Maps

Map lighting

Every map comes with its own lighting: the time of day, the sky, the haze and the colours. The plugin sets it for you when it builds the map. This page shows what it changes, how to get glowing night maps with Future lighting, and how to tune the look yourself.

The look#

The map's time of day (Day, Sunset, Dawn or Night) picks a family of looks, and the generator picks one look inside it:

Caves, dungeons, underwater maps and space maps get their own looks (Cave, Torchlit dungeon, Underwater, Open space). Words in your prompt can pick the look, and the seed picks it otherwise, so the same prompt and seed always get the same look. After a build, Output shows the one you got, for example [BloxMaps] Lighting: Moonlit night.

What the plugin sets#

On Lighting#

Select Lighting in the Explorer to see these in Properties:

• ClockTime: the time of day (the sun or moon position).
• Brightness and ExposureCompensation: how bright the scene is.
• Ambient and OutdoorAmbient: the colour of the shadows, indoors and outdoors.
• ColorShift_Top and ColorShift_Bottom: the tint on the sides facing toward and away from the sun.
• ShadowSoftness, with GlobalShadows on.
• EnvironmentDiffuseScale and EnvironmentSpecularScale: how much the sky lights the map, and how shiny things look (kept low, so the cartoon colours stay flat and bright).
• FogStart and FogEnd: fog is turned off (the Atmosphere does the haze), except in some dungeons that use classic fog.

The objects it adds#

Everything the plugin adds has a BloxMap name and the attribute BloxMapLighting set to true:

On daylight looks the plugin also sets the terrain water's reflection and waves (WaterReflectance, WaterWaveSize, WaterWaveSpeed on Terrain).

It plays nicely with what you already have:

• Your own custom skybox is kept as it is. If your Sky still shows a Roblox default sky, the plugin only changes its sun, moon and stars.
• If you already have an Atmosphere, a Clouds or a colour, bloom or sun rays effect, the plugin updates yours instead of adding a second one (two would stack).
• Building a new map updates these objects in place and removes the ones the new look doesn't use.
• The build is one undo step, so Ctrl+Z brings your old lighting back.

Lamps#

Lamp models in the map get a light near the top, inside an Attachment named LampLight. Tall street lamps get a SpotLight that points down and makes a pool of light on the street. Lanterns and short lamps get a PointLight. Lamp shadows are off, so they stay cheap.

The look decides if lamps are on. They're off in Sunny day, Fresh morning, Golden hour and Dawn. They're on in Sunset, Blue hour, Synthwave sunset, every night look, and in caves, dungeons and underwater maps. Neon night and Synthwave sunset use coloured lamps. Lights built into kit models (bulbs, torches) follow the same rule.

Future lighting for night maps#

Night maps look best with Roblox's Future lighting (Realistic): lamps glow on the ground and walls around them. The plugin tries to turn it on, but Roblox only lets you change it yourself in Studio. If it isn't on, Output shows a tip after the build.

1. Select Lighting in the Explorer.
2. In Properties, set LightingStyle to Realistic.
3. Tick PrioritizeLightingQuality.
4. If your Studio shows the older Technology property instead, set it to Future.

It's saved with your place, so you only do it once per place.

Tune the look#

After the build, the lighting is yours: change any property in Studio and watch the viewport update. Good places to start:

• Brighter or darker: Lighting.ExposureCompensation (small steps, like 0.2).
• Another time of day: Lighting.ClockTime (hours: 14 is afternoon, about 17.7 is sunset, 21 is night).
• More or less haze: BloxMapAtmosphere.Density and Haze. Lower means you see further.
• More or less colour: BloxMapColor.Saturation and Contrast.
• Less glow: lower BloxMapBloom.Intensity, or raise its Threshold.
• Brighter lamps: run this in the Command Bar (View tab) to change every lamp at once.

for _, d in workspace.BloxMap:GetDescendants() do
	if d:IsA("Light") and d.Name == "LampLight" then
		d.Brightness *= 1.5
	end
end