MZ - [MZ & MV v1.9.7] Shora Lighting & Shadow System

Shora · 2020-12-26T01:02:21+0900

Version: 1.9.7 Itch.io Page. Wiki Page. ―――――――――――――――――――――IntroductionA Lighting and Shadow plugin for RPG Maker MV/MZ, powered by pixi.js library. Features- Create different lighting types using custom light images, with different defaults parameters easily from Plugin Manager. - Deploy your lighting in events and items, automatically using comment/note, with the ability to override the default setting on demand. - Tons of plugin commands for both MV and MZ versions to change each light's parameters, in desired tick(s) and transition. - Light comes with real-time shadows (optionally). With 2.5D soft shadows casted, your game can be enhanced a lot nicer. Makes the shadow caster detection happen automatically using terrain tags, or using region IDs. - Light comes with animations (optionally). Including automatic pulse animation and flicker animation. Easily create your own light animation using plugin command and/or scripts. - Battle lighting is finally here! - Both lights and shadows are deeply optimized for RPG Maker MV/MZ, specifically the PIXI.JS library. Just integrate the plugin into your game without worrying about performance. - Always there to help you if you’ve encountered any problems, and open to any suggestions! . Tutorial Spoiler: Plugin Installation Grab the plugin js file from itch.io official page, and place it inside the js/plugins folder. Enable the plugin inside the Plugin Manager. I suggest placing it above every other plugin. Make a new folder named lights inside the img/ directory. This folder will store all your lighting images. If you don’t have any, a good way is just copy and paste from my demo project. It is done! Spoiler: Lights Simply add [light] comment to an event's page, and F5 to see if it worked correctly. If you use the lights image directory from my demo, you should see this: You could override the light default parameters by adding custom arguments after the name. Eg: [flashlight -r 120 -a 45] will give the event (‘s page)/ item’s note a light of name flashlight, with their radius set to 120% and angle to 45 degree. Almost every default parameter could be overridden like this. Current light parameters include: name, images, status, radius, angle, event’s direction, color tint, color filters, offset, shadow, and animations. Spoiler: Shadows There are currently 2 ways of creating shadow casters (objects that block lights): automatically using terrain tags or/and manually using region IDs. I suggest using terrain tags as you don’t need to draw regions again and again for every map, but region IDs can be useful in some cases if you want to draw it manually. Method 1: Terrain Tags Open Database -> Tilesets -> Terrain Tags, and set all the Wall Tile to 1, and Top Wall Tile to 2. You can change those default constant value inside the Plugin Setting -> [Game: Settings] You should have something like this: Now just draw your map normally, and the shadow caster will be automatically detected. This detection is prioritized over the region IDs, which we will talk below. Method 2: Region IDs If you used Khas Advanced Lighting before (which has been deprecated), you pretty well know how this works. Just place the region IDs on top of all the wall you drew as the height. You can change the region IDs range in the Plugin Settings as well. Spoiler: Custom Lights You can create various custom lightings for your project, with different image and default settings, using Plugin Settings -> [Lights: Custom]. A custom light template currently look like this: You also can just copy my custom lights to your project! Simply copy & paste it. Spoiler: MZ Plugin Commands MZ Plugin Command: Set Light Parameters: Blank settings will remain the same, transition type is optional. Leave the Light Id section blank to target the event that call this command. Set Map Ambient: Spoiler: MV Plugin Commands You can shorten the eventId for the current lighting (lighting of the event which call the commands) by using a simple "=" instead of typing it id. This is the same as "leave the id blank for this event" in MZ plugin command. ambient offset offsetx offsety radius angle tint status shadow Spoiler: Animations Spoiler: Automatic Animating Animation that consistently happens with lights throughout the scene. There are currently 2 implemented: Flicker and Pulse. Spoiler: Flicker Flicker animation makes the light randomly flick. Flicker Intensity, range from 1 to 10, determines the opacity that light achieves when flickering. At 1, it is ~90% opacity. Flicker Speed determines the frequency of light flickering. Spoiler: Pulse Pulse animation makes the light shrink constantly up and down. Pulse R…

● ARCHIVED · READ-ONLY

Started by Shora Dec 25, 2020, 04:02 PM 656 posts Page 6 of 33 View original ↗

SomaelCK

#102 Jan 10, 2022, 09:09 PM Source

Hello!

Is it possible to make Picture layer excluded from being shadowed? Because I have made most of my in game UI with pictures and doesn't want them to get affected by ambience lights .
ShadowDragon

#103 Jan 10, 2022, 09:28 PM Source

it seems MV version isn't updated yet, only MZ version and the plugin.
I dont know if it breaks if you switch MV 1.3 demo with the 1.4plugin.

but it looks nice though =)
Shora

#104 Jan 11, 2022, 12:48 PM Source

Enigma_Productions said:
I’ll definitely give it a go. I just started using the 1.3 lighting yesterday so it’s nice to see a drop the day after.

I’m still learning how to use the plugin but I noticed that the default lights or custom light images are tiny. One thing that I wish this plugin had is a size increase or decrease function. So I was wondering if there could be a feature similar to Khas’ lighting where I can increase the size of the light.

It’s ok if it’s not possible this request is more of a want not really a need.
This used to be a feature, but I removed it before the initial release since it also come with the pulse animation, which at that time pretty expensive in performance (and also the angle parameter and the rotate animation too, which even more expensive). I'm planning to included it again in the next update too, which the new lighting type selection. Stay tuned! Also, you can always resize the custom light image to the size you want ;)

SomaelCK said:
Hello!

Is it possible to make Picture layer excluded from being shadowed? Because I have made most of my in game UI with pictures and doesn't want them to get affected by ambience lights .

Are you showing picture with the engine command, or with plugin? The light & shadow layer are drawn above the picture for a purpose: parallax mapping. But if you showing image with plugins, just move this plugin above that, and set the picture to be as high as possible. If that plugin have a flexible one, I think it will have the option for draw above the UpperLayer :).
Edit: Just a thought, have you think about creating your own lighting layer for your picture GUI? That could make the GUI even more fancy, and just disable the shadow for that light to highlight the GUI! I will just make the option to add light that stick to the screen instead of the map..

ShadowDragon said:
it seems MV version isn't updated yet, only MZ version and the plugin.
I dont know if it breaks if you switch MV 1.3 demo with the 1.4plugin.

but it looks nice though =)
Thanks! I haven't test it with MV yet, but it should work well. Just remember to add the region id by 1, as the new version count from height 0. Feel free to ask anything!
SomaelCK

#105 Jan 11, 2022, 03:01 PM Source

Shora said:
Are you showing picture with the engine command, or with plugin? The light & shadow layer are drawn above the picture for a purpose: parallax mapping. But if you showing image with plugins, just move this plugin above that, and set the picture to be as high as possible. If that plugin have a flexible one, I think it will have the option for draw above the UpperLayer :). View attachment 212488
Edit: Just a though, have you think about creating your own lighting layer for your picture GUI? That could make the GUI even more fancy, and just disable the shadow for that light to highlight the GUI! I will just make the option to add light that stick to the screen instead of the map..

I'm using the engine command to show images. Would be great if there is an option to move the light layer under the picture layers or we could denote certain picture IDs not to be affected by the light&shadow layers.

Lighting up the GUI is also a great idea! Would certainly love to try that!
Deleted member 102570

#106 Jan 12, 2022, 10:19 PM Source

Fixing Errors and a short tutorial
So I've been seeing a few people get errors while trying to use this plugin. And seeing as I have had these errors myself but managed to find a solution, I figured I'd share that solution. I also wouldn't mind helping a few others learn how to understand the plugin a bit better. Seeing as it's going to be a good amount of text I'll separate the text using spoiler tags so that this post doesn't become annoying to others who just want to scroll by quick.
Forgive me for any typos my cat was beginning to get lonely so I didnt go back to recheck my spelling

For those getting $GameShadow is not defined

$GameShadow is not defined
This problem I believe occurs because the JavaScript file that you downloaded weirdly enough came without its proper parameters being set. To fix this issue you must download the latest Lighting Demo MZ.rar along with your ShoraLighting.js

Once downloaded, place your js file in the proper folder in your game. [for those who don't know that would be the js/plugins folder]
Now open your game project using either MV or MZ
Afterwards extract the Lighting Demo MZ.rar and also open the game project file.

From YOUR game project open the plugin manager and simply add ShoraLighting to the list however do not close the plugin manager yet because we are not done configuring the parameters on the ShoraLighting plugin.
From the DEMO game project open the plugin manager and double click the ShoraLighting plugin to bring up the parameters page.

You're going to want to copy the parameters from the Demo Plugin to your Game Plugin

So for example: You'll copy the Lights: Default parameter [from the demo] as is and then hover over to [your games'] Lights: Default and simply right click and press paste. Do this for both Light: Default and Lights: Custom and hit apply. Once you do so the problem should be resolved.
When you boot up the game it should work appropriately

Understanding how to use the plugin

Understanding how to use the plugin
One of the reasons I love this plugin so much is because of the amount of freedom the game creator has to modify their shadows or light in the plugin! I applaud the script writer insanely :kaopride:

Though the lack of a [help page] does make things a bit intimidating, however I'll try and help you learn the way I learned [which is trial by error].

Question: Is it possible to make the Picture layer excluded from being shadowed?

The answer is yes. However you must change a few words in your js file.
Open the Shoralighting.js file with whatever 3rd party application you prefer, and click Ctrl and F at the same time.
This should bring up a find search engine. In the find what box type createUpperLayer and it hit next. This should bring you to a line of code that reads out like this

From here simply change all "createUpperLayer" to "createLowerLayer" in this area of code.
*Please make sure the L is capital as js takes that level of precision very seriously.
Now you should have something like this by the end of it.

As you can see all I did was simply change createUpperLayer to createLowerLayer within those three lines of text. Once you do this save and close the file and run your game. If you have an image that was originally darkened it should now not be affected.

When you open up the plugin page You'll notice 4 settings
[Game Settings] [Map Default] [Lights: Default] [Lights: Custom]
For now I will only talk about the first two. As I feel like I spent too much time on this post already lol.

[Game Settings]
The parameters are pretty easy to understand. You set the range of your preferred Region ID numbers and if you have the latest version of Shora Lighting you can also place roof Region ID's or Ignore Shadow Region ID's.

[Map Default]
Default Ambient is as the name suggests the default Ambient shade the plugin will show as you start the game. It uses hex numbers so if you don't know any hex numbers by heart simply go to this website https://www.color-hex.com/ and use their cursor controlled color chart. Any color you would want is broken down in hex numbers so you can apply it to your game. If you want your game to start off with no shading I recommend changing this parameter to #ffffff

Default Shadow Ambient This allows you to adjust the shadow itself. For example if you feel like a shadow in a certain map should be darker than usual [Let's say you wish to hide a monster in a corner] Then this setting will adjust that. Or if You wish the shadows wouldnt be so dramatically dark then you can also brighten them. Its an incredibly hand feature that can benefit the game creator quite a bit.
Default Top Block Ambient If you understand Default shadow ambient then this should also make sense to you. This parameter allows you to adjust the level of intensity of the shadow on the top of your wall. Again very useful for many creative ideas.
Brancliff

#107 Jan 13, 2022, 02:16 AM Source

I have a feature request! The ability to add lights to an animation would be really nice. I've actually tried out (to my knowledge) all of the MV lighting engines and I don't believe any of them have it.

Here's an image to help try to explain what I mean - it was from when I tried the Community Lighting plugin, but its just to get the idea across. If I were to cast fire in a dark room, I'd also want the fire to make the room brighter during its animation too.

I'm early enough in my project to still be able to be able to switch some plugins around and I'd definitely pay the commercial fee if I could get a lighting engine with this.

Either way, thanks for developing this regardless! More options is always nice in general.
greenrivers

#108 Jan 13, 2022, 05:27 AM Source

holy cow, this is a gorgeous plugin. i may be switching over after playing around a bit to get a functioning flashlight toggle because those shadows are good and moody
SomaelCK

#109 Jan 13, 2022, 04:26 PM Source

Enigma_Productions said:

Fixing Errors and a short tutorial
So I've been seeing a few people get errors while trying to use this plugin. And seeing as I have had these errors myself but managed to find a solution, I figured I'd share that solution. I also wouldn't mind helping a few others learn how to understand the plugin a bit better. Seeing as it's going to be a good amount of text I'll separate the text using spoiler tags so that this post doesn't become annoying to others who just want to scroll by quick.
Forgive me for any typos my cat was beginning to get lonely so I didnt go back to recheck my spelling

For those getting $GameShadow is not defined

$GameShadow is not defined
This problem I believe occurs because the JavaScript file that you downloaded weirdly enough came without its proper parameters being set. To fix this issue you must download the latest Lighting Demo MZ.rar along with your ShoraLighting.js
View attachment 212652

Once downloaded, place your js file in the proper folder in your game. [for those who don't know that would be the js/plugins folder]
Now open your game project using either MV or MZ
Afterwards extract the Lighting Demo MZ.rar and also open the game project file.

From YOUR game project open the plugin manager and simply add ShoraLighting to the list however do not close the plugin manager yet because we are not done configuring the parameters on the ShoraLighting plugin.
From the DEMO game project open the plugin manager and double click the ShoraLighting plugin to bring up the parameters page.

You're going to want to copy the parameters from the Demo Plugin to your Game Plugin
View attachment 212655
So for example: You'll copy the Lights: Default parameter [from the demo] as is and then hover over to [your games'] Lights: Default and simply right click and press paste. Do this for both Light: Default and Lights: Custom and hit apply. Once you do so the problem should be resolved.
When you boot up the game it should work appropriately

Understanding how to use the plugin

Understanding how to use the plugin
One of the reasons I love this plugin so much is because of the amount of freedom the game creator has to modify their shadows or light in the plugin! I applaud the script writer insanely :kaopride:

Though the lack of a [help page] does make things a bit intimidating, however I'll try and help you learn the way I learned [which is trial by error].

Question: Is it possible to make the Picture layer excluded from being shadowed?

The answer is yes. However you must change a few words in your js file.
Open the Shoralighting.js file with whatever 3rd party application you prefer, and click Ctrl and F at the same time.
This should bring up a find search engine. In the find what box type createUpperLayer and it hit next. This should bring you to a line of code that reads out like this
View attachment 212662
From here simply change all "createUpperLayer" to "createLowerLayer" in this area of code.
*Please make sure the L is capital as js takes that level of precision very seriously.
Now you should have something like this by the end of it.
View attachment 212663
As you can see all I did was simply change createUpperLayer to createLowerLayer within those three lines of text. Once you do this save and close the file and run your game. If you have an image that was originally darkened it should now not be affected.

When you open up the plugin page You'll notice 4 settings
[Game Settings] [Map Default] [Lights: Default] [Lights: Custom]
For now I will only talk about the first two. As I feel like I spent too much time on this post already lol.

[Game Settings]
The parameters are pretty easy to understand. You set the range of your preferred Region ID numbers and if you have the latest version of Shora Lighting you can also place roof Region ID's or Ignore Shadow Region ID's.

[Map Default]
Default Ambient is as the name suggests the default Ambient shade the plugin will show as you start the game. It uses hex numbers so if you don't know any hex numbers by heart simply go to this website https://www.color-hex.com/ and use their cursor controlled color chart. Any color you would want is broken down in hex numbers so you can apply it to your game. If you want your game to start off with no shading I recommend changing this parameter to #ffffff

Default Shadow Ambient This allows you to adjust the shadow itself. For example if you feel like a shadow in a certain map should be darker than usual [Let's say you wish to hide a monster in a corner] Then this setting will adjust that. Or if You wish the shadows wouldnt be so dramatically dark then you can also brighten them. Its an incredibly hand feature that can benefit the game creator quite a bit.
Default Top Block Ambient If you understand Default shadow ambient then this should also make sense to you. This parameter allows you to adjust the level of intensity of the shadow on the top of your wall. Again very useful for many creative ideas.

That's really helpful! Thanks for detailed explanation!
Dark_Ansem

#110 Jan 13, 2022, 09:50 PM Source

@Shora I have a question: would your plugin also work with maps created with TileD?
Shora

#111 Jan 14, 2022, 01:55 PM Source
Brancliff said:
I have a feature request! The ability to add lights to an animation would be really nice. I've actually tried out (to my knowledge) all of the MV lighting engines and I don't believe any of them have it.

Here's an image to help try to explain what I mean - it was from when I tried the Community Lighting plugin, but its just to get the idea across. If I were to cast fire in a dark room, I'd also want the fire to make the room brighter during its animation too.

View attachment 212693

I'm early enough in my project to still be able to be able to switch some plugins around and I'd definitely pay the commercial fee if I could get a lighting engine with this.

Either way, thanks for developing this regardless! More options is always nice in general.
That seems like a wonderful idea! However, to implement that, user will still need to create their own animation's light image, and the plugin must be able to animate the light to appear synchronously with the animation. Will take a look at it in the future!

greenrivers said:
holy cow, this is a gorgeous plugin. i may be switching over after playing around a bit to get a functioning flashlight toggle because those shadows are good and moody
Thanks! Sorry for the lighting status not be easy to change, I'm already include it in the next version :D. If you like the plugin, feel free to support it! I will be very appreciated and motivated :kaohi: .

Dark_Ansem said:
@Shora I have a question: would your plugin also work with maps created with TileD?
I haven't tested it yet, but it should work ok, since it just draw the shadow based on region id position and tile's width/height. Just replace line 2530 from
JavaScript:
this.originalSegments = this.segments.map(s => s.map(p => p.map(x => x / 48)));
to
JavaScript:
this.originalSegments = this.segments.map(s => s.map(p => [p[0] / $gameMap.tileWidth(), p[1] / $gameMap.tileHeight()]));
and see if it work! Feel free to ask me anything :kaoluv: .
Dark_Ansem

#112 Jan 14, 2022, 01:57 PM Source
Shora said:
I haven't tested it yet, but it should work ok, since it just draw the shadow based on region id position and tile's width/height. Just replace line 2530 from
JavaScript:
this.originalSegments = this.segments.map(s => s.map(p => p.map(x => x / 48)));
to
JavaScript:
this.originalSegments = this.segments.map(s => s.map(p => [p[0] / $gameMap.tileWidth(), p[1] / $gameMap.tileHeight()]));
and see if it work! Feel free to ask me anything :kaoluv: .
why thank you so much!
Dark_Ansem

#113 Jan 15, 2022, 09:49 AM Source

So, I didn't get it to work with a TileD map - but probably because I screwed up TileD compatibility in general.
greenrivers

#114 Jan 15, 2022, 08:21 PM Source

Shora said:
Thanks! Sorry for the lighting status not be easy to change, I'm already include it in the next version :D. If you like the plugin, feel free to support it! I will be very appreciated and motivated :kaohi: .
No worries! I know the plugin is still in development and I found a couple work-arounds. I'll def be splurging on a commercial license a couple paychecks from now though because it seems to be playing nice with my other plugins. Though I do have a question; is it possible to set multiple different regions as top roof?
Shora

#115 Jan 16, 2022, 06:50 AM Source

Dark_Ansem said:
So, I didn't get it to work with a TileD map - but probably because I screwed up TileD compatibility in general.
I haven't used tileD yet, so I don't know actually how to help. If you want, you can make me a small demo featuring tiled and my lighting, and I can take a look to it for you :kaohi:

greenrivers said:
No worries! I know the plugin is still in development and I found a couple work-arounds. I'll def be splurging on a commercial license a couple paychecks from now though because it seems to be playing nice with my other plugins. Though I do have a question; is it possible to set multiple different regions as top roof?
Thanks! About your question, why would you want to use multiple regions id as top roof? I thought only one is enough, since top roof is just a block and doesn't have any unique parameters, unlike wall which have it own height.
Dark_Ansem

#116 Jan 16, 2022, 08:28 AM Source

Shora said:
I haven't used tileD yet, so I don't know actually how to help. If you want, you can make me a small demo featuring tiled and my lighting, and I can take a look to it for you :kaohi:
Thank you, I will. let me just make a map that isn't super ugly!
Shora

#117 Jan 18, 2022, 05:26 PM Source

Version 1.5 is released. Check it out! Itch.io dev-log.

Change-logs:
- Now preserve various parameters when the game is saved/loaded, i.e. map's ambient, light's status/offset/color. Will add more in the future.

- Add a new parameters to lighting: Status. Control the status allow you to turn on/off the light anywhere you want without need to removing/adding the light repeatedly.

- Add a new parameters to shadow: Offset. Give you control over the shadow source cast position. The shadow offset will be addition with the light offset, i.e. if you set the light offset to 48 and shadow offset to 4, then the shadow source will be calculated at 52.

- Fulfilled all the default parameters. Now you can easily install the plugin to your project without having weird bug cause by the blank parameters. Also add error throwing when you don't have the image file needed.

- Fix minor bugs.
ShadowDragon

#118 Jan 18, 2022, 05:48 PM Source

I wonder if the version 1.5 is correct as the plugin say 1.4b,
but it looks really nice though :)
Shora

#119 Jan 18, 2022, 05:51 PM Source

ShadowDragon said:
I wonder if the version 1.5 is correct as the plugin say 1.4b,
but it looks really nice though :)
Oops, forgot that last step xD. Gonna edit it tomorrow. And feel free to give your suggestions!
Edit: jk I just get up in 1 AM to edit it, tomorrow is gonna for the demo update, both MZ and MV :kaoeh: .
ShadowDragon

#120 Jan 18, 2022, 06:48 PM Source

than I download the MV version once updated :)

keep up the amazing work though, I got a suggestion, which I might need in my
main, but more usefull on my side game, which is also nice if it works nicely.

like, if X of region 1 (if 1 hight) or than no light can pass through it. unless already possible.
if tileset is X (unpassable) it should block the light too + range?

if already possible, I try it later for my side project.
Shora

#121 Jan 19, 2022, 05:05 AM Source

Version 1.51 are out! Including synchronize development with MV, now both the MV and MZ demo are up-to-date. Anyone using MV feel free to try it out! Also updated the plugin command `light status set` for MV, check it in the MV Plugin Commands section.

ShadowDragon said:
than I download the MV version once updated :)

keep up the amazing work though, I got a suggestion, which I might need in my
main, but more usefull on my side game, which is also nice if it works nicely.

like, if X of region 1 (if 1 hight) or than no light can pass through it. unless already possible.
if tileset is X (unpassable) it should block the light too + range?

if already possible, I try it later for my side project.
I don't quite understand what you mean. Do you mean the shadow automatically recognize unpassable tile as a wall block? That would be useful in 2D game, but since my light is 2.5D, the plugin would have no idea whether a tile is a top tile, or a wall tile. I maybe will add it in the future though, if lots of people only use the 2D shadow effect. Did I get your point right?