the camera by setting an event to mimic the player's appearance/position/facing, setting the player to transparent, and then move the player as though they were the camera. Probably not ideal, but it'll make sure all the right lights are rendered on the screen.

Edit: Also, Shadowlands (World of Warcraft) just came out, so that isn't helping either.

 

[ImaginaryVillain]

Agreed, there's so much going on with this plugin it's quite difficult to not mess something else up. Which is why I usually just mess with my minimal offshoot version, less I can break there.

@DarkSearinox92 So here's the problem, by default MV/MZ doesn't have the functions in question from whatever plugin you're using to move the camera. So I can't just call upon them in this plugin, else it will break for everybody else.

But I have a solution of sorts, I have added...
$gameVariables.SetActiveRadius(#)
...as a script command it understands. What this does is adjust the Lights Active Radius to something different than what's in the plugin parameters. So before you move the camera, run the script command to make the radius larger so it won't matter you're too far from the player. Then when you're done, run it again to set it to what you normally want.

If I have the time to research a better solution at some point, I'll revisit it. Also this update is in both Community Lighting MV and UMC Lighting MV, which is already on the GitHub.

 

[DarkSearinox92]

Agreed, there's so much going on with this plugin it's quite difficult to not mess something else up. Which is why I usually just mess with my minimal offshoot version, less I can break there.

@DarkSearinox92 So here's the problem, by default MV/MZ doesn't have the functions in question from whatever plugin you're using to move the camera. So I can't just call upon them in this plugin, else it will break for everybody else.

But I have a solution of sorts, I have added...
$gameVariables.SetActiveRadius(#)
...as a script command it understands. What this does is adjust the Lights Active Radius to something different than what's in the plugin parameters. So before you move the camera, run the script command to make the radius larger so it won't matter you're too far from the player. Then when you're done, run it again to set it to what you normally want.

If I have the time to research a better solution at some point, I'll revisit it. Also this update is in both Community Lighting MV and UMC Lighting MV, which is already on the GitHub.

Wow! Well I'm using the classic RPG Maker move camera. No script! However I think this way can easily fix the problem. If someone wants to move the camera, in this case, to show something in the same room, the lights will remain active because previously you increase the radius.

That way I would say the problem is solved, but if you can find something cooler, it would be top!

Thanks guys <3

I guess how difficult it is to move around the script anyway, but I thought by remaking it you had put some order in the code. It is not so?

I'm afraid that without you two this project won't improve any more ...

I'm always nervous when messing with the deeper code of this plugin because of how disorganized it can be. While I can take a look at it at some point, there's currently a lot on my to-do list (updating/porting over my AES_* plugins to MZ, finishing up a game I've been working on for nearly a year now, etc) so it won't be for awhile.

In the meantime, you can get around that issue with the camera by setting an event to mimic the player's appearance/position/facing, setting the player to transparent, and then move the player as though they were the camera. Probably not ideal, but it'll make sure all the right lights are rendered on the screen.

Edit: Also, Shadowlands (World of Warcraft) just came out, so that isn't helping either.

I've played a lot of wow too in the past, and with Shadowlands at the gates I admit that I have a disproportionate desire to play again. It promises to be an incredible expansion.
he only thing we really lack is time (( i wanna turn back to 15 years old.

 

[ImaginaryVillain]

Here's the thing, when I remade it initially (and likely broke so much doing so)... I made it more orderly than it was by essentially removing 1,000+ lines of unnecessary code. That didn't actually make the plugin orderly at all, just more than it was.

The other thing to keep in mind is that the plugin has a huge amount of optional things it can do, and the nature of the community project means anybody can add to it. So it's very easy to not know one thing will mess up something else without testing it, as it changes a lot.

Of course for my offshoot version, I've mostly torn it down to bare bones and made it super orderly. But well, that was an early version of Community Lighting. I haven't had the time to really consider the changes that people have made to the main plugin to see how I can improve them.

As for nobody but the two of us working on it. It's an open project so anybody can, but I think what really seemed to get people to stop working on it was the Github. People kept saying I should make one, and even that they would only help if I did. So I did, and none of that came to pass. We've had one other person work on it since. My next community project likely won't have a Github, I want people to feel like they can easily tinker with the plugin, and it just seems like an obstacle to that.

 

[DarkSearinox92]

Here's the thing, when I remade it initially (and likely broke so much doing so)... I made it more orderly than it was by essentially removing 1,000+ lines of unnecessary code. That didn't actually make the plugin orderly at all, just more than it was.

The other thing to keep in mind is that the plugin has a huge amount of optional things it can do, and the nature of the community project means anybody can add to it. So it's very easy to not know one thing will mess up something else without testing it, as it changes a lot.

Of course for my offshoot version, I've mostly torn it down to bare bones and made it super orderly. But well, that was an early version of Community Lighting. I haven't had the time to really consider the changes that people have made to the main plugin to see how I can improve them.

As for nobody but the two of us working on it. It's an open project so anybody can, but I think what really seemed to get people to stop working on it was the Github. People kept saying I should make one, and even that they would only help if I did. So I did, and none of that came to pass. We've had one other person work on it since. My next community project likely won't have a Github, I want people to feel like they can easily tinker with the plugin, and it just seems like an obstacle to that.

It's a weird thing, because Github was born for programmers and pretty much any other project outside of RPG Maker that I had a chance to test / try was on github. Any. I also talk to you about official things. They are usually always all on github ...

It is just a portal where there is the possibility to collaborate on a code and to insert certain changes. If you want to tinker with the code you copy / paste it to your local editor and work on it.

My side, what I can say is that you are perhaps the few super users willing to work together to do something nice for everyone. Really, people like you are rare. Others do it only for money or for their own interests. I have rarely seen projects like this where it is done for the community. Much respect for you two ...

 

[Featherbrain]

Just chiming in to mention I've been tinkering with these plugins lately while revamping my time system. I hadn't messed with lighting previously and I'm not sure how Terrax performed, but both UMC and Community Lighting run lighter than I expected. No performance hit noticed on my machine, at least. I ended up going with Community over UMC mainly for built-in tint fading, but I also use the hour/time portion to organize the tints for each hour (although I handle the actual time progression separately myself). Anyway, it all seems well done. Thanks for putting it together! The code does look... complicated... and I doubt I'll have occasion to add or change anything, but I'll be happy to share anything I come up with.