Day Night Time Cycle in Godot 3D Help

[ghostyghostly565]

Godot Version

Godot 4.6

Question

I want to make a day night time system for my game similar to Pikmin. Where it changes colors based on the time and at a certain point, the player will have to stop the day. I’m unsure on how to properly do this though. I want this to be for 3D so the skybox changes as well. How do I do this?

[gertkeno]

You may be able to animate a DirectionalLight3D’s rotation and color/intensity over an AnimationPlayer. The world environment’s sky could also be animated the same way, a procedural sky may be easiest to animate.

[dragonforge-dev]

Take a look at sky shaders. There are some on Godot Shaders. Then change the main directional light color and move it across the sky.

[ghostyghostly565]

I’ve been doing what you said with animation and it’s been working out well so far. However, I’ve ran into a problem with the sky animation specifically. I want to use a sky image for the animation but I’m having a problem with how the animation will transition between different states. When it goes from dawn to day it will hard cut to a lighter image of the sky. I want some sort of transition there. Any advice with this?

[gertkeno]

You would have to write a shader for that sort of effect, cross fading an image would require more work than the AnimationPlayer knows about.

[ghostyghostly565]

Alrighty, I’ll try and find a shader then. Thank you.

[conz3d]

I like this sky by @binbun3d:

Free sky shader with dynamic sun and customizability (CC0)

[light_follow] A few weeks ago I made this sky shader: https://binbun3d.itch.io/godot-skies Features Sun follows scene’s directional light (optionally can use a slider instead) Seamless blending between day, sunset and night. Customizable clouds with noise textures. Stylization is up to you! Parallax effect on clouds to give 3D effect. Customizable stars. Here’s an example of stylized sky: [stylized] And another different kinda sky: [warm]