Lighting in Minecraft Bedrock

Control sun, moon and ambient light in Minecraft Bedrock Vibrant Visuals with a lighting settings file, and apply it to one biome or the whole world.

A lighting file sets how bright and what color the sun, the moon and the soft ambient light are in Vibrant Visuals. It also controls how glowing blocks look and how dark shadows get.

Like atmospherics, it only shows with Vibrant Visuals turned on.

The files

Resource pack

RP/
  lighting/
    ruby_lighting.json
  biomes/
    ruby_grove.client_biome.json

The lighting file

This makes a warm, red-tinted sun and a soft pink moon:

RP/lighting/ruby_lighting.json

{
  "format_version": "1.21.80",
  "minecraft:lighting_settings": {
    "description": {
      "identifier": "wiki:ruby_lighting"
    },
    "directional_lights": {
      "orbital": {
        "sun": {
          "illuminance": {
            "0.0": 100.0,
            "0.27": 1.0,
            "0.3": 0.0,
            "0.7": 0.0,
            "0.73": 1.0,
            "1.0": 100.0
          },
          "color": {
            "0.0": "#ffe0d0",
            "0.25": "#ff6a40",
            "0.75": "#ff8a60",
            "1.0": "#ffe0d0"
          }
        },
        "moon": {
          "illuminance": {
            "0.0": 0.0,
            "0.22": 0.0,
            "0.25": 0.4,
            "0.75": 0.4,
            "0.78": 0.0,
            "1.0": 0.0
          },
          "color": "#ffb0c8"
        },
        "orbital_offset_degrees": 0.0
      }
    },
    "ambient": {
      "color": "#ffd8d8",
      "illuminance": 0.03
    },
    "emissive": {
      "desaturation": 0.1
    },
    "sky": {
      "intensity": 0.8
    }
  }
}

The identifier needs a namespace. One lighting settings block per file.

Values can be keyframes: an object where each key is the time of day from 0.0 to 1.0. 0.0 is noon, 0.25 sunset, 0.5 midnight and 0.75 sunrise. The game blends between them.

The fields

directional_lights

Field	What it does
`orbital.sun.illuminance`	How bright sunlight is, in lux. Vanilla goes up to about 100 at noon and down to 0 at night. Keyframes or one number.
`orbital.sun.color`	Sunlight color. Hex string or `[r, g, b]` from 0 to 255. Keyframes or one value.
`orbital.moon.illuminance`	How bright moonlight is. Vanilla uses `0.4` at night.
`orbital.moon.color`	Moonlight color.
`orbital.orbital_offset_degrees`	Tilts the path of the sun and moon across the sky, in degrees.
`flash.illuminance`, `flash.color`	A light that does not move with the time of day. Vanilla uses a purple one in the End.

ambient

Field	What it does
`color`	The color of the soft light that reaches everywhere, even in shade.
`illuminance`	How strong it is, from `0` to `5`. Keep it low: vanilla uses `0.02`.

emissive

Field	What it does
`desaturation`	`0` to `1`. Higher values make light from glowing blocks greyer and less tinted by the block's own color.

sky

Field	What it does
`intensity`	`0.1` to `1`. How much the sky lights up shaded areas. Lower values give darker, moodier shadows.

Small steps

Light values are very sensitive. Change one field at a time and look at the same spot in game. A sun at 100 and ambient at 0.02 are the vanilla balance.

Using it

In a biome

Use minecraft:lighting_identifier in a client biome:

RP/biomes/ruby_grove.client_biome.json (inside components)

"minecraft:lighting_identifier": {
  "lighting_identifier": "wiki:ruby_lighting"
}

Everywhere

Most vanilla biomes point at minecraft:default_lighting. Make a lighting file with that same identifier and your pack's version replaces it in all of them. If two packs use the same identifier, the pack higher in the list wins.

Nothing changed?

Lighting files go in the resource pack, in a folder called lighting. Check that Vibrant Visuals is on and the identifier matches exactly.