Contraption Lights (Bi-directional Coloured Dynamic Lights)

By
The_Atmerek

Adds coloured dynamic lights that move with your Create contraptions and Sable sub-levels, flowing both ways between your builds and the world.

A real torch placed in the world casts light onto a moving Sub-Level (LAMB)

Create Mechanical Bearing on the left and Aeronautics Swivel Bearing on the right (LAMB)

The mod adds its configs to Sodium's options (0.8.12+)

Description

Contraption Lights

Bi-directional Coloured Dynamic Lights for Create and Sable.

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. Turn on coloured light and every glowing block lights in its own colour, on your builds and throughout the world. 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

Coloured light

Off by default, and one option turns it on. A torch then glows warm, a soul lantern blue, a redstone torch red, and a froglight the pastel shade of its own texture.

Where two lights overlap their colours blend: a redstone torch beside a soul torch reads purple between them, and a coloured light near a white one still tints it. Colours fade smoothly with distance.

It reaches everything the mod already lights, and the rest of the world with it: blocks, entities, block entities, particles and lava, the lights your builds carry, held items, contraptions and kinetics and anything else Flywheel renders, and anything lighting the world through LambDynamicLights. The one enableColoredLight option covers every mode, VEIL included.

A shaderpack does its own lighting, so coloured light turns itself off while one is loaded and comes back when you unload it. While it is off it costs nothing: no extra memory in Sodium's terrain and none in Flywheel's lighting.

Colours come from data files, so a resource pack or another mod can change any of them or add its own. See Adding light colours.

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)	Smooth per frame and cheap, no shadows. Vanilla-coloured until you turn on coloured light, which this mode supports in full.	Yes	LambDynamicLights	Every direction above.
VEIL (experimental)	Crisp angled shadows cast by a tilted sub-level's own blocks, which no other mode does. Follows the same `enableColoredLight` option as LAMB.	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. Coloured light works with Sodium installed or without it.

Common setups: Create + LambDynamicLights for smooth contraption lighting; Sable + a backend for ships with no Create; Create + the server option for a whole server at once. Running Iris shaders, use LAMB. Coloured light is a separate option on top of whichever mode you pick.

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.
`enableSubLevelOcclusion`	on	A sealed room inside a Sable sub-level holds its light in and keeps outside light out, in both directions. Needs Sable.

Client, coloured light

Option	Default	What it does
`enableColoredLight`	off	Every glowing block lights the world in its own colour, and overlapping lights blend. Turns itself off while a shaderpack is loaded.
`colorIntensity`	1.0	How far a colour departs from white. Below 1 washes towards white, above 1 deepens, 0 leaves every light white.
`colorfulCandles`	on	Dyed candles glow the colour of their wax. Off gives every candle a warm flame.
`deriveColorFromTexture`	on	Blocks with no colour of their own take one from their texture. Off gives them a warm torch glow instead.

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.

Adding light colours

You can give any block its own light colour with a JSON file, including blocks this mod has never heard of. The colours it ships for vanilla blocks live in a file of exactly the same kind, so you can override those as well.

Files live at assets/<namespace>/contraptionlights/light_colors/<name>.json and every namespace is scanned, so a mod can ship one inside its own jar and it is picked up with no dependency on this mod and no coordination. Resource packs override in the usual order, and F3+T applies changes without a restart.

{
  "values": [
    { "block": "#examplemod:cage_lamps", "color": "warm" },
    { "block": "examplemod:blue_cage_lamp", "color": "#30FFFF" },
    { "block": "examplemod:red_cage_lamp",
      "from_texture": "examplemod:block/cage_lamp/bulb_red" },
    { "block": "minecraft:trial_spawner", "state": { "ominous": "true" }, "color": "#33D9FF" }
  ]
}

Say a mod adds a family of caged lamps in several colours. That file gives all of them a warm glow, then overrides two: one with a colour picked by hand, one by pointing at the texture of the bulb inside the cage so the mod measures it for you. The last line colours an ominous trial spawner without touching an ordinary one.

Field	Required	What it does
`block`	yes	A block id, or `#namespace:tag` to match a block tag.
`behavior`	instead of `block`	Colours a light that comes from no block at all, such as a flashlight or a beam another mod registers with LambDynamicLights. See below.
`color`	one of these two	`#RRGGBB`, or the keywords `warm` and `white`.
`from_texture`	one of these two	A texture id to average instead of naming a colour, for when you know which sprite glows but not its colour.
`state`	no	Only match blocks with these blockstate properties, written as strings.
`condition`	no	Only apply while a setting is on. The only condition is `colorful_candles`.
`priority`	no	Breaks ties between entries that are equally specific. Higher wins, default 0.

Only the hue of a colour is used. Each one is scaled up until its brightest channel is full, and how bright the light actually shines comes from the block's light level, so #884422 and #FF8844 give the same result.

When several entries match one block, the most specific wins: block id with state, then block id, then tag with state, then tag. That is what keeps the two named lamps above from being flattened by the tag they belong to. Entries of equal specificity are settled by the higher priority, then by whichever loaded last. A block nothing matches falls back to deriveColorFromTexture.

Lights that come from no block

Another mod can light the world through LambDynamicLights without a glowing block behind it: a flashlight, a searchlight, a beam. Those glow warm by default, and an entry with behavior instead of block gives one its own colour. The target is * for every such light at once, or the full java class name of one of them, which the mod that adds it will know. Only color and priority apply.

{
  "values": [
    { "behavior": "*", "color": "#FFEEDD" },
    { "behavior": "com.example.mod.light.FlashlightBehavior", "color": "white" }
  ]
}

A broken entry never fails the whole reload. It is skipped on its own, the log names the file and the block, and a message on screen tells you how many were dropped. Naming a blockstate property or value that does not exist is reported the same way, with the valid ones listed.

FAQ

Which mode should I use? LAMB. It covers every direction light travels, works with shaders, and supports coloured light in full. VEIL exists for crisp angled shadows on tilted sub-levels, is experimental, and does nothing while Iris is installed.

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.

Coloured light does nothing. Check it is on, since it is off by default, and that no shaderpack is loaded, since it stands down while one is. If one block looks wrong rather than all of them, the mod may have no colour on file for it and be guessing from its texture; give it a colour with a data file, or turn deriveColorFromTexture off to make everything unknown glow warm instead.

Light still gets into my sealed cabin. The room has to be closed on every side by blocks that stop light on their own. Glass, slabs, stairs, fences and open trapdoors all let light past, and one gap anywhere leaves the room open. Set enableSubLevelOcclusion off if you would rather light passed through hulls.

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

The Contraption Lights (Bi-directional Coloured Dynamic Lights) Team

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