TINT ME IMPRESSED

Lighting has the power to make or break the visuals, theme and atmosphere.
That's why, it's one of the most important parts of making your game look good.
Lighting has the capacity to bring life to a map and create atmosphere,
it can makes places look warm or cold, dry or wet.
This tutorial will be focused on a very specific aspect of lighting,
the overall tint of your map.

First of all, when should you put a tint on a map?
Arguably, you could put tint on any map, but mostly,
in natural enviroments during the day, you should rarely use
a tint.
The reason is because in open areas with only the
sun as a light source, it looks more natural to not tint
the map at all. In fact, in most natural areas (as in not man-made)
you should not use tint.
This rule goes for every area where the only light source is the sun.
Don't tint these areas in any specific color!


This COULD change in some instances.
Let's say for example you make a magic forest,
with a thick layer of leaves blocking the sun
and magic orbs floating around.
The light from these orbs could tint
the area a new color if the light from the sun
is not strong enough to cancel their light out.


That brings us to another important point:
The more confined an area is, the more you
can tint it without it looking unnatural.
The reason for this is because light in confined
areas have more objects to bounce off.
If this light is colored it will tint
the area in that color.


Another point to consider is the overall color of the stuff
that the light bounces off.
A light with no color bouncing off a red wall will make the light that
bounces off that wall slightly red.


A strong reason to not use too much tint is composition.
Too much of one color is usually a bad idea because at least
two colors are needed to create a contrast.
Without contrast the map will look more bland.


"Because it looks nice" should never be the reason
a color is being used as tint.
The color should not only fit together
but it should also enhance the theme and atmosphere.
For example, if the theme is an ice environment,
then warm colors, like orange, shouldn't be used.

And with that, I end this article. I hope it was helpful.