Scene Ambience

Calendaria syncs scene darkness, lighting, and color with time of day, weather, and moon phases.

Darkness sync

Darkness follows a cosine curve through the day. It peaks at midnight, bottoms out at noon, and transitions gradually through dawn and dusk.

Darkness recalculates when the hour changes and syncs immediately when you switch to a new scene. Only you can update scene darkness.

Enable via Settings Panel > Canvas tab > Sync Scene Darkness with Time (default: disabled).

Brightness multiplier

A global brightness multiplier applies to all scenes unless a scene overrides it. Configure it in Settings Panel > Canvas tab.

Per-scene override

Override settings for individual scenes via the Scene Configuration > Calendaria tab:

Setting	Options
Darkness Sync	Use Global / Enabled / Disabled
Brightness Multiplier	Slider
Hide HUD for Players	Hide the HUD for players when this scene is active
Climate Zone Override	Use a different climate zone than the calendar’s default
Weather FX View Mode	Use Global / Top-Down / Side View. Controls both FXMaster canvas weather and HUD dome renderer direction

Scene Integration overrides

The Scene Configuration > Calendaria tab also overrides integration behavior on a single scene:

Setting	Options	Effect
Weather FX View Mode	Use Global / Top-Down / Side View	Overrides the global FXMaster particle view mode for this scene
Disable Weather Sound	Toggle	Suppresses weather ambient sounds on this scene while leaving visual effects intact

Weather Effect Levels

On scenes that define native scene levels, a Weather Effect Levels multi-select restricts weather FX to the chosen levels. Select one or more levels to limit where particles appear. Leave it empty to show weather on all levels. The control only appears when the scene has at least one level defined.

Force downward weather

The Force Downward Weather setting clamps particle angles to within ±45° of vertical, so weather always falls from above. It applies to both FXMaster canvas particles and the HUD dome renderer. Use it for side-view scenes where wind-driven particles might otherwise blow horizontally or upward.

Enable via Settings Panel > Weather tab > FXMaster section.

Dynamic daylight

When Enable Dynamic Daylight is enabled in Calendar Editor > Time tab, daylight hours vary through the year. Sunrise and sunset times shift toward longer summer days and shorter winter days.

Darkness follows the actual sunrise and sunset times. The curve runs from full darkness at midnight through dawn, stays minimal during daylight, then rises again through dusk.

Per-zone daylight

Climate zones can override the global daylight curve. Each scene then takes the sunrise and sunset times of its assigned zone.

Daylight is resolved using the following priority (first match wins):

Priority	Source	Description
1	Zone Latitude	Astronomical hour-angle calculation based on the zone’s latitude (-90° to +90°)
2	Zone Manual	Custom shortest/longest day hours set directly on the zone
3	Global Daylight	Calendar-wide solstice settings from the Time tab
4	Static Fallback	Half the day

Latitude-based daylight

When a zone has a latitude set, Calendaria computes daylight hours for each day of the year with an astronomical hour-angle formula. This produces seasonal variation:

Equator: roughly equal day and night year-round
Mid-latitudes: daylight stretches and shrinks with the season
Polar regions: polar day and night extremes near the solstices

Moon illumination

Moons reduce nighttime darkness based on their phase. Each moon’s moonBrightnessMax is set in Calendar Editor > Moons tab. Illumination follows a cosine curve, peaking at full moon and dropping to zero at new moon. Multiple moons sum their contributions, each tinted with its configured color.

Enable via Settings Panel > Canvas tab > Moon Illumination.

See Moon Phases: Moon Brightness for configuration details.

Time-of-day color shifting

Climate zones define dawn, dusk, and night hue values that shift scene environment lighting through the day. Five phases control the hue: night, dawn transition, day, dusk transition, and night transition. Transition durations are configurable per zone.

Color shifting is independent of darkness. Hue changes apply to environment lighting. Time, weather, and moon illumination control darkness separately.

Configure per-zone in the Climate Editor > Environment tab. Enable globally via Settings Panel > Canvas tab > Sync Scene Ambience with Time of Day.

Darkness modifiers

The final darkness value combines multiple factors:

Base darkness (from time of day)
  × Scene brightness multiplier
  × Climate zone brightness multiplier
  + Weather darkness penalty
  - Moon illumination (capped at 0.3)
= Final darkness (clamped 0-1)

Weather darkness penalty

Each weather preset carries its own darkness penalty. Heavier weather darkens the scene more. A few fantasy presets apply a negative penalty that brightens it instead. Sample values:

Preset	Penalty
Clear	0
Overcast	+0.05
Rain	+0.05
Thunderstorm	+0.1
Blizzard	+0.15
Black Sun	+0.3
Divine Light	-0.2

Climate zone brightness

Climate zones can define a brightness multiplier that scales overall scene brightness.

Environment lighting

When Sync Scene Ambience with Weather is enabled (disabled by default), Calendaria syncs the full set of Foundry scene environment properties with weather and climate settings:

Per channel (Day/Night): Hue, intensity, luminosity, saturation, shadows
Global: Blend ambience (cycle) toggle

Weather preset values take precedence, with climate zone values as fallback. When neither defines overrides, the scene keeps its existing environment settings. No values are reset.

Configure per-preset in the Weather Editor and per-zone in the Climate Editor > Environment tab.

For developers

See API Reference and Hooks.