Contraption Lights

Bi-directional coloured dynamic lights for Create and Sable. Minecraft 1.21.1, NeoForge.

Put a lantern, glowstone or any glowing block on a Create contraption or a Sable sub-level, and its light travels with it as it drives, flies, rotates, tilts or sails. Light crosses between your builds and the world in both directions: a torch on the shore lights a passing ship, and the ship's lanterns light the shore. Every dependency is optional.

What carries light

• Create contraptions and kinetics: anything assembled and moving, plus shafts and cogs drawn by Flywheel.
• Sable sub-levels: physics-driven structures such as ships and dynamic trees.
• Other Flywheel content, such as Vanillin's, with no Create needed.
• Sable Ragdolls limbs: a ragdolled player's torch keeps lighting the scene.
• Hidden lights: glowing blocks inside Create copycats and FramedBlocks frames, items in placards, and lights placed with Offgrid.

How light travels

Direction	What you see	Default
Build to world	Light follows every turn of a bearing and roll of a ship. A beacon on a sub-level becomes a steerable searchlight.	On
World to build	Torches, lava, glowing mobs, held lights and other mods' flashlights light a passing build.	On
Build to build	A lit ship lights a nearby contraption, and a contraption lights nearby kinetics.	Follows the two above
Builds riding builds	A lantern on a propeller spinning on a moving ship lights the deck and the world, and is lit by them, wherever it is drawn.	Follows the two above

Sealed rooms inside a sub-level keep their light in and outside light out.

Coloured light

Turn on enableColoredLight and every glowing block lights in its own colour: a torch warm, a soul lantern blue, a froglight the shade of its texture. Overlapping lights blend and fade smoothly with distance, on blocks, entities, particles, held items and everything the mod moves. Textures that glow on their own stay fully bright. It is off by default, and pauses while a shaderpack is loaded.

Colours come from data files that resource packs and mods can extend, as the wiki explains. For colours on other mods' blocks, add Contraption Lights Compat by DadamaldaDad, which has its own issue tracker.

Modes

Mode	What you get	Needs
LAMB (default)	Smooth and cheap, works with shaders, every direction above, full coloured light.	LambDynamicLights
VEIL (experimental)	Crisp angled shadows from tilted sub-levels, but build-to-world only. Disables itself under Iris.	Veil
Server light blocks	Real light blocks that every player sees, with no client mod. Off by default, meant for server admins.	Nothing on the client

Setup

Install a backend (LambDynamicLights for almost everyone) and the mods you want lit:

Mod	Adds
Create 0.6+	Contraptions, kinetics, copycats and placards
Sable	Sub-levels, on any mode
Sable Ragdolls 0.7+	A ragdolled player's held light
FramedBlocks	Light and colour from glowing frames
Sodium 0.8.12+	The options in Video Settings. Not needed for anything else

Has specific support for Iris, Chunks Fade In, Entity Texture Features, Snow! Real Magic!, AsyncParticles, Fusion, Copycats+, Amendments, Offgrid, Curios, Accessories, Gadgets & Gizmos and Create Deep Seas.

Options

The defaults suit most players. Options are in the in-game config screen, the config file and Sodium's Video Settings, and every one is explained on the Options wiki page. The ones people look for: mode, enableColoredLight, enableSubLevelOcclusion, and the server's enableContraptionLightBlock and enableSubLevelLightBlock.

FAQ

Which mode should I use? LAMB. VEIL is experimental and only worth it for shadows on tilted sub-levels.

Do other players need the mod? For LAMB and VEIL, yes. For server light blocks, only the server.

My Sable sub-levels look flat, too bright, or stay lit underground. That is how Sable renders whenever Iris is installed. A bundled "Contraption Lights Fixes" mod repairs it when Sable, Iris and Veil are all installed; check the three fixSubLevel... options are on.

Coloured light does nothing. It is off by default and pauses under a shaderpack. If only one block looks wrong, Contraption Lights Compat may cover it, or give it a colour as the wiki describes.

Light still gets into my sealed cabin. Every side must be a block that stops light. Glass, slabs, stairs, fences and open trapdoors let it through, and one gap opens the room.

Nothing lights up. Watch the bottom-right corner: if the setup is at fault, the mod says so there. Otherwise check a backend is installed and the build carries a glowing block.

Credits

• Logo by arthursimon900.

License

All Rights Reserved. You may include this mod in modpacks.