Hey guys! Today on my server, I was wondering how to make invisible light sources for our RPG Map (can be found in WIP Maps, somewhere there). I saw an invisible light source, and wonder how does that happen? So I looked around to see what caused it. I noticed it was raining. I immediately thought lightning. I thought about my old servers and there was always those random patches of light and it was constantly raining. I started thinking and guessed it was due to unloaded chunks and re-loading them without the fire but the light is still there. Turns out, I was correct. I tried it out and it worked perfectly. All I did was summon lightning and then /tp 0 4 0 on my server. Waited a little bit, tped back to the place I was just at and the fire was gone and the light was still there.
If you place a block over it, it'll disappear. But now here is the tricky part: If you stay in the chunk it'll disappear (obvious) but if you leave it and it unloads and you come back, the light is also back. Even with doFireTick off it still goes away. Too bad I couldn't use it for my RPG Map :I
(I also have no idea if anyone figured this out already so yeah)
If you also have any idea how this happens, let me know. If you also have ideas that uses no blocks what-so-ever for invisible light sources, please tell me.
*My YT Channel is Kilock if you wanna see any of the RPG Map thingy, it's going real slow*
This is a bug within the game, similar to the "black spots" bug, including light sources not emitting light, but involving areas that remain lit instead of not being lit properly (these are likely all manifestations of the same bug; they have attempted to fix this before, presumably by performing more rigorous lighting updates, but it caused too much lag). The main cause appears to be unloading chunks with fire in them, or flowing lava/lava being extinguished by water:
I very commonly encounter this in caves where water flowed over lava as well as burned parts of mineshafts; in the former case (water flowing over lava and forming obsidian) it can be quite persistent and I've seen areas that I last visited months ago still lit up; the best way to quickly fix it is to relight the chunks with MCEdit (I just make sure to place torches in such lit areas, it is not an aesthetic issue for me).
As for intentionally making invisible light, the best way would probably be to use a mod that adds an invisible light block, or perhaps use a texture pack to make torches invisible (a list of all light-emitting blocks can be found here; most are not suitable though because they are solid, harm the player, or don't emit enough light).
Alternatively, you can place a block like glowstone in the ground and put a carpet over it, which will not block the light, or for light sources in the wall place a painting over it. Here is an Imgur page that describes many, many ways to hide lighting:
I was building UnaryBit's villager-worked carrot/potato autofarm system on my last server, and I got some invisible light sources in the autofarms which screwed up the lighting system there. In that farm design, there is one central block of farmland with a light level of only 7, with either string above it or a pressure plate next to it to force a block update, so every time the farmer villager plants crops there and walks away, the crops instantly uproot due to insufficient light levels, forcing the villager to come back there later and re-plant. That spot is also where he stands to throw food towards another villager and fail, allowing the food to be collected by water flows and hoppers. But in my case, these glitched invisible light sources were keeping the light level above 7, so the crops wouldn't uproot.
This was all deep underground, so lighting was unlikely to be the cause. There had never been lava or fire in there, so that could not have been the cause. Temporary torches during excavation/construction might have been the cause, but I tried filling the area with dirt blocks and redigging, but even that didn't fix the problem even temporarily. I also had problems with some of the jackolanterns in the walls and glowstone hanging from the ceiling NOT emitting light, so I had the fun of grabbing a screen shot of myself standing next to a jackolantern with f3 showing a local block light level of zero. This type of lighting glitch could usually be fixed by either breaking and re-placing the glowstone block, or by placing a torch nearby to force the lighting calcs to update, but the phantom light sources did not respond to such treatment.
Later that world map got deleted due to other map corruption issues, so that might have just been a map-specific bug for all I know.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"I think I'm starting to like this `programming' thing. It's about four times as fun as shaving." -- Notch, June 12, 2011
Hey guys! Today on my server, I was wondering how to make invisible light sources for our RPG Map (can be found in WIP Maps, somewhere there). I saw an invisible light source, and wonder how does that happen? So I looked around to see what caused it. I noticed it was raining. I immediately thought lightning. I thought about my old servers and there was always those random patches of light and it was constantly raining. I started thinking and guessed it was due to unloaded chunks and re-loading them without the fire but the light is still there. Turns out, I was correct. I tried it out and it worked perfectly. All I did was summon lightning and then /tp 0 4 0 on my server. Waited a little bit, tped back to the place I was just at and the fire was gone and the light was still there.
If you place a block over it, it'll disappear. But now here is the tricky part: If you stay in the chunk it'll disappear (obvious) but if you leave it and it unloads and you come back, the light is also back. Even with doFireTick off it still goes away. Too bad I couldn't use it for my RPG Map :I
(I also have no idea if anyone figured this out already so yeah)
If you also have any idea how this happens, let me know. If you also have ideas that uses no blocks what-so-ever for invisible light sources, please tell me.
*My YT Channel is Kilock if you wanna see any of the RPG Map thingy, it's going real slow*
This is a bug within the game, similar to the "black spots" bug, including light sources not emitting light, but involving areas that remain lit instead of not being lit properly (these are likely all manifestations of the same bug; they have attempted to fix this before, presumably by performing more rigorous lighting updates, but it caused too much lag). The main cause appears to be unloading chunks with fire in them, or flowing lava/lava being extinguished by water:
MC-9188 All fires, not just lightning, can leave ghost lighting behind
I very commonly encounter this in caves where water flowed over lava as well as burned parts of mineshafts; in the former case (water flowing over lava and forming obsidian) it can be quite persistent and I've seen areas that I last visited months ago still lit up; the best way to quickly fix it is to relight the chunks with MCEdit (I just make sure to place torches in such lit areas, it is not an aesthetic issue for me).
As for intentionally making invisible light, the best way would probably be to use a mod that adds an invisible light block, or perhaps use a texture pack to make torches invisible (a list of all light-emitting blocks can be found here; most are not suitable though because they are solid, harm the player, or don't emit enough light).
Alternatively, you can place a block like glowstone in the ground and put a carpet over it, which will not block the light, or for light sources in the wall place a painting over it. Here is an Imgur page that describes many, many ways to hide lighting:
A Comprehensive Guide on Hidden Lighting in Minecraft
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
I was building UnaryBit's villager-worked carrot/potato autofarm system on my last server, and I got some invisible light sources in the autofarms which screwed up the lighting system there. In that farm design, there is one central block of farmland with a light level of only 7, with either string above it or a pressure plate next to it to force a block update, so every time the farmer villager plants crops there and walks away, the crops instantly uproot due to insufficient light levels, forcing the villager to come back there later and re-plant. That spot is also where he stands to throw food towards another villager and fail, allowing the food to be collected by water flows and hoppers. But in my case, these glitched invisible light sources were keeping the light level above 7, so the crops wouldn't uproot.
This was all deep underground, so lighting was unlikely to be the cause. There had never been lava or fire in there, so that could not have been the cause. Temporary torches during excavation/construction might have been the cause, but I tried filling the area with dirt blocks and redigging, but even that didn't fix the problem even temporarily. I also had problems with some of the jackolanterns in the walls and glowstone hanging from the ceiling NOT emitting light, so I had the fun of grabbing a screen shot of myself standing next to a jackolantern with f3 showing a local block light level of zero. This type of lighting glitch could usually be fixed by either breaking and re-placing the glowstone block, or by placing a torch nearby to force the lighting calcs to update, but the phantom light sources did not respond to such treatment.
Later that world map got deleted due to other map corruption issues, so that might have just been a map-specific bug for all I know.