Quite Toxick's Lights & Shadows (Doodads)

~ SHADOWS ~ 


Are you tired of painting shadows on your maps with the old boring shadow pen?


Do your eyes hurt when looking upon square shadows cast by round objects?


Fed up with sprites being on top of shadows which should actually shade them?


Well, I was. So I made my own shadow tiles and used them as part of my tile sets. 


One drawback, however, was the limited number of images you can layer on one tile square. Thus sometimes it was either another plant, or an appropriate shadow.


Also layering the shadows was still a problem occasionally, and the shadows took up quite a lot of space in the tile sets that could have been used for more variety.


But with Yanfly's genius plugin Grid Free Doodads there's no more limitation to all your shadow-casting desires.


That's why I turned my shadow tiles into doodads, and thought I'd share them with you.


Download View attachment QT Shadows.zip


Showcase screenshots




Terms of Use


Credit: If you feel like these doodads have improved your maps or your RPG-making experience, I'd be honored to be credited as "quite toxick"  :wub:


Non-Commercial: Free


Commercial: Free


Maker Required: RPG Maker MV


Changelog




Instructions / Advice


- Download and put the png-files into your doodads folder. I'd recommend to keep the names and folder structure in case of further updates on my part.


- On outdoor maps the light source is usually considered to be on the left hand side, so place shadows on the right of cliffs and objects. Thus you will only need a select few of the shadows I made. Nevertheless, I included all of the possible orientations, as you might consider flipping doodads more effort than choosing between several variations.  


- On indoor maps you should make an executive decision on the direction of the lighting. If you have an entrance, windows or a light source like a fire, place the shadows facing away from it. An evenly lighted room might not require hard shadows at all. Here the softer gradient shadows might help to create a nice contrast.


- Shadow gradients are provided in two sizes. Rescaling will take care of special cases, I hope.  


- When it comes to placing shadows, I find it useful to activate grid snapping. This helps to align all shadows properly and to avoid overlapping.


- Shadows from tall objects, like cliffs and pillars should be on a higher level than characters, so they can be covered by the shadow. Shadows from low objects, should be on a layer below the characters. Those object, however, usually have a shadow included in their sprite.


- I also included a few animated shadows for floating, rotating objects. No idea if this will be useful… I'd be interested in some feedback.


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~ LIGHTS ~ 


I really liked the idea of using doodads for static lighting effects, e.g. torches and candles. 


To supplement the doodads Yanfly provided, I made some glowing effects, which can be placed around any fixed light source. 


This way, you don't have to bother with overlays or other plugins to add some lighting atmosphere to your maps. 


I also experimented with additional effects for which I edited some RTP sprites as well as animations from Hadecynn (please follow this link to their topic on this forum and their T&Cs).


Feel free to use these to add some extra sparkle to your maps ;)  For now, they are kinda proof-of-concept only, so there aren't many. I will add more effects as I make them. Feedback and requests welcome. 


Download View attachment QT Lights.zip


Showcase screenshots




Terms of Use


Credit: See above; additionally you need to credit "Kadokawa" for the RTP edits and "hadecynn" for the effects made from his animations.


Non-Commercial: Free


Commercial: Free


Maker Required: RPG Maker MV


Changelog




Instructions / Advice


- Download and put the png-files into your doodads folder. I'd recommend to keep the names and folder structure in case of further updates on my part.


- When it comes to lighting effects, I suggest playing around with the frame speed until it fits your liking. I found that normal speed works best for Glows, while Sparkle and Rays benefit from higher speed. When placing identical effects next to each oner it might be a good idea to offset their frame speed by 2-3 frames, so they aren't in synch. This way the effect looks much better.


- Most doodads are already transparent, so you can use normal blend mode. For more lighting power or non-transparent effects, however, additive blend mode is the way to go. 


- I would recommend placing the lighting effects on a higher layer than the light source. Depending on the situation, however, you might prefer placing them one layer below. 


- Most lighting effects are either yellowish or blueish in colour. Thus you can adjust the hue to your needs.


- While experimenting I found that you can easily turn any animation png into a doodad, just by appending [#columns x #rows] to the file name and putting them into you doodad folder. Standard animations won't loop, though, so you'll need to edit them further. Still, it might be useful for some of you. 


- In general, you should rely on events to create special effects on your map. Doodads will loop continuously and there is no way (I know of) to stop them or to interact with them. Therefore I'd limit the use of doodads to static lighting or special effects. Here, however, they literally shine: the warm glow of a campfire, the flicker of a wall light or the sparkle of coins in a treasure horde… much less effort with doodads compared to events, and you'll be able to use that event tile for something more important. 


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I hope these prove useful to you. I'd love to hear your feedback.


Have a great day!  BD


~QT

Keep it up Toxic =3


Like the doodads you put up together here cx

oooo this is awesome! Am I the only one loving this new plugin to the point of heart attack? No? -slinks into the shadows, mumbling- guess I'm the only crazy one.... But seriously good work.

Yeah, I know how you feel, I think it's really awesome. :D :rock-right:  This is how placing objects in the editor should have worked in the first place...


I added some more gradient shadows to allow for more flexibility when it comes to rounded shadow lines. 


Thus far, I've only made the outward curves. I'm not sure if the inward curves will actually be needed, but I might add them later anyway.


The new shadows are now included in the original zip file, but if you've already downloaded it, you can get just the extras here: View attachment Extra Gradient Shadows.zip

These following buttons are great! -hoards the new stuff and grins- Love it <3

Update: Gradients QT46 - 48 added.


They are now also included in the original download.


This was a request, so that gradient shadows can be used outdoors, at the bottom corner of cliffs and walls, which already have a shadow outline.


       


Gradient QT46 can be used at the bottom right edge of a corner if the standard gradient (QT01) is placed above. 


Gradient QT47 can be used on the last tile below a corner, to get a smooth transition from the standard gradient.


Gradient QT48 can be used if several corners are aligned diagonally, to get a smooth transition between each other.


I would recommend to put some grass, weeds, flowers or other doodads on some corners as well, thus shadows on your map won't look repetitive. See for yourselves, maybe you like it better than the hard shadows.

As I understand it, more than 3 days have passed since my last post, thus I will dare to double post to point out the recent edit above  ;)

-le gasp- you double posted! O.O XD

Sweet, I love it!


This will definitely come in handy.


Thank you very much! :cutesmile:

I'd love to see these doodads in action, so please don't hesitate to post a screenshot!  :)

Good idea. I always say the little things sometimes add the most.

I am starting to actually use doodads and i am finding them so much fun!!!! keep up the great work!!!!!!

It's too much good ... Keep it up x_x
Cool light that i'm gonna use, surely

Pentacles, please stop necro posting. Please review the forum rules if you don't know what this is. Basically, if there's a thread to which there has been no reply in several months...don't revive it. It clutters the forum and makes people think that the thread has been updated.

Actually, resource threads don't have the necropost rule, as resources are always useable, and new issues can arise (or new requests). That being said, please also don't mini-mod either.

Pease don't hesitate to post screenshots, guys. I'd love to see these doodads in action! :)
I'm already working on some more additions.

Lovely work, this is EXACTLY what I was looking for. I am a fairly new to parallax mapping and one of the most frustrating things for me was trying to add light sources and shadows. I am so happy you took the time to create something like this! It helps me out so much :)

This maker put these doodads into a tileset. Very useful to some and was near impossible to find so I think it wouldn't be bad etiquette to link them from here: https://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?threads/shadow-tilesets.81389/#post-759143


...or just repost the pic like that. credit's still to QT.