At some point I would have to think of a way to switch a scene between day and night, because Crestfallen is a city that almost only exists at night. It is a dirty, desolate place with a crime rate that is only challenged by the high rate of unemployment. It is also a place of wonder and art, full of creative energies. I want to capture this dichotomy.
You would think that switching between day and night is a common thing in game design and it can’t be that hard. Turn off some lights, turn on some other lights, boom, done. The thing is, most of the light you see in games is baked. This means, that the lights on objects in the scene are pre-calculated and exist as images that describe the light directions and intensities. Dynamic light makes only sense with moving 3D objects. Most of the moving objects in this game are sprites and at the moment I have decided against them casting shadows (mainly because billboards would change their shadow angle when the camera moves).
After some tinkering I found a way to switch between those pre-generated images. Also I added lots of functionality to change things in the scene based on the time of day, like the shine of lamps, the brightness of the images in the scene or even the presence of NPCs.
Please enjoy this first screenshot of Crestfallen by night.
Also I made this ocean water shader material. Crestfallen is a coastal city and it needs a nice ocean.