Scene Ambience

Calendaria writes scene darkness and environment lighting from the time of day, the current weather, and the 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.

Enable it in Settings Panel > Canvas tab > Sync Scene Darkness with Time.

Darkness recalculates when the in-game minute changes, and again the moment the weather changes or a moon crosses into a new phase. A scene also syncs when it becomes active. Only the primary GM’s client pushes the update.

Small time steps fade the darkness level across the transition, while a jump of an in-game hour or more applies the new level instantly. Activating a scene always fades.

Only the active scene receives darkness updates. To update every scene that has darkness sync switched on, turn on Sync All Scenes on the same tab.

A scene that opts out of darkness sync also plays no night music. See Night and weather music.

Brightness multiplier

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

Per-scene overrides

The Scene Configuration > Calendaria tab overrides sync and weather behavior for a single scene. Each override defaults to following the world setting unless you set it explicitly.

Setting	Options	Effect
Sync Darkness with Time	Use Global Setting / Enabled / Disabled	Overrides whether time-of-day darkness syncs on this scene
Brightness Multiplier	Slider	Replaces the global brightness multiplier for this scene
Weather Affects Darkness	Use Global Setting / Enabled / Disabled	Overrides whether the current weather’s darkness penalty applies on this scene
Moon Illumination	Use Global Setting / Enabled / Disabled	Overrides whether moon illumination reduces darkness on this scene
Sync Scene Ambience with Weather	Use Global Setting / Enabled / Disabled	Overrides whether computed environment lighting writes to this scene
Sync Scene Ambience with Time of Day	Use Global Setting / Enabled / Disabled	Overrides whether time-of-day hue shifting factors into this scene’s ambience
Climate Zone Override	Zone selector	Uses a different climate zone than the calendar’s default for this scene
Weather FX Override	Inherit (Global Setting) / On / Off	Shows or suppresses weather particle effects on this scene
Weather FX View Mode	Use Global Setting / Top-Down / Side View	Overrides the FXMaster particle view mode and the HUD dome renderer direction
Weather FX Splash	Use Global Setting / Show Splash / No Splash	Overrides whether splash particles render on this scene
Disable Weather Sound	Toggle	Suppresses weather ambient sounds on this scene while leaving visual effects intact
Weather Effect Levels	Multi-select	Restricts weather FX to the chosen scene levels
Hide HUD for Players	Toggle	Hides the HUD for players when this scene is active

A Climate Zone Override that names a zone the active calendar does not define is ignored. The scene uses the calendar’s active zone and a warning is logged.

Weather effect levels

On scenes that define native scene levels, Weather Effect Levels restricts weather FX to the levels you select. 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

Force Downward Weather clamps particle angles to within 45° of vertical, keeping weather falling from above. It applies to FXMaster canvas particles and to the HUD dome renderer. Use it on side-view scenes where wind-driven particles would otherwise blow sideways or upward.

Enable it in Settings Panel > Weather tab > FXMaster Integration.

Dynamic daylight

With Enable Dynamic Daylight turned on in Calendar Editor > Time tab, daylight hours vary through the year. Sunrise and sunset shift toward longer summer days and shorter winter days.

Darkness then 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. A scene takes the sunrise and sunset times of its assigned zone.

Daylight is resolved in this order, first match wins:

Priority	Source	Description
1	Zone Fixed Sun Times	Exact sunrise and sunset hours locked on the zone, with no seasonal variation
2	Zone Latitude	Astronomical hour-angle calculation based on the zone’s latitude
3	Zone Manual	Custom shortest and longest day hours set directly on the zone
4	Global Daylight	Calendar-wide solstice settings from the Time tab
5	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. Zones near the equator get roughly equal day and night year-round. The swing grows with latitude, and far enough toward the poles the formula returns full polar day or polar night around the solstices.

Moon illumination

Moons reduce nighttime darkness based on their phase. Illumination follows a cosine curve, peaking at full moon and dropping to zero at new moon. Multiple moons sum their contributions.

A colored moon at high illumination tints the scene’s dark-channel hue. A moon under a lunar eclipse contributes less light, scaled by the eclipse type, and one in total lunar eclipse tints the dark-channel hue blood-red.

Each moon’s brightness cap is set in Calendar Editor > Moons tab. Enable illumination in Settings Panel > Canvas tab > Moon Illumination.

Solar eclipses

A solar eclipse raises daytime darkness on synced scenes, and deeper eclipse types darken the scene further. The eclipse floor applies only while Moon Illumination is enabled.

See Moon Phases: Moon Brightness.

Time-of-day color shifting

Climate zones define dawn, dusk, and night hue values that shift scene environment lighting through the day. The hue blends from night through dawn, midday, and dusk, then back to night. The transition duration is set per zone.

Color shifting only touches environment lighting. Darkness is computed separately from time, weather, and moon illumination.

Time of Day Hue Intensity in Settings Panel > Canvas tab scales how strongly the dawn, dusk, and night hues show. Lowering it flattens the shift toward neutral, while raising it produces stronger sunsets and bluer nights. Synced scenes pick up the change immediately.

Set the hues per zone in the Climate Editor > Environment tab. Enable the shift globally in Settings Panel > Canvas tab > Sync Scene Ambience with Time of Day. Writing the result to the scene also requires Sync Scene Ambience with Weather.

Darkness modifiers

The final darkness value combines several factors:

Base brightness (inverse of time-of-day darkness)
  × Scene brightness multiplier
  × Climate zone brightness multiplier
= Adjusted darkness
  capped by moonlight
  raised to the solar eclipse darkness floor
  + Weather darkness penalty
= Final darkness (clamped 0-1)

Weather darkness penalty

Each weather preset carries its own darkness penalty, and heavier weather darkens the scene more. A few fantasy presets apply a negative penalty and brighten it instead.

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

With Sync Scene Ambience with Weather enabled, Calendaria writes the full set of scene environment properties from weather and climate settings:

Day and night channels: hue, intensity, luminosity, saturation, shadows
Blend ambience (cycle) toggle

Weather preset values take precedence, with climate zone values as fallback. While sync is enabled, every environment value is written to the scene. A value with no weather, zone, or time-of-day source resets to its neutral default.

Weather Hue Override in Settings Panel > Canvas tab controls how far a weather preset’s hue displaces the time-of-day hue. At the top of its range weather replaces the hue outright. Lower it to keep dawn and dusk color visible underneath the weather. Only the hue blends; the other environment values take the weather value whole.

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

For developers

See API Reference and Hooks.