The Time of Day system in sixth-gen Neversoft titles is designed to give levels a dynamic feel without the taxing cost of fully dynamic global illumination.

The engine's "TOD Manager" handles ambient lighting, directional light sources, and other effects to simulate different times of day while maintaining consistent performance.

At its core, the system blends between predefined lighting presets rather than calculating lighting in real time. Each preset corresponds to a different time of day:



In story mode, time of day transitions are handled through interpolation, allowing gradual shifts in color temperature and intensity as time progresses.

Some levels may also create or hide geometry depending on the current time, such as creating lights at night.



In reTHAWed, we can easily select any time of day via Level Options in the pause menu.

Various time of day values can be changed and debugged easily in-game using reTHAWed's lighting tool.

Time of day parameters are exposed in NXTools via the NXTools - Time of Day panel of the Scene sidebar.



Adding a time of day preset exposes a plethora of parameters:




Sets the type, or preset, to use for the time of day entry.

This corresponds to one of the four times listed above in the About section.




Affects the base color of the level itself.

This effectively sets the ambient color of the level and tints the entire level based on the provided color. This can be used to make the overall level brightness appear brighter or darker when combined with the other colors.




Sets the color of the sky behind the level. This tints the entire sky based on the provided color.




Sets the ambient color for dynamic objects such as skaters and cars.

This sets the base color for these objects. The Light 0 and Light 1 colors cast lighting on top of this.




Unknown, needs research.


Sets the color of the two directional lights in the scene. These get applied on top of the Ambient Color above.




Sets the heading, or yaw of the two directional lights in the scene. Affects the direction of said lights.


Sets the pitch of the two directional lights in the scene. Affects the direction of said lights.


Unknown, needs research.


Enables or disables bloom in the level. Bloom causes brighter areas to appear slightly blurred and exaggerated.




Unknown, needs research. Appears to visually affect the bloom "threshold" when modified.


Effectively modifies the color of the bloomed image, by adjusting its Red, Green, and Blue values.




Unknown, needs research.


Enables or disables the sun seen in the sky behind the level.




Affects the azimuth angle of the sun, in terms of spherical coordinates.







Affects the elevation angle of the sun, in terms of spherical coordinates.








Unused as of now. An unimplemented leftover from console ports of the game.


Unused as of now. Intended to activate headlights on vehicles as long as the time of day preset is active.

Objects can be created during certain times of day if desired. This functionality can be useful for lights, ambience, sound effects, and more.

In NXTools, this functionality is exposed via the Created From TOD parameter in an object's Object Flags panel.



Given the four presets listed above, we can imagine that each is separated into 10 slices.



The parameters below can be tuned to specify exactly when object(s) get created during the time of day cycle.


Chooses one of the four time of day presets that will be responsible for creating this object.




Chooses which of the ten slices will be responsible for creating this object.



The object can be created when the indexed slice is turned on or off using the provided checkbox.

Below are a handful of example settings using stock time of day presets.