Weird night time ambient lighting

[LazyDrifter]

Hi, did anything change in v1.2 regarding night time brightness?

 

After starting a new game on a fresh vanilla v1.20.3 installation, I noticed that (every night)

1. the transition from the evening ambient light to the typical VS pitch black darkness happens in like 2 seconds.

2. around midnight the dark ambient light becomes brighter to the point where I can see everything and no torch is needed.

3. there are no hostile mob spawns at night, even during high rift activity (in 30 in-game days). Possibly a result of the messed up light level?

I already posted a bug report on the VS github page.

Does anyone else experience this?

Edited January 28, 2025 by LazyDrifter

[cjc813]

same. one night it just stayed light all night long. then, the next night, it stayed twilight until like midnight, and then got pitch black out of nowhere.

before that, on another world, i kept also kept having random bouts of darkness in the middle of the day, lasting for maybe 3 to 5 seconds. was actually kinda neat.

[LadyWYT]

I think there was a tweak that was intended to make the transition to midnight lighting a bit smoother. Otherwise, I think it's one of those areas of the game that's still being refined and will probably go through more adjustments before it operates smoothly. I've also a sneaking hunch that some of the abrupt lighting changes may be tied to the player's current latitude and the current time of year, since both of those qualities do affect the amount of daylight you have to work with.

[LazyDrifter]

9 hours ago, cjc813 said:

same. one night it just stayed light all night long. then, the next night, it stayed twilight until like midnight, and then got pitch black out of nowhere.

before that, on another world, i kept also kept having random bouts of darkness in the middle of the day, lasting for maybe 3 to 5 seconds. was actually kinda neat.

Haha, never had the instant darkness glitch happening in the middle of the day, but that would be a cool idea for a nice, creepy event. Like a temporal void event when you get close to certain areas or remnant devices. Paired with the new mobs...

9 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Otherwise, I think it's one of those areas of the game that's still being refined and will probably go through more adjustments before it operates smoothly.

Yeah, I guess you are right. Also, with so many reported issues that need attention, I don't blame the devs for leaving some systems in a semi-working state. I guess it's the only way for them to maintain some breathing room.

[VictorShadow]

Yeah, I've had this happen.

Started a new world with 5 days of safety.
Day 5 night approaches, I'm talking to a trader to check their trades before sleeping the night away when I notice that's it's bright outside through a window. I check the time, it's midnight so I figure it might just be bright because of it being near summer and therefor brighter for more hours, so I head out through the night heading to my home, I even walk past a rust portal with nothing coming out of it.

But yeah it being a bug/glitch/error makes more sense than what I thought as my previous world of 100 hours didn't have any nights as bright during the summer.

Edited January 30, 2025 by VictorShadow

[LazyDrifter]

9 hours ago, VictorShadow said:

Yeah, I've had this happen.

Started a new world with 5 days of safety.
Day 5 night approaches, I'm talking to a trader to check their trades before sleeping the night away when I notice that's it's bright outside through a window. I check the time, it's midnight so I figure it might just be bright because of it being near summer and therefor brighter for more hours, so I head out through the night heading to my home, I even walk past a rust portal with nothing coming out of it.

But yeah it being a bug/glitch/error makes more sense than what I thought as my previous world of 100 hours didn't have any nights as bright during the summer.

Funny thing regarding no night spawns. I was so used to rifts floating around my home without anything coming out, that I just worked through the nights for months without worries and suddenly, yesterday (~September) BOOM, despite calm rift activity, one rift lingered in my garden and all kinds of mobs were sticking their heads through my doors. Then one of these dart throwing things spawned right in my little house. Luckily I had built two doors, so I escaped to a nearby trader.

Now, there are spawns more often whenever a rift is around. Probably due to the nights getting longer. EDIT: Thus longer phases of "true darkness" with a dark enough light level.

Edited January 30, 2025 by LazyDrifter

[7embre]

On 1/28/2025 at 8:49 PM, LazyDrifter said:

1. the transition from the evening ambient light to the typical VS pitch black darkness happens in like 2 seconds.

2. around midnight the dark ambient light becomes brighter to the point where I can see everything and no torch is needed.

3. there are no hostile mob spawns at night, even during high rift activity (in 30 in-game days). Possibly a result of the messed up light level?

Does anyone else experience this?

Yep, I did notice that too. Nights are too bright, even if compared to the sky. I was playing yesterday on medium and high rift activity, and there were no creepy-crawlies around, nor did I hear any rifts. But, I see the nights being a bit brighter to be a good thing actually, as you'll be able to see stuff while sailing, and it surely takes a lot of time...

Although this "bug" started not in 1.20.3, but in 1.20-rc5 I believe? After the fix of "white nights", where the ground was lit like it should be during the day, despite the sky being dark or red. That looked funny, that's for sure. As the twilight was darker than the night

(screenshot from 1.20-rc3)

)

[LazyDrifter]

Haha, yep, definitely had this also since 1.2. The thing is I actually learned to love the VS darkness that makes you blind without a torch. Though I still never had the pleasure of sailing. That must be frustrating in pure darkness with all the little islands. The picture you posted is actually what I see most of the time at around 3-5 am. Definitely funny and it reminds me of ugly omni-present universal lighting from the old Unity3D days.

[BS3]

Is this a bug?
This still happens in 1.20.9

[macscasehardener]

i think i am experiencing this. do you guys have the link to the bug report or any other help? my nights are pitch black sometimes and i dont see any stars. i changed the skybox with some mod, it worked a while and now its back to total darkness outside of my lights.. 

[EmporoarCcin]

Reached the first day of summer, and my nights are bright enough I can see everything clearly, also no monsters are spawning. I thought it was the auto-contrast adjuster going haywire, but playing around with all the settings either makes everything bright or dark regardless of any light sources. If summer nights are brighter, fair enough. If it's a bug, anyone got any idea what the cause/solution is?

[LadyWYT]

10 hours ago, EmporoarCcin said:

Reached the first day of summer, and my nights are bright enough I can see everything clearly, also no monsters are spawning. I thought it was the auto-contrast adjuster going haywire, but playing around with all the settings either makes everything bright or dark regardless of any light sources. If summer nights are brighter, fair enough. If it's a bug, anyone got any idea what the cause/solution is?

Welcome to the forums! This is a feature of summer nights, though it depends on where you settled. The further north you go, the longer the days get in summer, to the point it may be bright enough during the "night" to prevent monster spawns on the surface. By default, the start is the temperate zone, which will have longer summer days, but not to the extent that nights won't be dark enough for monsters, at least for a short time.

[EmporoarCcin]

11 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Welcome to the forums! This is a feature of summer nights, though it depends on where you settled. The further north you go, the longer the days get in summer, to the point it may be bright enough during the "night" to prevent monster spawns on the surface. By default, the start is the temperate zone, which will have longer summer days, but not to the extent that nights won't be dark enough for monsters, at least for a short time.

Thanks for the info. I was aware the game followed real-world logic of polar regions having longer periods of sun exposure, but I settled near the spawn point in the temperate zone so I wasn't expecting bright nights.

[ifoz]

On 9/4/2025 at 12:59 AM, macscasehardener said:

my nights are pitch black sometimes and i dont see any stars.

Clouds can cover the stars and appear dark, if you want to check if it is just cloudy, try looking at the sky through a glass block.
Glass shaders are weird and the clouds will appear bright white.

[Stevej018]

Very bright red nights, I didnt have this in 1.20.