Lights in Pixel Art Games

The story is, I was watching some Youtuber introducing how to add Light2D in Unity. I thought it was easy (It was not).

At the same time, there is a problem in Grandpa’s Bee Haven. Players are not playing on the two unlocked maps. Our team made a decision to add two signals to lead player build new game with new maps.And I decide to add a light effect in it.

Lights 2D

I added a point Lights 2D in the child of the sign. When hovering on it, it will active the child.

But only the Sprite-Lit-Default can show the highlight effect.

But only highlights, no shadows… wow, 2D is obviously harder than 3D in this circumstance.

Shadow

The shadows, in version 1, they were triangles, calculated base on the light source position, mouse position, the Game Object’s height. put together into one gameObject.

Then I added curve endings and fade out, so the triangles are not very obviously.

Sun rays

I almost gave up the beam. What you see is the 2nd version sun rays, which is vibe coded with some shader. I was thinking too much. I asked the agent to allow trees to obstruct the rays. Eventually, the result is not as expected.

What you see in the final result, is a png, that covers the scene.

Conclusion

It is a great learning experience to know how to make lights in 2D pixel games. And if you are playing Grandpa’s Bee Haven. You can try to find this easter egg.