Time and Day Night Cycle management
The Day night system simulates celestial positioning. This celestial positioning can be accurate or simplistic based on options set in the BP_TimeManager....
Documentation category
Environmental Control and Immersion
Environmental Control and Immersion is the atmosphere layer. Time passes, weather changes, music responds, footsteps match surfaces, and the world starts feeling less static. These systems are not just decoration; they help the player read place, mood, danger, time, surface, and state.
Related setup: Set Up Your Map to Play In, Change Background Music and Battle Music.
What This Enables
- Day/night cycles, weather systems, music playlists, battle music, surface-aware footsteps, and environment-driven feedback.
- Worlds that can shift from calm exploration to combat, storms, night travel, snow, rain, ambience, or tension.
- Systems that can connect to landscape materials, physical surfaces, animation notifies, map setup, and gameplay state.
Working Advice
- Set up the global actors first, then tune the mood.
- For footsteps and surface behavior, check landscape layers and physical materials before blaming audio or animation.
- Small environmental systems add up quickly. A good day/night cycle plus weather plus music plus footsteps can make a simple map feel dramatically more alive.
Weather System
The Weather System builds on the Time Manager and Day/Night Cycle systems. It manages global and section-based biome weather, local control areas,...
Background Music System
The Background Music System controls ambient, regional, time-of-day, default, and battle music playlists. It is driven by DT_BackgroundMusic_Playlist and the AC_PC_BackgroundMusicSystem component...
Footstep System
The Footstep System plays surface-aware footstep feedback from animation notifies. It uses physical surfaces, animation notify events, and optional landscape physical material...