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 a case study. 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”.