Novel replacement for the LightParams.dbc + Light.dbc
pair vanilla WoW used to drive the per-zone diurnal sky
cycle. Each entry binds one (mapId, areaId,
timeOfDayHour) triplet to its sky-rendering parameters:
sky-dome zenith and horizon colors, sun angle and color,
fog start/end distances, cloud-layer opacity, and cloud
drift speed in tenths-mph.
The renderer interpolates between adjacent keyframes
when the in-game clock crosses an hour boundary, so a
4-keyframe set (Dawn/Noon/Dusk/Midnight) produces the
full diurnal cycle through linear interpolation. Servers
can author finer-grained keyframes (e.g. every 3 hours)
for smoother transitions.
Three preset emitters demonstrating the catalog's range:
makeStormwindDay (4 standard temperate keyframes from
lavender dawn through bright noon to deep blue-black
midnight), makeNorthrendArctic (4 cold steel-blue
keyframes with high-density ice fog peaking at the
midnight blizzard whiteout — minimum 30yd visibility),
makeOutlandHellfire (3 keyframes — no midnight, since
Outland's permanent gravitational anomaly from the
Twisting Nether keeps the sky lit; iconic crimson +
orange palette throughout).
Validator's most novel checks: per-(mapId, areaId,
timeOfDayHour) triple uniqueness — two keyframes at the
same hour for the same area would render in unstable
order during diurnal interpolation. Plus
fogStartYards >= fogEndYards (inverted falloff) error,
sunAngleDeg outside [0,360] warning (renderer wraps
modulo but suggests authoring confusion).
Format count 118 -> 119. CLI flag count 1255 -> 1260.
