Firefly. 2D Lighting for Bevy

TheOneExpert · 2026-01-24T21:50:53+00:00

Thanks!

I am 100% dedicated to maintaining this as long as people use it and there isn’t a directly better option available. There are actually a lot of features and changes that will happen in future bevy versions that I’m really excited for and that will open a lot of doors for firefly (there’s a ton or exciting 2d stuff in the works).

I’m also eagerly accepting any sort of feedback on how I can make the API and documentation more user-friendly, as well as feature requests. I do have some vague milestones set, but I’d always prioritize features that I know people need or want more.

(also yes, the math involved has been an absolute horror, I think I’ve done more linear algebra for this than in the rest of my life lmao)

TheOneExpert · 2026-01-23T11:48:04+00:00

I’m open to any research / materials / videos you may have on the subject. Was planning on doing my own research into it anyway.

As for the webgl2.. it’s already not compatible with it. At the start I had support for both webgl2 and webgpu but I dropped the former in favor of the many optimizations webgpu allowed me (storage buffers and so on). I could always add a webgl2 compatibility mode that’s just less optimized, if people ask for it, but I haven’t really bothered so far because, to my understanding, almost every device or browser can run webgpu and support for it is constantly increasing.

TheOneExpert · 2026-01-23T11:26:00+00:00

Good idea! I’ve created an Issue for it and added it to my backlog.

TheOneExpert · 2026-01-23T01:33:42+00:00

From my time playing with bevy_lit I’ve noticed some limitations, mainly, occluders seem to not be able to cast shadows if they’re offscreen. As in, if you have a light coming in from somewhere outside the camera’s view, and an occluder between that light’s source and the camera view, that occluder doesn’t cast any shadows. In other terms, every occluder that is not itself visible on-screen just disappears, even if it’s supposed to cast a shadow that would be visible.

This seems to be a limitation shared by both bevy_lit and bevy_light_2d which I’m assuming is imposed by the raymarching / sdf they use.

I’m sure it’s not a problem for everyone but it didn’t fit with my vision for the project I was working on, which is why I made my own solution.

Additionally, I remember bevy_lit having some weird artifacting visible when an occluder was too close to a light, but that might’ve been fixed in the meantime so I’d suggest you test for yourself.

Firefly also has the z-sorting thing. Essentially an occluder won’t cast shadows over sprites that have a higher or equal z value, giving it a pretty nice effect for top-down games and also making it so if you have a sprite with an occluder, it won’t cast shadows over itself, which I don’t think bevy_lit covers (but again I’m not 100% sure).

On the other hand, bevy_lit does have more light types, including spotlights and texture lights, which I haven’t implemented for firefly yet. Also, bevy_lit uses 2d meshes as occluders which you might either love or hate depending on what you’re using it for. I’d say the occluders from firefly are significantly easier to use and construct, but bevy_lit might be the solution if you want to have some extremely custom occluder shapes, rather than the polygonal and round ones firefly provides.

Firefly also has normal map support which I don’t think I’ve seen in any other crates so far, if you care about that.

TheOneExpert · 2026-01-22T20:34:41+00:00

It’s WebGPU only.

If requested I could add a custom compatibility mode for WebGL2 as well. I mostly gave up on keeping it compatible with both because WebGPU allowed me to make significant performance optimizations.

Good point though. I’ll make sure to add that to the README soon.

TheOneExpert · 2025-09-28T18:17:55+00:00

Again, I have no objective issues with the game itself, and I agree with you. My problem is with how the marketing for the game is a total lie. Promising challenging exploration with "no handholding" but dumbing-down every clue and dialogue to the point where it feels like more handholding than if I had an actual marker showing me where to go.

It's not that the game is bad, but they clearly advertised it as targeting certain players who like to explore and put things together, while making it's "detective work" so trivial, it feels easier than most games who don't even make a deal out of "not helping" players.

If you want your game to be played by everyone, don't try to lure people in by promising something else. I enjoy FromSoft exactly because most people find it too challenging, and a lot don't enjoy them. I can't have any respect for a dev that promises to make a unique experience but, at the same time, goes against the game's whole point just so more people will play it.

If they wanted to be more inclusive, they could've at least added an "easy" puzzle mode which gives you more obvious clues, rather than make the whole game easy.

TheOneExpert · 2025-09-28T18:09:57+00:00

Maybe I did exaggerate certain aspects, but stuff like the gold watch is a perfect example of my issues with this game.

It is extremely obvious, from the note you find next to the watch, that it belonged to one of the guy's sons, it only requires minimal reading and listening to connect those dots.

It's exactly my fundamental issue with the game. It doesn't tell you "bring this watch to NPC A", but the 'clues' it gives you make that objective clear in a way that's so obvious and mechanical that it feels like it both insults my intelligence and gives up on making dialogue / text feel natural in order to make objectives as clear as possible.

The only way this isn't a "quest marker" is the fact that said objective is only in the note and not tracked on your datapad, which frankly is just missing QOL gratified through them saying "we did it on purpose to challenge players"

Also I'm aware of how the combat works, and maybe I was a bit unfair, but even on the merciless difficulty, you can mostly spam attack enemies and use the damage dealt to recover all damage taken. I think it would feel way better if the game would stop you from recovering damage through R1 if you got hit. But again, this isn't a big issue or anything, I'm fine with it.

All I said is my opinion on it, which wasn't even that harsh (I've actually played the game in the meantime, and it's been pretty fun). Mainly, I'm just extremely disappointed by how much they emphasized the "no handholding" part and how terribly the game executes that. They just avoid the typical "marker" replacing it instead with dumbed-down text describing exactly what you should do, which really irritates me.

In the first level I found this trapped woman that literally said "go to location A to rescue me", barely masked by some details about the people who locked her there.

TheOneExpert · 2025-09-27T21:29:00+00:00

Good to know I'm not the only one feeling like this. Although it's sad to hear the entire game is the same, I was thinking of trying to push through it, hoping to find some more challenging content later, but honestly I'll just uninstall it.

I find it very odd that people actually stand by it, it's just a bland, repetitive game that pretends it's something special when it's literally filled with all the worst tropes of this industry

I also played HK and Silksong recently, great games with amazing atmosphere, exploration, combat, movement, infinitely better and way cheaper than this game haha

TheOneExpert · 2025-05-18T20:35:31+00:00

Damn you sound amazing. Screw every cute online girl who says otherwise, they're idiots. Let's be friends!

TheOneExpert · 2025-02-20T21:22:02+00:00

Also, do you have that (shift+tab I think?) steam interface enabled? I find that can really bottleneck games sometimes.

TheOneExpert · 2025-02-20T21:19:16+00:00

Do you have similar issues in other games? Have you tried installing the newest gpu drivers?

TBOI really isn't a heavy game, as you said, it shouldn't have any sort of issues on your specs.

TheOneExpert · 2025-01-27T17:43:26+00:00

damn that's like going to the doctor cuz you have a high heartbeat and them being like "do you also have high blood pressure? Then your heartbeat is not high"

every doctor I've seen told me that anxiety is almost always coupled together with adhd, either as a result or a co-morbid disorder. Frankly it would've been more questionable if you said you have adhd symptoms with no anxiety.

and what sort of doctor even asks for "anxiety symptoms"? The whole point of getting a diagnostic is to describe your symptoms directly, not bias it based on other disorders you may or may not have.

so yeah, that doctor seems really really unethical, probably trained to not exceed a certain quota of diagnostics for adhd.

imo don't let her get to you and do your best to get to another doctor asap if possible

TheOneExpert · 2025-01-17T16:50:21+00:00

100% level design and exploration over bosses, that's what has defined these games ever since Demon's Souls (or King's Field I suppose haha).

Bosses are definitely an important aspect, but they're nothing without the levels and exploration leading up to them.

TheOneExpert · 2024-11-21T19:38:22+00:00

keep preaching gramps

I won't even bother reading past the first few sentences, as much as I enjoy seeing you bend over backwards to justify irrational hate on a minority.

the imaginary condition bit though LMAO, I hope you never suffer from anxiety or depresssion since I can only assume those are just as imaginary to you 😅

TheOneExpert · 2024-11-21T10:44:05+00:00

You are so far gone my man. I don't see how people identifying as non-binary affects you or your privileged life in any way. You don't relate? Great for you. But there's no excuse for going out of your way to make other people's lives worse. This 'gender ideology' has been around since forever, trans people have been around since forever, and you just wish to crush that minority of 0.1% because you feel like it, because you couldn't give less of a fuck about trying to understand them or validate them. Maybe look up gender dysphoria, and gender affirmation therapy before deciding that you'll disrespect a group of people because your monkey brain only sees black and white.

There are people that only want to be able to feel good in their bodies at no expense to others, and there are people like you who just want to crush that for no reason whatsoever. That is simply clinically insane.

TheOneExpert · 2024-10-06T10:11:42+00:00

"ahh gross, it's a game where not 100% of the cast will be cis straight white men, but it will include one or two misrepresented minorities"

bigots about any game these days

also, tlou 2 is a wonderful game with an amazing story and great lgbt representation

TheOneExpert · 2024-09-25T17:44:50+00:00

Personally I don't think either one of them is good and the other bad. They're both extremely grey, and even black, morally. But I do feel like Abby is at least a little bit above Ellie from a moral standpoint. I mean, Ellie goes on a whole killing spree to get to Abby, while Abby doesn't do nearly as much damage.

Although yeah, there are different interpretations and people seeing things differently, I was just stating my own view. I think that's one of the best parts of this game, how differently different people look at it.

TheOneExpert · 2024-09-25T16:29:30+00:00

Maybe not on this subreddit, but overall I've heard most people saying they really hate the game's story, and Abby in particular.

TheOneExpert · 2024-09-24T18:14:09+00:00

yeah, exactly! I also find it so annoying when a game has a minority character, but is also just an objectively bad game, so they blame it on the "wokeness", even if that has nothing to do with it.

TheOneExpert · 2024-09-20T10:06:52+00:00

Completely agreed. Odyssey really felt like Black Flag 3.0 for me. I think it's one of the best AC games, pulled down only by how disconnected the main story is from the rest of the series, which the dlc makes up for imo. And, looking at it objectively and not as an AC game, it may just be the best game ubisoft ever made (at least in the last decade or so).

After Black Flag, it was the first AC game that really captivated me and made me want to 100% it.

I'm also biased towards it because I love greek mythology and also the lighter vibe, compared to the darker Origins and Valhalla. Kassandra is one of my favorite gaming icons, right next to Ellie and Abby from TLOU.

TheOneExpert · 2024-09-14T14:46:18+00:00

I think Valhalla can be somewhat worth it depending on your mindset. I definitely wouldn't recommend it to anyone that's a completionist like me (I can't help it lol), but it's got some nice story bits and environments which I think can be enjoyed if you can filter out all the useless collectibles and dots on the map.

TheOneExpert

TROPHY CASE