Talk:Light

Actual Number of Lighting Levels?
I'm not sure if someone was mistaken when they wrote it on here, or if it's simply been changed since Indev, but there are definitely more than just 9 levels of lightness in Alpha. The light from a torch on the floor of a flat, enclosed cavern reaches 13 blocks away from the source, with progressively dimmer light on each block; combined with the max light level (on the source block itself), and the "complete darkness" level on blocks beyond the torch's illumination, that makes 15 different levels of light. And I'm pretty sure that there are more than that in total, since the max level of sunlight looks brighter than the max level of torchlight.

So there are at least 16 different levels of light, including total darkness. I didn't want to change the wiki right away, since I just joined, and because I don't actually know how many levels there are, since I don't know how many are between max torchlight and max sunlight. Plus I don't feel like going to the trouble to make an updated version of the example gif showing how light works. Also I wanted to make sure this wasn't just happening because of something I did in my settings or something, and verify it wasn't only happening on my computer, though I doubt it is. Just wanted to point it out, so that people more familiar with the game/wiki can help figure out what the article should say. - Alazar 19:28, 15 September 2010 (CDT)
 * best guess is any bite size value (a 2^x). water has 8 levels if you count the source/landing tile, 7 if you don't. Soul4hdwn 21:48, 15 September 2010 (CDT)
 * Ahh, probably so, I had forgotten how often the values are byte-based - 64 items in one inventory slot, etc. Well, after testing some it looks like it is most likely 16 levels, and since that fits the byte-sized theme going on, that ought to be it. I'll fix the article, although I still really don't know how to/feel like making a replacement gif. D: Alazar 22:31, 15 September 2010 (CDT)

Fix'd. Codewarrior 22:32, 15 September 2010 (CDT)

Oh, wow, I leave the talk page to work on the article and everything's already been perfectly redone. Awesome! Alazar 22:35, 15 September 2010 (CDT)

What light level is dangerous?
Since I dont want monsters spawning in my fort, and i'd rather not have it entirely covered with torches, what luminescence level do mobs require to spawn? Obviously they can spawn in at least level 4, as they spawn at nighttime, and maybe even a little higher as ive seen them spawn during dusk.

Answered: 7 or less, now on page. Erich666 18:40, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

How are half-blocks lit?
I'm adding lighting to Minecraft Overviewer (http://github.com/brownan/Minecraft-Overviewer) and I have a pretty firm grasp about how blocks are lit in Alpha, except for the half-block, which seems to borrow its lighting from neighboring blocks in a weird way. Does anyone have the algorithm used down pat, or even any insights? Any info would be appreciated. -- agrif 02:30, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Monster spawning in Halloween update?
Since the Halloween update, monsters can spawn on higher light levels the deeper it is. Has anyone tested the values relative to depth, and another question: Which square(s) are taken into account? Do monsters need a single floored square with an appropriate light values to spawn? Or do they need a number of squares matching their size, with appropriate light values? -- Ramperkash 10:57, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Submersible Light Sources
What light sources operate underwater? Maybe this should be mentioned in the table of lights? I'd do it myself but I don't know first-hand. NightChime 08:23, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Jack O' Lanterns work underwater. I've seen water over lava without obsidian forming (super rare, I think). I'd guess redstone ore (when touched). Anything else? Glowstone, furnaces, portals? Erich666 18:40, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Lighting oddities.
I had a world where I had a three block wide, ~15 block high column of lava spilling down the wall of my tree farm, as well as a 'fountain' (a lava spring set so it would land on another block and spread out in a fan, about three blocks high). The fountain's lava was bright and gave off the correct light, but the column appeared dark, the tiles themselves being darker than the fountain's, and gave off little or no light. I put torches next to it and they lit the lava up as if it was a dark tile.

On a multiplayer server, a friend built a big room in a lake, with one layer of water over it. He filled the room with torches and saplings in a checkerboard pattern, so every tile that did not have a tree in it had a torch. The room was darker even in direct sunlight than the hallway that led into it that had torches every 8 or 10 spaces.

Does the game change light levels for things depending on the depth they're at? My tree farm was hollowed out of a hill, and my friend's was built up from the leveled bottom of a ~10-12 block deep lake. --StarChaser Tyger 01:15, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Translucency
New section added: did I miss any blocks that are translucent (let light through)? -- Erich666 18:40, 11 February 2011 (UTC)