Doing lightsources at night

[Zack Phoenix]

So I have been avoiding this for a while but I definitely need to touch on this now.


Since my switch from VX Ace to MV, I haven't been able to use a lighting script to take care of lightsources for me so I'm at a loss of ideas.


I have been fiddling around with creating a charactersheet and set it to blend-mode "additive". It looks alright but the problem is, whenever I switch maps, they take about a second to switch from normal to additive, which looks awful. I included a picture of what it looks like in-game with additive active.


Any ideas on how to fix that? How do you guys do your lights?  Thanks for any feedback on this topic.

 

[DragonVine]

Well, I know there are lighting plugins. I haven't found one that I liked since Khas' for VXAce.


It's not too hard to parallax them if necessary. I recommend Orange Overlay for that.

 

[Dalamar]

If you are doing this with a custom move route, have you changed your speed and frequency to the highest settings?

 

[Ossra]

I am currently working on a plugin that will run a common event while the map is being set up, allowing you to setup the images before the map is displayed to the player (even with the transfer fade is set to 'none'). I have not yet finished the plugin, but you can check it out if you would like. The only real issue at the moment is that there is a slight delay in processing the common event on the first map which is loaded directly after selecting 'New Game' from the title screen. Eventually I will hammer out all of the issues. 


Exhydra Map Transfer Common Event 1.05


You can also do something similar with an event. Set the trigger of the event to 'autorun' and set the frequency to 'highest', then place the following commands into the contents :


◆Script：$gameScreen._brightness = 0;
◆Show Picture：#1, logo, Upper Left (0,0), (100%,100%), 255, Normal
◆Wait：5 frames
◆Fadein Screen
◆Erase Event


This will immediately set the screen brightness to zero (black screen) and allow you to do whatever you want until you call the 'Fadein Screen' command. The whole process will appear seamless to the player.


Personally, I miss Khas Awesome Light Effects because it made lighting effortless, but going the image overlay route is not too terrible, either. Here is the set up I am using in MV now (end result, picture overlay, picture settings). The only picture is the overlay, everything else is the tileset or an event.

 

 
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[Zack Phoenix]

@Dalamar, this was actually helping! Why didn't I notice this myself? It instantly changes now and it's just the way I wanted, thanks!


@Exhydra I'm considering doing this for interiors to get the atmosphere right and will keep your plugin in mind because that sounds pretty handy.