MV - [MV+MZ] FIXED v1.6! Optimized Lighting with Real-Time Shadows (new: saving system fixed!)

scriptcalls can be used for advance and mostly faster than plugin commands,
plugin commands can be easier to use and are userfriendly if you keep it
clean like:

"Plugin Command: Player Light1 true"
instead of a long line of dae..... or $lightsyst.......

so when plugin commands are userfriendly and mostly are shorter,
I prefer them, unless only scriptcalls are available.

but if it's not to much trouble, try to add both of them so they can choose.

for me, I prefer plugin commands, unless its not possible, than scriptcalls,
with both, you can make both sides of people happy (advance users as
well as beginners that like user friendly).

New update coming tomorrow!! I've already implemented everything, just making it more user-friendly now.
What's been added:
- light rotation (customizable)
- animated rotating lights
- light angles (angle from 1º to 360º, basically how "open" your light is)
- torchlights! (lights that rotate based on the direction of their linked event/character/player)
- automatic light offsets (light offset is automatically changed depending on the light's rotation)

I love it already, the flashlight on the npc might be a bit to wide.
but as an eye-sight, it looks good, really smooth.

cant wait for the next demo to download =)

Happy you like it!
As for the wideness/angle of the light, it's fully customisable for each light, so you don't need to worry if you don't like how wide it is in the demo video ^^
Demo project is gonna be updated today, look forward to it! :kaojoy:

I mean more the flashlight part, but if adjustable, its really nice.
I look forward it, for now and testing, I doubt for community lightning
which is really nicely done or Ocram_Lights which is also highly customizable,
in some ways.

but if this comes out nicely with real nice with dynamic shadows (like Khas),
and maybe if possible easier instead of regions something else where
possible, than I definitly go for this one, while the other 2 dont support it.

but there is another feature I love to see if you are able too, but it might be
hard, but usefull for my sidegame, when its available and working :)

I will make a mockup for that feature later and DM you to see if possible.
the only thing is, I know it's possible, but on the otherside, it can bring issues,
or might break if not done correctly.

but will explain later this week, and see if it's doable for you.

Alright, all done with the new version, and I've added new instructions in the top post indicating how to use plugin commands / event comments! Make sure to check out the changes in the plugin parameters too! :kaojoy:

What has been added:
- In-game light modifications (color, intensity, rotation, angle, rotation/f, offset)
- Automatic offset change depending on the rotation of the light
- Automatic light rotations (rotating lights!!), with customizable speeds
- Light angle/wideness customization: you can now create flashlights, and beams!

You do wonderful things!

can the general light of the card be customized? For example, in the evening, morning, night, and so on.

I tested it and changed speed from rot 4 and rot1 8 and they overlap,
when I turn the oppesite direction, and overlapped, they keep they same
speed (when I test on rot -8 and rot -8.

int's kinda intresting to use 2 colors to overlap, and it's also really smooth.
not entirely sure of the color change while basic is pink, but it run smooth.

the game was unable to run in the start of missing "people_3" so I just
copy paste people_1 and changed name to run it, but its lovely.

but there might be 1 slight issue,

while the lantern the player hold, left and right seems a small offset of 4px
I think, face down below its feet (instead more to the center of the actor),
and when facing up, its a bit on it's hair which if possible should be below actors?

but other than that, it's smooth, didn't fully mess with the lantern yet or changed
it's shape or more in a cone form.

but nicely done, it is already way smoother than khas.
Keep up this amazing work, this is probably a plugin I'm going to use :)
(plugin says version 1.0 while demo is 1.2, so try to match them if possible,
to avoid confusing)

You mean the ambient light for the map? Yup, it's customisable, but I forgot to add a plugin command for it ^^ I'll add it in the next update, thanks for reminding me :ohappy:

Ooh right! I had removed the images previously to make the demo smaller, I'll add the images back in the next update to avoidany similar issues ^^ Thanks for the heads up

The offset is customisable in the plugin parameters for each light. Just go to the plugin parameters, open the "torch_flashlight" parameters and you can modify the manual offset to make it further/closer. There's also a plugin parameter "Auto-Rotate Manual offset" which is what's being used to change the offset of the flashlight, basically if this parameter is on, the manual offset will change depending on the rotation of the light.
I think I'll add a setting similar to khas' plugin to make it so that you can manually choose the offset of the light for each direction (up-down-left-right), what do you think?

Glad you like it!

Btw, as I specified in the top post, you can use shadow pictures as shadowmaps, for each map ^^ if you want to know how to do this, check out the top post I made, under "setup demonstration".

Note: I've added a new poll to figure out where people would like to see this plugin go to next ^^ Don't hesitate to cast your votes, every voice counts!

I've noticed the lights aren't based on images like kha's. It would be interesting to do so. Customizable lights was the most attractive thing about kha's plugin.

I've added an additional option on the poll for this, feel free to vote for it ^^
The way I'm thinking of implementing it should be more efficient than khas' too, by sharing the PNGs between lights in order to save up on memory usage.

(Small update for MV version: was missing extra parameters for each light type in the plugin parameters)

I voted, sounds very interesting. I always wanted a plugin that would make a functional "sun". khas plugin came close, but it's so heavy. a smooth transition between lights would also be fantastic

Notice something? That's right, I've added the ability to add custom PNG lights, but that you can resize, change the color(tint), limit the angle, and so much more!!! Plugin update coming soon!

Note: Contrary to what I thought, adding custom PNG lights should NOT slow down the plugin by much, meaning that you can feel free to use plenty of custom PNG lights!!
The texture for each light is shared and reused, meaning that it only needs to be loaded once ^^ Therefore, it can be loaded at game start, or through a plugin command, if you want to preload the light!

Great news for you then, it definitely won't be heavy with my plugin.
The reason why is because my light computation is actually faster when there are shadow-casting objects in the scene, and slower when there aren't, and the computation isn't proportional to the number of shadow-casting objects, but is instead constant.
This means that whether there are 5 shadow-casting objects or 50, the shadow-computation will remain the same (the only extra computation between these two cases is the time it takes to draw the shadow-casting sprites if they are static (in the beginning), or move the shadow-casting sprites if they are dynamic (at runtime)).

Also keep in mind that this plugin hasn't been fully optimised yet, but it can already handle over ~400 fully-raytraced lights in a single scene. There is much more optimisation that I plan to do (screen-culling, update-culling and raytrace-culling), which should bring that number of lights to at the very least ~1000 lights per scene, on average.

New update is out!!!

Update contains:
- custom light images @rhapsodymipo
- custom direction offsets for light @ShadowDragon
- custom ambient lighting/color command @ToshaAngel

you are the best! thank you!!

I'm really loving your plugin, but i came up with a problem. I had a massive performance drop when changing the light radius. it starts whenever the values are higher than 600. Is it normal at this stage of development?