CustomGame Fog

Distance fog

Fog thickens the further something is from the camera, so the world fades out instead of ending. It also fills the sky behind the terrain, which is the point: zoom out without it and the drawn world stops against a black void.

It works on every map, original or custom, and is configured entirely in Data\Local\CustomMap.xdc. It needs the plugin active - without it the section is read and then ignored - and without CustomMap.xdc there is no fog at all.

The section

<Fog> is its own section in CustomMap.xml, unrelated to the <Info> list above it. One row per map, keyed by map number.

<Fog Mode="Linear">
    <Map Number="0"   Color="0x8FA07A" Enable="1" Near="1870" Far="3000" Density="0" />
    <Map Number="2"   Color="0x8FA8C8" Enable="1" Near="1650" Far="2800" Density="0" />
    <Map Number="140" Color="0x7A4A30" Enable="1" Near="1430" Far="2600" Density="0" />
    <Map Number="160" Color="0x8A6B42" Enable="1" Near="1540" Far="2700" Density="0" />
</Fog>

A map with no row gets no fog. Every row lists all six attributes, so all rows read alike; Density stays 0 under Linear.

Section attribute

Attribute	Values	Meaning
Mode	Linear (default), Exp, Exp2	how fog thickens with distance

Mode belongs to the section, not to a row. It is one setting for the whole game - it cannot vary per map.

Row attributes

Attribute	Meaning
Number	map number. 0..146 are the original maps, 147 and up are custom
Color	0xRRGGBB. Also becomes the sky behind the terrain
Enable	0 turns a row off but keeps its values. Default on
Near	distance where fog starts. Linear only
Far	distance where fog reaches full colour. Linear only
Density	thickness per unit. Exp and Exp2 only, 0 under Linear

Distances are world units: one tile is 100. For scale, a band of roughly 2000..2700 is what the game itself uses.

Choosing a mode

Linear is the one to use. Fog starts at Near, reaches full colour at Far, and everything closer than Near is untouched - so the foreground stays clean and only the distance closes in.

Exp and Exp2 thicken exponentially and never quite reach full. That sounds better and is worse here, because they have no clear zone at all: fog builds from the camera outward, so the ground at the player's feet is already hazed and the whole screen washes over. They are documented because they exist, not because they are recommended.

If you do switch, Density sits around 0.0002 to 0.0006, and Exp2 stays clearer up close while thickening harder further out.

Picking values

Two things decide how fog reads, and the colour matters more than people expect.

Colour. Since the fog colour also paints the sky, a dark saturated colour stops reading as distance and becomes a filter over the whole screen - especially when it is close in tone to the map's own terrain. Pale, desaturated colours read as air; heavy ones read as a tint. A snow map takes a light blue-grey well; a red desert does not want a saturated red-brown, it wants something lighter than its ground.

Near. Distance is measured from the camera, not from the player, and the camera sits well back and above. A Near that sounds generous in tiles can still begin at the player's feet. If the foreground looks hazy, raise Near.

Raising Near with Far fixed also narrows the band, so the transition gets steeper. Past a point that reads as a hard edge rather than gradual thickening - then move Far with it.

The player's own switches

Fog is a look, and some players simply do not want it. config.ini in the client folder has switches of their own:

[Graphics]
Fog = 1
Culling = 1

Fog = 0 turns fog off completely, on every map, whatever CustomMap.xdc asks for. Culling = 0 keeps every object and every name bar drawn at any distance. Both are read once at startup, so they need a client restart; both default to on.

This is separate from Enable on a row: Enable="0" is your decision for one map, Fog = 0 is the player's decision for all of them.

Turning fog off

Either remove the row, or keep it and set Enable="0":

<Map Number="140" Color="0x7A4A30" Enable="0" Near="1430" Far="2600" Density="0" />

The second form keeps values you have already tuned.

From a script

A map script can override its map's fog while the player is on it:

Map.Fog(0x2A3340, 900, 2600)   -- colour, near, far
Map.Fog(false)                 -- off

The override lasts until the player leaves the map. Configure fog in CustomMap.xdc unless it genuinely has to change while the map is running.

Objects near the horizon

Map objects fade out from a little past half of Far and are fully transparent beyond it, so scenery comes out of the fog instead of popping in. With the camera plugin active, name and health bars of monsters and players beyond Far are hidden too. Past Far an object is not drawn at all, and its effects stop with it.

Effects that add light - fire, sparks, magic, glowing parts of models - fade into the fog with distance like the rest of the scene, instead of turning into squares of fog colour.

This uses the row's Far whether the fog is drawn or not - Enable="0" or the player's Fog = 0 still cut there. A map without a row, or with no Far, cuts nothing; the player's Culling = 0 turns it off everywhere.

Keep Far at or below the distance where the client starts drawing objects, or the step still shows through. Too low and the world closes in.

See Also

• Adding a map - the rest of CustomMap.xdc
• Map scripts - Map.Fog among the other Map functions