Contraption Lights
Light that moves with your build.
Put a lantern, glowstone, or any glowing block on a Create contraption or a Sable sub-level, and the light travels with it as it drives, flies, rotates, tilts, or sails. No more pitch-black cabins and tunnels.
Light also passes between your builds and the world in both directions, so a torch on the shore lights a passing ship and the ship's lanterns light the shore. Every dependency is optional: install a backend, something to light, and nothing else.
What can carry light
- Create contraptions - carts, gantries, elevators, bearings: anything assembled and moving, rotating parts included.
- Create kinetics - rotating shafts and cogs, rendered in place by Flywheel.
- Sable sub-levels - physics-driven structures such as ships and dynamic trees.
- Other Flywheel content - blocks and entities drawn by non-Create mods such as Vanillin. Needs Flywheel 1.0.6+, no Create.
- Sable Ragdolls limbs - a ragdolled player keeps carrying their light: a torch in hand still lights the scene while they are limp.
Glowing blocks hidden inside Create copycats and items framed in placards count too, casting the light of whatever they hold.
How light travels
| Direction | What you get | Turn it on |
|---|---|---|
| Build lights the world | A moving build throws its own light onto the terrain, following every turn of a bearing and roll of a ship. A beacon riding a sub-level casts its beam out along the sub-level's up axis, like a steerable searchlight. | On by default |
| World lights the build | Held torches, glowing mobs, dropped items, placed torches, glowstone and lava shine back onto a passing build. Directed sources count too, so another mod's flashlight or a beacon beam lights what it sweeps across. | The ...WorldTo... options |
| Builds light each other | A lit ship lights a nearby contraption or kinetic, and a lit contraption lights nearby kinetics. | Nothing extra. A build already emits, so the option that lets it receive from the world lets it receive from another build. |
| Builds riding builds | A bearing-driven propeller with a lantern, spinning on a moving ship, lights the deck, the world and other structures, and is lit by all of them in return, tracked to where it is actually drawn. | Automatic once the relevant options above are on |
Modes
Client lighting has one mode setting. The server option is separate and needs no client mod.
| Mode | Light it produces | Shaders | Needs | Covers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LAMB (default) | Vanilla-colored, no shadows, smooth per frame, cheap. | Yes | LambDynamicLights | Every direction above. |
| VEIL (experimental) | Colored per source (froglight green, soul lantern cyan) plus crisp angled shadows from a tilted sub-level's own blocks. | No. Veil stands down whenever Iris is installed, so this mode disables itself. | Veil | Your build lighting the world, plus a rougher take on the reverse. No cross-build light, no riding builds, no Flywheel kinetics. Not meant for normal play. |
| Server light blocks | Real invisible light blocks placed as a build moves and cleaned up behind it, so every player sees it with no client mod. | Yes | Nothing on the client | Your build lighting the world. Heavier, so off by default and meant for server admins. |
Setup
| Mod | Enables |
|---|---|
| LambDynamicLights | LAMB mode. |
| Veil | VEIL mode. |
| Create 0.6+ | Contraptions, kinetics, copycat and placard light. |
| Sable | Sub-levels, on any mode. |
| Sable Ragdolls 0.7+ | A ragdolled player's held light. |
| Sodium 0.8.12+ | The options below in Video Settings. |
Common setups: Create + LambDynamicLights for smooth contraption lighting; Sable + a backend for ships with no Create; Veil + VEIL mode for colored light and shadows; Create + the server option for a whole server at once. Running Iris shaders, use LAMB.
Options
Everything has sensible defaults. Client options live in the in-game config screen, the config file, and Sodium's Video Settings.
Client
| Option | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
mode | LAMB | Rendering backend: LAMB, VEIL or OFF. A mode whose mod is absent lights nothing and says so on screen; your choice is kept, so installing the mod later just works. |
luminanceMultiplier | 1.0 | Overall brightness, up to 2.0. |
updateInterval | 0 | Milliseconds between updates of the light a build casts outward. 0 is every tick, smoothest; higher costs less. |
worldUpdateInterval | 0 | The same, for light cast back onto a build. |
showStatusOverlay | on | Show a short message in the bottom-right when something needs attention (no backend installed, a backend missing, a feature that disabled itself). Click its x to dismiss. Everything shown also goes to the log. |
enableContraptionDynamicLight | on | A Create contraption casts the light it carries. |
enableSubLevelDynamicLight | on | A Sable sub-level casts the light it carries, including a carried beacon's beam. |
enableWorldToContraptionLambLight | off | World light shines onto Create contraptions. Needs Create's Flywheel backend. |
enableWorldToSubLevelLambLight | off | World light shines onto Sable sub-levels, dynamic sources and static blocks alike. |
enableWorldToFlywheelLight | off | World light shines onto Flywheel-rendered blocks and entities. Needs Flywheel 1.0.6+, works without Create. |
enableWorldToStructureVeilLight | off | VEIL mode only: world light shines onto contraptions and sub-levels. |
Client, Iris fixes
Sable sub-levels are lit incorrectly whenever Iris is installed. These restore them, and are applied by a bundled "Contraption Lights Fixes" mod that ships inside Contraption Lights and appears as its own entry in the mod list. All three need Sable, Iris and Veil installed.
| Option | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
fixSubLevelShading | on | Restore directional face shading, which otherwise looks flat and too bright. Follows the build as it tilts, with or without a shaderpack. |
fixSubLevelSkyLight | on | Go dark in caves and underground instead of staying lit as if under open sky. |
fixSubLevelAmbientOcclusion | on | Shade corners and recesses the way the shaderpack shades the world's, instead of washing them out and dimming glowing blocks. Only with a shaderpack loaded, and only for packs that handle ambient occlusion themselves. |
Server
| Option | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
enableContraptionLightBlock | off | Place real light blocks as a Create contraption moves. |
enableSubLevelLightBlock | off | Place real light blocks as a Sable sub-level moves. |
minLightBlockEmission | 1 | Only place a light block for sources at least this bright, to place fewer of them. |
FAQ
Which mode should I use? LAMB, unless you specifically want colored light or sub-level shadows and do not run shaders.
Do other players need the mod? For LAMB and VEIL, yes, each player installs it. For the server light-block option, only the server does and everyone sees the light.
My Sable sub-levels look flat, too bright, washed out at the corners, or stay lit underground.
That is the Iris break the bundled fixes above are for. Check Sable, Iris and Veil are all installed and the three fixSubLevel... options are on. Shading and sky light take effect immediately; ambient occlusion applies to sections as they rebuild.
Nothing lights up. Watch the bottom-right corner from the main menu onward: if the setup is at fault, the mod says so there. Otherwise check the backend's mod is installed, the build actually carries a glowing block, and the matching option is on. Everything that lights a build, and both server options, are off by default.
Credits
- Logo by arthursimon900.
License
All Rights Reserved. You may include this mod in modpacks.