Initialize the engine

1. Basic Initialization

First of all, you have to load the engine, so create a new object obj_controller and set the persistent flag, to prevent destruction on room changes.

Create Event

glr_init(1);
this function will initialize glare engine, and MUST be called before everything.
The first argument of the function is the rendering quality
there are 2 optional parameters (quality, width, height) that define the size of the view affected by Glare.

Draw Begin Event

glr_render();
This function renders all lights and shadows on the main glare surface and should be used in the draw begin event.

Draw Event

glr_draw(x, y)
This function, draws the main glare surface on the screen

2. Using the Additive Rendering

This method requires the application_surface to be active.
Remember to remove glr_draw from the Draw Event and use glr_draw_gamma(application_surface) in the Post Draw Event
With this method the intensity parameter of the lights will define the additive brightness of the lighting system.

note

The first argument should be application_surface.

Ambient Light Color

The ambient color is the lighting that affects the whole screen and by default is black.
You can set the ambient color with the following function

glr_set_ambient_color(my_color);

Ambient Light for Day-Night Cycle

If you want a day-night cycle in your game, you can set the colors of each day phase and glare will blend them according to the time of the day

glr_set_ambient_daytime_colors(midnight, sunrise, noon, afternoon, evening)

Example

glr_set_ambient_daytime_colors(c_black, c_gray, c_white, c_gray, c_dkgray);

Then you just need to update the daytime with the following function:

glr_set_ambient_daytime_colors(c_black, c_gray, c_white, c_gray, c_dkgray);

That calculates automatically the color of the ambient lighting and the shadow strength for directional light.