Lighting¶
The Lighting service controls global lighting in an experience. It includes
a range of adjustable properties that you can use to change how lighting
appears and interacts with other objects.
Description¶
The Lighting service controls global lighting in an experience. It includes
a range of adjustable properties that you can use to change how lighting
appears and interacts with other objects, as summarized in
Lighting Properties.
Lighting may also contain an Atmosphere object to render realistic
atmospheric effects, including particle density, haze, glare, and color. See
Atmospheric Effects for details.
In addition, Lighting (along with Workspace.CurrentCamera) may
contain
post‑processing effects
such as SunRaysEffect and BlurEffect.
Inheritance¶
Nova inheritance: Instance → Lighting
Properties¶
Ambient Supported Property The lighting hue applied to areas that are occluded from the sky, such as indoor areas.
Ambient is the lighting hue applied to areas that are occluded from the
sky, such as indoor areas.
Ambient defaults to [0, 0, 0] (black). As long as the red, green, and
blue channels of this property do not exceed the corresponding channels in
OutdoorAmbient, the change in hue will be
reserved for areas occluded from the sun/moon.
Note that when GlobalShadows is disabled,
there is no distinction between areas occluded from the sky and
non‑occluded areas. In this case,
OutdoorAmbient will be ignored and the hue
from the Ambient property will be applied everywhere.
Brightness Supported Property The intensity of illumination in the place.
The intensity of illumination in the place.
Changing this value will influence the impact of the light source (sun or
moon) on the place's lighting. Note that Ambient
and OutdoorAmbient can also be used to
influence how bright a place appears. For example, setting
OutdoorAmbient to [255, 255, 255]127, 127, 127
ClockTime Supported Property A numerical representation (in hours) of the current time of day used by Lighting.
A numerical representation (in hours) of the current time of day used by
Lighting. Note that this property does not correspond with the actual
time of day and will not change during gameplay unless it has been changed
by a script.
For a measure of Lighting time formatted as a 24-hour string, use
TimeOfDay. Changing
TimeOfDay or using
SetMinutesAfterMidnight() will
also change this property.
ColorShift_Bottom Supported Property The hue represented in light reflected in the opposite surfaces to those facing the sun or moon.
The hue represented in light reflected in the opposite surfaces to those facing the sun or moon.
The surfaces of a BasePart influenced by ColorShift_Bottom
depends on the position and orientation of the BasePart relative
to the sun or moon's position. Where the sun is directly overhead a
BasePart, the shift in color will only apply to the bottom
surface.
This effect can be increased or reduced by altering Brightness.
Note that ColorShift_Top and
ColorShift_Bottom will interact with the
Ambient and
OutdoorAmbient properties if they are
greater than [0, 0, 0]ColorShift_Bottom can be very hard to identify when
GlobalShadows is enabled (default).
ColorShift_Top Supported Property The hue represented in light reflected from surfaces facing the sun or moon.
The hue represented in light reflected from surfaces facing the sun or moon.
The surfaces of a BasePart influenced by ColorShift_Top depends
on the position and orientation of the BasePart relative to the
sun or moon's position. Where the sun is directly overhead a
BasePart, the shift in color will only apply to the top surface.
This effect can be increased or reduced by altering Brightness.
Note that ColorShift_Top and
ColorShift_Bottom will interact with
the Ambient and
OutdoorAmbient properties if they are
greater than [0, 0, 0]
FogColor Supported Property A Color3 value giving the hue of Lighting fog.
A Color3 value giving the hue of Lighting fog. Note that fog
properties are hidden when Lighting contains an Atmosphere
object.
FogEnd Supported Property The depth from the Workspace.CurrentCamera, in studs, at which fog will be completely opaque.
The depth from the Workspace.CurrentCamera, in studs, at which fog
will be completely opaque. Note that fog properties are hidden when
Lighting contains an Atmosphere object.
FogStart Supported Property The depth from the Workspace.CurrentCamera, in studs, at which fog begins to show.
The depth from the Workspace.CurrentCamera, in studs, at which fog
begins to show. Note that fog properties are hidden when Lighting
contains an Atmosphere object.
GeographicLatitude Supported Property The geographic latitude, in degrees, of the scene, influencing the result of Lighting time on the position of the sun and moon.
The geographic latitude, in degrees, of the scene, influencing the result
of Lighting time on the position of the sun and moon. When calculating
the position of the sun, the earth's tilt is also taken into account.
Changing GeographicLatitude will alter the position of the sun at every
TimeOfDay. If you're looking to obtain the sun
or moon's position, use
GetSunDirection() or
GetMoonDirection().
GlobalShadows Supported Property Toggles voxel-based dynamic lighting for the place.
Toggles voxel-based dynamic lighting for the place.
Toggles voxel-based dynamic lighting in the place. When set to true,
shadows are rendered in sheltered areas depending on the position of the
sun and moon. The lighting hue applied to these sheltered areas is
determined by the Ambient property while the
lighting hue in all other areas is determined by the
OutdoorAmbient property.
When false, shadows are not drawn and no distinction is made between
indoor and outdoor areas. As a result, the
Ambient property determines the lighting hue and
OutdoorAmbient will do nothing.
Shadows are calculated using a voxel system and each lighting voxel is 4×4×4 studs. This means objects need to be larger than 4×4×4 studs to display a realistic shadow. Shadows are also recalculated when BaseParts are moving.
OutdoorAmbient Supported Property The lighting hue applied to outdoor areas.
OutdoorAmbient is the lighting hue applied to outdoor areas.
OutdoorAmbient defaults to [127, 127, 127]. As long as the red, green,
and blue channels of Ambient do not exceed the
corresponding channels in OutdoorAmbient, the hue of the lighting in
outdoor areas will be determined by this property.
The effective OutdoorAmbient value is clamped to be greater than or
equal to Ambient in all channels, meaning that if
a channel of Ambient exceeds its corresponding
OutdoorAmbient channel, the hue of Ambient will
begin to apply to outdoor areas.
Note that when GlobalShadows is disabled,
there is no distinction between areas occluded from the sky and
non‑occluded areas. In this case, OutdoorAmbient will be ignored and the
hue from the Ambient property will be applied
everywhere.
Outlines Supported Property Deprecated Determines whether outlines are enabled or disabled in a place.
This property determines whether outlines are enabled or disabled in a place.
Outlines can be disabled on a global basis, using this Lighting
property, or alternatively on a surface-by-surface basis for
BaseParts using SurfaceType.
Although this property can be set by scripts, it recommended this property is set in Roblox Studio prior to publishing the place.
ShadowColor Supported Property Deprecated This is supposed to change the color of player shadows, but currently doesn't do anything.
This is supposed to change the color of player shadows, but currently doesn't do anything.
TimeOfDay Supported Property A 24-hour string representation of the current time of day used by Lighting.
A 24-hour string representation of the current time of day used by
Lighting. For example:
local Lighting = game:GetService("Lighting")
Lighting.TimeOfDay = "11:00" -- Set time of day to 11:00 AM
Lighting.TimeOfDay = "21:30" -- Set time of day to 9:30 PM
Note that this property does not correspond with the real-world time of day and will not change during gameplay unless it has been changed by a script.
For a numeric measure of Lighting time, use
ClockTime. Changing
ClockTime or using
SetMinutesAfterMidnight() will
also change this property.
Methods¶
GetMinutesAfterMidnight Supported Function Returns the number of minutes that have passed after midnight for the purposes of lighting.
Returns the number of minutes that have passed after midnight for the
purposes of lighting. This number will be nearly identical to
ClockTime multiplied by 60.
Note that this number will not always be equal to the value given in SetMinutesAfterMidnight() as it returns minutes after midnight in the current day.
getMinutesAfterMidnight Supported Function Deprecated
No description available.
GetMoonDirection Supported Function Returns a Vector3 representing the direction of the moon.
Returns a Vector3 representing the direction of the moon from
the position (0, 0, 0)
GetSunDirection() is a variant of this method for obtaining the direction of the sun.
GetMoonPhase Supported Function Deprecated Returns the moon's current phase.
Returns the moon's current phase. There is no way to change the moon's
phase so this will always return 0.75.
GetSunDirection Supported Function Returns a Vector3 representing the direction of the sun.
Returns a Vector3 representing the direction of the sun from
the position (0, 0, 0)
GetMoonDirection() is a variant of this method for obtaining the direction of the moon.
SetMinutesAfterMidnight Supported Function Sets TimeOfDay and ClockTime to the given number of minutes after midnight.
Sets TimeOfDay and ClockTime to the given number of minutes after midnight.
This method allows a numerical value to be used, for example in a day/night cycle Script, without the need to convert to a string in the format required by TimeOfDay. It also allows values greater than 24 hours to be given that correspond to times in the next day.
The following code sample includes a simple day/night cycle script. The
speed of time and the initial time can be changed using the TIME_SPEED
and START_TIME parameters.
setMinutesAfterMidnight Supported Function Deprecated
No description available.
Events¶
LightingChanged Supported Event This event fires when a Lighting property is changed or a Sky is added or removed from Lighting.
This event fires when a Lighting property is changed or a Sky is
added or removed from Lighting. See the skyChanged parameter for when
that flag is true versus false. Some Lighting property changes never
fire this event:
- Changing GlobalShadows will not fire this event.
- Changing fog properties FogColor, FogStart, or FogEnd will not fire this event.
In cases where this behavior is not desired, the Object.Changed event or Object.GetPropertyChangedSignal() method can be used.
Inherited members¶
Inherited from Instance: 8 properties, 36 methods, 7 events. They are documented on the base class page.
7 modern Roblox member(s) are not implemented yet — expand to inspect
Members declared by Roblox's Lighting class (or by a missing base class) that Nova does not expose. Use this list to scope a migration; the compatibility guide has the recommended workaround.
Properties¶
| Member | Signature | Status | Notes | Flags |
|---|---|---|---|---|
EnvironmentDiffuseScale |
EnvironmentDiffuseScale: float |
Not yet | Ambient light that is derived from the environment. | — |
EnvironmentSpecularScale |
EnvironmentSpecularScale: float |
Not yet | Specular light derived from environment. | — |
ExposureCompensation |
ExposureCompensation: float |
Not yet | The exposure compensation value. | — |
LightingStyle |
LightingStyle: LightingStyle |
Not yet | The artistic intent behind lighting in the experience. | — |
PrioritizeLightingQuality |
PrioritizeLightingQuality: bool |
Not yet | Indicates whether you prefer lighting/shading quality or view distance to scale down first. | — |
ShadowSoftness |
ShadowSoftness: float |
Not yet | Controls how blurry the shadows are. | — |
Technology |
Technology: Technology |
Not yet | Determines the lighting system for rendering the 3D world. Non-scriptable. | RobloxScriptSecurity |
Roblox reference: Lighting
Generated from Nova's API dump and Roblox creator-docs. Nova-only members come from the engine's reflection metadata.