Shadow modes

  • Directional — projected stylized shadow controlled by direction, length, flatness and falloff.
  • Blob — procedural footprint under vegetation; good for readable soft grounding.
  • Flat Sprite — offset/flattened sprite-style shadow for platformer and stylized looks.

Inheritance

Author a useful Area default first. Types can override the mode/colors/projection when needed. Variants can override appearance only when one sprite genuinely needs a different result. Returning to inheritance reduces material/configuration diversity.

Sun / time of day

The Area sun dial drives directional shadow direction. Runtime helpers expose both angle and a 24-hour mapping: 06:00 east/right, 12:00 up/noon, 18:00 west/left and 00:00 down/night.

Time of day

VegetationAPI.SetGlobalTimeOfDay(area, 16.5f); // 16:30
VegetationAPI.SetGlobalShadowLength(area, 1.35f);