This is a basic tutorial describing the uses of Lighting, it’s properties, Materials and their use in building.
The tutorial will be divided in two sections :
1. Lighting, Lighting properties and their uses.
2. Materials, Part Properties and use of Materials in building.
Most of this information is basic and might include tricks that you don’t know.
Lighting
What you should have open is the ‘‘Explorer’’ and ‘‘Properties’’.
Navigate to the ‘‘Lighting’’ tab, select it.
Now, in the ‘‘Properties’’ window, you should see all of the stuff you can do to ‘‘Lighting’’.
I’d suggest inserting a part, on which you can test how lighting affects it.
Ambient - You can change the value to what-ever you want it to be, though, the max comfort for Ambient is [255,255,255] as going further will make the game feel super weird. Note that the part has always been Grey, and still is, but with the Ambient setting to [255,255,255], it looks white-colored.
You can also change the value to negative, but it will work just like being positive ( having the values on negative 255 would still make the Part look white ).
Brightness - Brightness affects how bright everything is, and how affected by Sun the parts are. It’s like Ambient, but it let’s you keep your shadows.
If you were to set the Brightness value to 0, the shadows would be everywhere.
However, if you were to change the value of Brightness to 10, the shadows would be barely visible, if even.
Colorshift_Bottom - You can set the Colorshift to any color, for example, I set it on Green, as you can see, the sides are green, but the top is not!
Colorshift_Top Just like with the Colorshift bottom, the Colorshift Top would make every surface green, though Colorshifts are not widely used.
GlobalShadows - GlobalShadows makes it so that the Shadows are on specific parts or everywhere. For comparison, the top picture being with the GlobalShadows being turned on, and the bottom with the GlobalShadows being off.
I’d suggest leaving GlobalShadows on.
OutdoorAmbient - OutdoorAmbient I have not used this feature or messed with it a lot, but it messes a lot with your lighting. It’s mainly something to affect the outdoors. For example, the setting being set on blue.
Outlines - Outlines sets an outline around every one of your parts. I recommend keeping Outlines disabled, so it doesn’t mess with your builds. Comparison of Outlines being turned on and off below. Top being turned on, bottom being turned off.
Technology - Technology has two choices - Voxel or Legacy. When creating a baseplate now, the Technology will automatically be set on Voxel. Voxel makes the lighting pop out and look more realistic. For comparison, top being Legacy, bottom being Voxel.
Clock Time - Clock Time is on a 24-hour cycle. Clock Time makes the lighting and the skybox adjust to what time it is, for example, 1AM being :
And Clock Time being on 3PM :
A trick Here’s a Trick, which is affected by Clock Time. When right-clicking on the ‘‘Lighting’’ tab, you can click on ‘‘Insert Object’’ and then select ‘‘Sky’’, you can alternate the size and textures of the Celestial Bodies - Moon, Sun, and decrease/increase the amount of stars.
Geographic Latitude - Geographic Latitude makes the Lighting be dependent on the scale of 0-360 degrees, changing the degrees makes the Sun and Moon’s position change.
Comparison being - 0 degrees on top picture, and 110 being on the bottom.
Fog - Fog affects the Fog effects, if set to a certain value. I don’t recommend messing with this, when making a game, which is not meant for Showcases or other stuff.
Materials
There are a total of 25 types of materials, them being -
Brick - I recommend using brick for houses, rooftops. Some stuff involve Brick and it looks very great when included.
Cobblestone - Cobblestone should be used for Medieval things, floors, the bottom of the houses (bases).
Concrete - Can be used for floor too, walls, and overall a great and useful material for all sorts of things.
Corroded Metal - I haven’t used this too much, but you can use it for broken-down builds, rusty stuff.
Diamond Plate - A very cool looking material, can be used for a ‘‘scientific’’ genre place, maybe a metal area.
Fabric - I only use fabric for carpets, ropes, or tents.
Foil - Some players have had issues with the foil not rendering in, so I’d refrain from using that.
Glass - Glass is a very good material, it can be used for all sorts of things, I mostly put the transparency to 0.5, so it’s much better looking. An interesting trick is, if you put a Glass Part inside of another Glass Part, the second part won’t be visible in the Glass, this is not possible with other materials!
Grass - Grass is obviously used for making the terrain and foliage.
I haven’t really used the other materials to the extent, that I can make a lot of description for them, so they won’t be included
Have fun building and adjusting your lighting for the perfect games!