Day/Night is Coming
 

http://i.imgur.com/WPNCOME.png
A while back someone suggested a day/night system for Graal, and Dusty and I got into a discussion about how it would be possible to make it without severe performance issues. He got stuck I guess, and the idea was abandoned. However, recently he posted this image and the spot under the nafets bridge shows an interesting form of shading. I guess someone found a viable method or something, as shown by this image(also can be seen under nafets bridge in game)

My speculation is that Night/day is being worked on, and will be released in the future.

the thread:

http://www.graalians.com/forums/sear...9&pp=25&page=2

Day and night would be interesting, it would also make graal look better a ton! ;)

I did under the bridge, and it really had nothing to do with day/night. I simply thought of an interesting way to make that area very atmospheric.

Not that day/night isn't going to be implemented, I don't know... just saying that was my doing and it really didn't have anything to do with a day/night project.

If only. It would be really nice to have.

Problem is, players from different timezones might be playing and it could be daytime for them but night in graal. Who's timezone would it be based on? Also, could their be special "dealers" who only work at nighttime which could sell items and appear at a different spot everytime?

The game would have its own time scaling independent of the real world. Something like two or three days in 24 hours.

It could go in a cycle like this. 00:00-01:00 Twilight (Still very dark outside but slightly lighter than before). 01:00-02:00 Early Morning (Lighter, but still somewhat dim to be fully morning). 02:00-03:00 Morning (Regular lighting). 03:00-04:00 Afternoon (Orangey lighting, still somewhat bright). 04:00-05:00 Evening (Dark skies but still bright enough to see all areas). 05:00-06:00 Late Evening (Very dark. Cities will provide street lamps and torch lit paths but some areas a lantern is recommended). The cycle will repeat itself from 07:00-24:00.

I like the idea, but not everyone can afford a lantern.

It would be great to have, as well as an excuse for me to ask Rufus to let me make new soundtracks for night time.

The major areas would all be lit up, cities, towers. Guild spar, etc. just a few areas would be immersed in darkness. But even then there could be some light, but it would be scarce so lanterns being used to pass by would be recommended if you're not familiar with the area in the dark.

It would be nice to use a lantern in the dark 0:!

The problem is Graal does not support masking, so there is no such thing as subtractive light/darkness. That means you can't really make it too dark because there's no way to make a light source "erase" the darkness. At least not efficiently. So you end up with a faint darkness and crappy lights like what's currently in Graal that just wash out what you see, rather than add clarity.

There is one way to do the above, and I have been testing it out but there are a lot of bugs and various other things that need to be sorted out. The most important is efficiency. If it can't run decently on a majority of the ipods out there, it won't be done(because we'd have to maintain a fair playing field, and visibility is an important thing to keep fair).

My ideal state would be that only cities and popular areas/noob areas are lit up(for instance the path from Big Brother to Graal City) and otherwise you'd need a lantern to walk around at night. I'd also like to have it so any player with a lantern would be a light source, but that wouldn't be possible on iClassic because having to loop through a hundred or so players would be way too intensive for any iDevice.

Perhaps only buildings and cities can give off an equal light source that doesn't blend/intensify in certain areas where they meet. Supposedly, Swamptown (and maybe deadwood) would be the darkest town with only the buildings used as light. However, the rest of the area such as Mid Swamp, far Eastern Swamp, and South West Swamp (below the tower which is lit) would be dark where lanterns would be advised, but not a necessity.

In addition, a lighting setting for the game could be added. Or would that fall under the masking category? If not, then lighting settings and adjustments could be added for devices that have issues.

Other areas that lack buildings/lamp posts like the path to the castle from Sister Gertrude or like Eastern Master Li forest and the mountains could be dark. How would the lighting work anyhow? I think the lighting style used in Sara Rei's house would work nicely because the brightness works with the distance from a light source which could be used in towns or when near buildings.

[QUOTE=Dusty;300822]The problem is Graal does not support masking, so there is no such thing as subtractive light/darkness. That means you can't really make it too dark because there's no way to make a light source "erase" the darkness. At least not efficiently. So you end up with a faint darkness and crappy lights like what's currently in Graal that just wash out what you see, rather than add clarity.

There is one way to do the above, and I have been testing it out but there are a lot of bugs and various other things that need to be sorted out. The most important is efficiency. If it can't run decently on a majority of the ipods out there, it won't be done(because we'd have to maintain a fair playing field, and visibility is an important thing to keep fair).

My ideal state would be that only cities and popular areas/noob areas are lit up(for instance the path from Big Brother to Graal City) and otherwise you'd need a lantern to walk around at night. I'd also like to have it so any player with a lantern would be a light source, but that wouldn't be possible on iClassic because having to loop through a hundred or so players would be way too intensive for any iDevice.[QUOTE]

How exactly did you go about making the dark/bright area under the nafets bridge? Is it just an image?

Just a few images.