Time of day

A day in Minetest (uses other world times than in the “Important times of day” section)

Time of day determines the position of the sun, moon and stars in the day-night cycle. It is represented as a number which is between 0 and 24000 (24000 excluded), this range represents a full day. This number resembles the 24-hour system, where the full hours are multiplied by 1000. So, for example 12:00 would correspond to 12000 time of day (think of it only as a guide to get an idea how it works).

Setting the world time

The world time can be set with the /time command by players who have the “settime” privilege. It takes the desired time of day as it’s only parameter. Refer the the “Important times of day” section as a guide.

Examples

• /time 6000 - sets the time of day to morning (corresponds to 6:00)
• /time 12000 - sets the time of day to midday (corresponds to 12:00)

Important times of day

The following world times were taken from experimentation. The numbers in brackets denote the brightness level compared to moonlight (higher is brighter, this number is only used for this article).

• At 0 time of day (tod) the day begins; it is midnight and the moon is exactly at the zenith (1).
• At 4500 tod, the first sun rays emit from the horizon, it gets brighter (2).
• At 4750 tod, the sun rises and it gets brighter (3).
• At 5001 tod, it gets brighter again (4).
• At 5200 tod, the sun becomes fully visible (4).
• At 5250 tod, it gets brighter again (5).
• At 5500 tod, it gets brighter again (6).
• At 5751 tod, maximum brightness is reached (7).
• At 12000 tod is midday; the sun is exactly at the zenith (7).
• At 18250 tod, the day is going to end, it gets a bit darker (6).
• At 18502 tod, it gets a bit darker again (5).
• At 18600 tod, the sun begins to set (5).
• At 18752 tod, it gets a bit darker yet again (4).
• At 19000 tod, the sky gets even darker (3).
• At 19252 tod, the sun is almost gone and the sky gets even darker (2).
• At 19359 tod, the sun square is gone and the last sun rays emit from the horizon (2).
• At 19500 tod, the sun rays stop from being visible (2).
• At 19502 tod, the sky has the lowest brightness (1).
• At 24000 tod, the day ends and the next one starts; it is midnight again (1).

Storing the time of day

In the world files in env_meta.txt, the time of day is stored as “time_of_day”.

See also

• Light