Better Lighting Options

[Mr Maison]

Thank you for after dark expansion. I am enjoying it very much. But as a content creator I would like to have better options for illumination maps. Currently we have no way to make lit windows that stay on consistently during the night unless it's from diffuse color. For example, I have a theater that's a part of my city's nightlife. I am forced to use the values of 0-120 which uses diffuse color that stays lit day and night. It would be nice to have a value range for diffuse color light to go off during the day. I see buildings that don't look right all lit up in broad day light because of this forced condition.

On the other values 128-255, there are no values to our knowledge that will stay lit consistently during the night. So a commercial building storefront goes off and on. I would like to know at a certain value that my store front windows will show that the service is open for business all night and not on "sometimes". I would like to know that at night, my factory windows are lit up when I go to look at it. It's just not realistic that sometimes the lights don't come on until the middle to near end of the night cycle.

So basically we have no way of having diffuse that turns off during the day and no way to have lights stay on all night. I do understand there are cases where some lights are on all day but some buildings lit up all day and night takes away from the magic of the night cycle. Please give us better lighting options for more realistic conditions of our buildings. This really affects our creativity for After Dark.

Also we could use more control with light props. The flood light intensities and radius control and be given the ability to make new light types with color options.

And while we're talking about illumination maps, please release official info about vehicle lighting. Many modders are confused and flying blind because vehicle illumination maps play by different rules from buildings and there's no information to help us like we have info for buildings.

 

[Zed68]

Ok here are my suggestions (I"ve been thinking about it for quite a moment)

There is a simple solution for that, without adding any weight to the textures

We have a range of values that aren't used between 121 and 127

Let's use 121 as a "lit during the night but not during the day" value, using the diffuse as both the color and intensity
And we can have more with this system

Why not have the values that are free serve some purpose ?

Why not use 122-127 for blinking lights ? 122 would be mostly lit and blink a few... and 127 would be mostly off but sometimes lit. This would allow us to make awesome neon signs !


EDIT : Oh and we need a color in the vehicles _i map for permanent lights independently of the car's lights.

As it is now we can't add position or decorative lights on trucks or lit license plates (unless we accept that at the back they'll go brighter when the vehicle brakes).

EDIT 2 : And we can't have lit windows on a bus

 

[TotalyMoo]

Sent this feedback to our dear producers

 

[Zed68]

Oh yeah... while we're at it... could you send them the idea about having a colorwheel option to pick our own 128-255 light color ?

 

[TotalyMoo]

Oh yeah... while we're at it... could you send them the idea about having a colorwheel option to pick our own 128-255 light color ?

They got the thread, so it's been suggested automatically

 

[Drosovila]

I dont really have much to say except for that I agree with most points here.

Having the option to use the diffuse color for illumiination somewhere between 120-128 would be awesome and of course a color wheel for the values from 128-255.

Currently there is no option for a window to be lit all night as 128-192 only light up from sunset till midnight and 193-255 from midnight till sunrise, so a greyscale value that lights up all night (disregarding diffuse color) and not at day would be great as well.

And thanks for listening to feedback
(And sorry for possible typos I'm typing this on my phone )

 

[Shroomblaze]

I agree with everything being said. I would really love more illumination options for vehicles. Only being able to suggest headlights, brake lights and turn signals is very limiting. Would be great to have other color illuminated if we want such as always on orange lights, license plate neon, under the car neons, etc.

 

[Mr Maison]

Currently there is no option for a window to be lit all night as 128-192 only light up from sunset till midnight and 193-255 from midnight till sunrise, so a greyscale value that lights up all night (disregarding diffuse color) and not at day would be great as well.

I just read this again and realized I missed something. I didn't know that 128-192 was for beginning of the night cycle and 192-255 was for midnight to dawn. I thought it was random. That's very helpful, so for now I know to set my store fronts to below 192. There is some realism because stores do close at some point during the night. Still would like an all night light but this prompts me to change the way I been making _i maps.

 

[Zed68]

I just read this again and realized I missed something. I didn't know that 128-192 was for beginning of the night cycle and 192-255 was for midnight to dawn. I thought it was random. That's very helpful, so for now I know to set my store fronts to below 192. There is some realism because stores do close at some point during the night. Still would like an all night light but this prompts me to change the way I been making _i maps.

No no no it's not how things work

Edit : the most lit parts of the range actually are at both ends, 128 and 255, and make a gradient that reaches the 192 value. They will fluctuate slowly during the night, sometimes getting more into the 128 or more into the 255 side, randomly, but always as a gradient. None of the sides is more lit in the morning or before midnight.

 

[Mr Maison]

Thanks for the clarification Zed!

 

[Drosovila]

No no no it's not how things work

Edit : the most lit parts of the range actually are at both ends, 128 and 255, and make a gradient that reaches the 192 value. They will fluctuate slowly during the night, sometimes getting more into the 128 or more into the 255 side, randomly, but always as a gradient. None of the sides is more lit in the morning or before midnight.

What I have seen is that at around 19:00 there is a gradient(with slight, noisy variations in brightness) that gets brighter from 192 towards 128 and as the night progresses gets darker till 128 is only very dim at 00:00. Then its mirrored onto the values from 192-255 until 255 is brightly lit in the morning. Maybe its just random, maybe it varies from template to template or maybe I'm wrong, but I'm definitely more confused now.....

 

[Zed68]

What I have seen is that at around 19:00 there is a gradient(with slight, noisy variations in brightness) that gets brighter from 192 towards 128 and as the night progresses gets darker till 128 is only very dim at 00:00. Then its mirrored onto the values from 192-255 until 255 is brightly lit in the morning. Maybe its just random, maybe it varies from template to template or maybe I'm wrong, but I'm definitely more confused now.....

Use this test asset and see how it behaves during the night :

https://1fichier.com/?1ox03zpc6i

the _i map is a gradient that goes from black (bottom) to white (top) (the diffuse is blak white and red, I made it to see if some color passed into the lights too).

It's built on a clinic template so you'll find it in the medical buildings. Just plop a few along a street and look at them at full speed during the night.

 

[Zed68]

I've got another suggestion that could allow for different colored windows at the fraction of the cost of an rgb _i map.

We could already do some amazing job with a few different colors for separate windows.

My suggestion (but I'm not sure the engine can use this, so it's really a suggestion) would be to use an indexed color picture alongside the greyscale _i map.

An indexed picture is very very veeeery light. it would allow builders to make things similar to this : (this is an sc4 building from simfox, notice how the lights have slightly different tints)

Even if it's still less subtle than a true rgb illumination, an indexed illumination color map would still allow for much better looking nightlights.

 

[Zed68]

Something to visualize it...

Here is the illumination map of my latest building.

I made an "illumination color map" using four different colors

This picture is a 4 colors indexed png8 and weights 3,37 ko only.

The thing now would be to know if the engine can use this. Is the engine capable of not recompressing it or capable of a different compression (than from the other maps), so that this pic stays low weight and still can be used to determine the colors of the lights.

 

[Shroomblaze]

Here's another suggestion from the CitiesSkylinesModding reddit. Orange flashing lights for utility vehicles.

https://www.reddit.com/r/CitiesSkyl.../flashing_amber_lights_for_utility_vechicles/

 

[Shroomblaze]

Once again another reason we need more lighting control. I wanted to make a fire truck and because your base model was using blue lights I can only use blue lights on my firetruck and not red. A Fire Truck without red lights!? Please let us use a color slider or something. I really was hoping to have alternate red and blue lights flashing but I guess not for now. Please Fix. Thanks

 

[Zed68]

Hmm I don't think we mentioned the fact that we have no way of having permanent lights for vehicles (like position or even "beautification" lights for trucks).