A node which resets sunlight?

[Hume2]

I'm not sure if it hasn't been discussed before. There are nodes which propagate sunlight, there are nodes which block sunlight but there are no nodes which increase sunlight.

That could be useful in a number of cases. For example in stacked worlds. Currently, when there is one world above another world, someone has to guarantee that the blocks right bellow the top world are never explored, so the top world won't shadow the bottom world. However, if there were some kind of blocks which would reset the sunlight, it would be no longer needed. Another example of usage are large halls. When there are lights on top, the light doesn't reach the bottom. There is a hacky solution: put some kind of invisible lights on the floor, so the floor looks illuminated. Alternatively, this could be solved by making the lamps emit sunlight.

[Linuxdirk]

Afaik shadows do not propagate all the way down, so maybe stack your worlds with large enough layers in between where players can't build or walk into. A "buffer" of 300 nodes should be reasonably high for not having the bottom layer of the world above being loaded.

[Hume2]

I know. The point of that is that it wouldn't be needed anymore. So if someone went there anyway, it wouldn't make a catastrophe.

[Linuxdirk]

Yes, something like a “sky node” would be a great addition. Imagine a glass block but instead of seeing through the glass you just see the sky as if there were no obstacles, including sunlight.

With this you could cover the bottom layer of the world above and players underneath would simply see the sky.

I wonder if the engine is capable of that.

[AspireMint]

This idea: viewtopic.php?p=388030#p388030 could solve stacked worlds - you just send empty chunk to client instead of world above.
But yup, node emitting sunlight is good for large halls.

edit: actually not empty chunk, but chunk full of non breakable invisible nodes

[gd2shoe]

Hmm. I realize this is an old thread, and I'm just passing through. Leaving this here for anyone else toying with this idea.

AspireMint's idea might be easier to test than it first seems. It would call for a node definition with a blank texture (or light blue) which propagates sunlight, is unbreakable and walkable. Then, just create a biome that blankets a given altitude range with only that node type. Might work. Might also break if the engine is changed. Interesting theory.

(Chunks are 80 tall. If you don't feel like calculating chunk boundaries, just make the biome 160 tall or greater, and see what happens below it.)