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Environment & time of day

Light your map with time-of-day presets, sun angle and ambient, choose a ground material, and dial in fog, shadows and sky — every control updates the scene live and round-trips with the map.

AP
Aron Prins
Founder · Updated Jul 22, 2026 · 1 min read
On this page (4)

The Environ tab lights your map. Pick a time of day, aim the sun, choose the ground, and add fog — every control updates the viewport live and is saved in the map document, so reopening the map restores both the scene and the controls. The tab has two sections.

Time of Day#

Four preset chips set the overall look, each with a colour swatch:

  • Day
  • Dawn
  • Dusk
  • Night

Below them, two sliders fine-tune the light:

  • sun angle — the sun's elevation above the horizon, 0–90°.
  • ambient — ambient fill intensity, 0–1 (shown as a percentage).

The command palette's Map: Cycle time of day steps through the four presets (Day → Dawn → Dusk → Night) if you prefer the keyboard.

Ground & Atmosphere#

  • Ground — the ground material: Grassland, Sand / Desert, Rocky, or Snow. Map: Cycle ground steps through them.
  • fog density — atmospheric haze from 0–0.7 (0 is off), shown as a percentage.
  • Three toggles:
  • Show ground grid
  • Cast shadows
  • Sky & reflections

The grid toggle shares its state with the viewport's shading-cluster Grid button — both drive the one grid flag, so they never fall out of sync. Shadows and sky have their own toggles (Map: Toggle shadows, Map: Toggle sky).

Defaults & persistence#

A fresh map starts at Day, sun elevation 52°, ambient 0.45, fog density 0.12, Grassland ground, with grid, shadows, and sky all on. Environment changes autosave with the map and reapply when you reopen it. The format details are in Studio file formats.

Saving named environment presets to reuse across maps is a customer perk — see Your account & customer perks.

Next#

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