How can I make convincing looking night levels?

A good way to start is with a dark night type sky, like one with stars or the skybox in this image:

Utilize shadows and low light levels and try to keep them in line with a "global light source," here, the moon. Since night isn't usually pitch dark when there's a full moon out, you can have a not-so-dim outdoors while still maintaining a nighttime look. Something I've noticed is that a sky has great effect on a map's appearance. To me, it seems that a darker sky makes the map appear a little darker, and a bright one makes it appear a little brighter.

In these maps, lighting detail will be your best friend. Structures should, if they're lit from within, obviously cast some light out, through the door, windows, whatever, to better get the point across.

A brightness of 112 is probably a good compromise for software and GL renderers, so it's not to dark (like brightness 96) but not too bright (brightness 128 or 144).

Fade is better used for atmosphere, where you want to get across the idea of a feeling (like a white fade in a snowy/icy area), but not so much for general outdoors.

Hope this helps.

18 hours ago, Aquila Chrysaetos said:

A good way to start is with a dark night type sky, like one with stars or the skybox in this image:

Utilize shadows and low light levels and try to keep them in line with a "global light source," here, the moon. Since night isn't usually pitch dark when there's a full moon out, you can have a not-so-dim outdoors while still maintaining a nighttime look. Something I've noticed is that a sky has great effect on a map's appearance. To me, it seems that a darker sky makes the map appear a little darker, and a bright one makes it appear a little brighter.

In these maps, lighting detail will be your best friend. Structures should, if they're lit from within, obviously cast some light out, through the door, windows, whatever, to better get the point across.

A brightness of 112 is probably a good compromise for software and GL renderers, so it's not to dark (like brightness 96) but not too bright (brightness 128 or 144).

Fade is better used for atmosphere, where you want to get across the idea of a feeling (like a white fade in a snowy/icy area), but not so much for general outdoors.

Hope this helps.

Wow man, thanks for the detailed reply, im gonna mess around with those ideas.

Ill try and see if i can find night sky textures and mess about with that. I've also been looking at other wads (such as tcotda) and it seems like they use some type of blue-ish fog or sth around those lines.

Anyway, thanks man, you're a legend

On 6/9/2018 at 7:55 PM, Myst.Haruko said:

I found it on the net while searched night skies for my map. Yes, I'll leave credits for that person. 
here link into it:
https://forum.blockland.us/index.php?topic=264260.0

Here's the link to the skybox Myst.Haruko and I use, the same as in my image there. There are a couple other skyboxes there you might like to use, as well.

You should also be able to find some night skyboxes relatively easily elsewhere, too.

46 minutes ago, Aquila Chrysaetos said:

Here's the link to the skybox Myst.Haruko and I use, the same as in my image there. There are a couple other skyboxes there you might like to use, as well.

You should also be able to find some night skyboxes relatively easily elsewhere, too.

Awesome, thanks man, you've been super helpful!

I like making them really dark (below 128) and then only lighting them through various stuff in the map, like brightmapped textures, maybe glowing flats, maybe fireflies, maybe lights on structures, and usually a player flashlight of some sort. I also like to toss a few dark, moving clouds into the sky.  The trick is to just think about what it's like to wander around outside at night, maybe even go outside at night and take a walk in some area without heavy lighting for reference, and make the in-game look like that.