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 7 of 33 View original ↗

greenrivers

#122 Jan 19, 2022, 05:26 AM Source

Oh that offset is going to be so, so handy.

(also wrt to my previous question, i didn't get the notif for your answer and already found a work-around. overpass regions are always just going to be problematique)
Dark_Ansem

#123 Jan 19, 2022, 10:15 AM Source

Shora said:
- 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.
This Is going to be super useful!
SomaelCK

#124 Jan 19, 2022, 03:20 PM Source

Shora said:
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.

View attachment 213352

Can you explain a bit more detail about shadow offset and how it work please? Does that mean I can offset the shadow casting to a few pixel above if I have rounded corner in my map like this?
Shora

#125 Jan 19, 2022, 04:04 PM Source

SomaelCK said:
Can you explain a bit more detail about shadow offset and how it work please? Does that mean I can offset the shadow casting to a few pixel above if I have rounded corner in my map like this?

You can understand that the shadow offset is the light offset, but will not move the light. In other mean, just the light origin will be modified in shadow calculating. This will be convenient in case you use a lighting image that doesn't symmetrical, and will give you more flexibility in creating complex light.
Yea I can understand what you mean when you want to fix those too-rectangle shadow shape. The ability to add custom shadow polygon, which allow you to manually adding shadow caster polygon with any height will come in future update, so keep an eye on it! :kaohi:
palatkorn

#126 Jan 19, 2022, 04:14 PM Source

it looks very nice i like it
Siul

#127 Jan 19, 2022, 07:57 PM Source

Hi again @Shora

Is it possible to implement some of your features (like the corner lights or the lights behind the walls) on the other tiles or even doodads? In my mind it sounds awesome yet difficult but it would be really awesome to have it on trees, bushes or similar.

Thanks again for your time.
ActumAventinus

#128 Jan 19, 2022, 10:21 PM Source

hi.

I'm having this error.

Error image

i have a lot of plugins, but I hope you could tell me what's going on here.

That error would be line 672.

I just found the solution.
Apparently is some kind of incompatibility with the Galv_Imagecache plugin.
Shora

#129 Jan 20, 2022, 12:58 PM Source

Siul said:
Hi again @Shora

Is it possible to implement some of your features (like the corner lights or the lights behind the walls) on the other tiles or even doodads? In my mind it sounds awesome yet difficult but it would be really awesome to have it on trees, bushes or similar.

Thanks again for your time.
What do you mean by "corner light" and "other tiles"? As for the doodads, the ability to manually create polygon and automatically create shadow caster from sprite will come in the future, so stay tuned! The problem here is not that create the shadow caster is hard, but rather manage how user can easily identify each caster's height, like the height of the tree etc. Creating 2.5D shadow is always harder than the simple 2D shadow :kaoeh: .

Muk adel heid said:
hi.

I'm having this error.

Error image
View attachment 213462

i have a lot of plugins, but I hope you could tell me what's going on here.

That error would be line 672.

I just found the solution.
Apparently is some kind of incompatibility with the Galv_Imagecache plugin.
I haven't take a look into the Galv plugin myself, but the lighting plugin is already have its image/texture cache for it own resources. Though the loading error seems really weird as it was trying to load my lowerBound function @@. If I have time, I will take a loot at the Galv plugin in the future, now just simply disable that plugin :kaocry:.
Siul

#130 Jan 20, 2022, 06:46 PM Source

What do you mean by "corner light" and "other tiles"?

What I mean about "corner lights" is the dinamic lights of the walls (sorry if my english is not that accurate, I'm kinda rusty). For "other tiles" I mean trees, lamps or whatever ^^'.

And, yeah, I can see 2,5D lights are really complicated. Anyways, if u are going to implement that feature and it works with doodads... that's gonna be legendary imo.

Thanks for your time and keep on rockin'.
Deleted member 102570

#131 Jan 20, 2022, 09:47 PM Source

[removed]
twosnakes

#132 Jan 21, 2022, 05:14 AM Source

Very happy to see the progress you are making. 1.5 performance is drastically improved in MV versus when I was tinkering around with 1.3. I look forward to more updates!
twosnakes

#133 Jan 22, 2022, 05:51 AM Source

I am trying to redo my hud ui as a light image as mentioned earlier in the thread. How do I show a static light as a hud? I don't see any options/can't figure out how to fix a light image to the screen.
RedRaydr

#134 Jan 23, 2022, 05:24 AM Source

It doesn't seem to be working for me, I installed it and put a default light image in the light folder but the ambient doesn't even seem to be working and i'm not sure why. any suggestions would be appreciated. @Shora
Deleted member 102570

#135 Jan 23, 2022, 08:42 PM Source

[removed]
RedRaydr

#136 Jan 23, 2022, 08:58 PM Source

Enigma_Productions said:

Have you registered the light in the Custom Lights parameter page? If you move an image in to the "lights" folder you must then go to the plugin manager and manually register it.
View attachment 213902
In the Ref box you will simply write the name of your light. While in the Image box you must double click it and then find the image you wish to connect the name to. If there currently is no ambient light set then you may set it in the Map Default page or you can always use a plugin command/parallel event to set the light in game.

The ambient light is set in Map Default, but its not showing or applying to any of my maps, and I can't see if the lights are working if the shadows aren't.
Deleted member 102570

#137 Jan 23, 2022, 09:20 PM Source

[removed]
RedRaydr

#138 Jan 23, 2022, 09:37 PM Source

Enigma_Productions said:

That’s Strange. Can you post an image of the Plugin's parameters? Perhaps one of them didn’t get appropriately set. To fix this problem I wrote out a lengthy and detailed post about this problem on page 6 of this thread. You can check it out and see if it fixes the plugin [The section was about gameshadow not being defined].
It may not exactly be your problem but the section could fix your problem if you follow the steps.

Also can you be more specific about what version of RPG maker you’re using? If there is a problem in the code knowing which version has the bug would help out @Shora in fixing the problem.

here is the picture of the parameters after trying the copy paste solution from your post. It still isn't working. The shadows do have color assigned to them but the maps dont get the shadows or ambient 'darkness'. To be clear neither shadows with region tiles, nor ambient shadows are working. Also I am using MV.
RedRaydr

#139 Jan 23, 2022, 10:35 PM Source

RedRaydr said:
View attachment 213907

here is the picture of the parameters after trying the copy paste solution from your post. It still isn't working. The shadows do have color assigned to them but the maps dont get the shadows or ambient 'darkness'. To be clear neither shadows with region tiles, nor ambient shadows are working. Also I am using MV.
My problem has been resolved, thanks for the help Enigma!
Shora

#140 Jan 24, 2022, 08:40 AM Source

twosnakes said:
I am trying to redo my hud ui as a light image as mentioned earlier in the thread. How do I show a static light as a hud? I don't see any options/can't figure out how to fix a light image to the screen.
Actually "light as a hud" is rather simple, because it just a fixed picture drawn above the lighting layer, since it don't allowed to have shadow anyway. So maybe let the light draw below the picture layer, and you are done! I'm currently developing on giving the user flexibility to choose their light to be drawn below or above picture layer. Static light on the screen not really suitable since it will also blend with normal light and causing confusion.

RedRaydr said:
My problem has been resolved, thanks for the help Enigma!
Nice to hear your problem solved! Though I still curious what exactly the problem since there aren't any images @@. Thanks Enigma for the help though!
Deleted member 102570

#141 Jan 26, 2022, 05:48 PM Source

I'm not sure if anyone else is having this occur for them but lets say I playtest a part for my game and then save. After I change or add a light then continue from my save file the plugin will not recognize the light and instead say that I must register it despite having already done so.

I basically have to hit new game each time I want a light to register and appear in the game. It's not too much of an inconvenience since I'm at the beginning of recreating my game, however once I get in pretty deep I feel like its going to become a bigger problem.

I know I could just set my players starting position to the current map I want to see the light in and hit new game. But whenever I want to test the light in my game that have specific switches that led to that event, It would be a bit tedious having to wait till I get to that part of the game to see it play out.

For now every time I hit continue I get this notification for any new light I add.

Image

I tested this out on a new clean project with only shora being the plugin. It would be nice to have the lights register even after I press continue.