How I’ve created a lantern effect in my game

Inspired by a recent trip to sunny Florida, I’ve been focusing on lighting in my game. RPG Maker’s default graphics are naturally bright and well lit. This works well in outdoor maps, but it looks odd for dungeon or underground maps.

In my last post I briefly touched on the shadow pen, which is better at creating dept than darkness. So, I’ve been working on a solution to create a different form of lighting. Right now I’m just focused on creating one form of lighting; a lantern effect.

What is a lantern effect?

Like most RPGs, I’ve got underground maps. The only problem is that they’re too bright with RPG Maker MV’s default graphics. I could create new graphics, but I’ve mentioned why I’m against that in my first post.

So instead of creating new graphics from scratch, I’m creating a lantern effect. Basically it’s a halo of light that follows the player. This makes it look like the player is holding a lantern. Thus, the lantern effect. Below is how it currently looks in my game.

I’ve got a halo of light that follows Ann’s x and y coordinates. This gives off a lantern-like effect. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than the original appearance below.

I’m still going to mess around with this effect and see how I can improve it. And it’s worth noting that I got the idea for the lantern effect from this YouTube video. It’s also got some other lighting tricks I’ll have to check out at a later date.

How’d I create this effect?

One of the many options RPG Maker MV has is the option to put pictures on the screen. The lantern effect is created by putting an image on the screen that is attached to the player’s X and Y coordinates.

Above is the image projected onto the screen to create the lantern effect. It’s mostly transparent so it doesn’t completely block out the graphics underneath it. I also have some gray around the yellow spot to create the impression of darkness.

Are there any other lighting effects?

At the current moment, no. I’ve been trying to create sunlight, but it ends up not looking so good. I’ll have to keep editing the image and messing around before I get it ready to implement into the game.

In conclusion

Lighting has been quite the challenge so far. I didn’t expect creating a picture to take so long, or require so many edits. Trust me when I say that there were quite a few potential lantern effect pictures that didn’t make the cut.

Thank you for reading this far! Please let me know what you thought in the comment below. Do you think that the lantern effects looks OK? Any advice or criticism? I’d love to hear anything you have to say!