About
The Custom Effect Loader mod by boformer can be used to add custom light effects to props and vehicles. The information in this article is based on the official documentation of the mod .
This article assumes you are familiar with prop asset creation.
Effect
XML
After subscribing to the mod(or adding it locally) and enabling it, download the example effect XML file and paste it in your local asset folder located here:
%LocalAppData%\Colossal Order\Cities_Skylines\Addons
See another more complicated example of an effects definition file here .
Effect Properties
If you open the XML file using a text editor, you can adjust various properties.
Name
Name of the light effect which will show up in the asset editor. This must be globally unique so it's a good idea to prefix it with your username. This should not be changed for already used and published effects.
Type
The type of light: Spot, Directional, Point, Area.
Intensity
The brightness of the light, usually starts from 4 for street lights and up to 8 for floodlights.
Range
How far the light effect extends in meters.
Spot Angle
The angle of how wide or narrow the light beam is for Spot lights.
Spot Leaking
The fog/bloom effect around the light source, usually 0.1 to 0.5.
Batched Light
If this is set to true, the light is visible from any distance, must be false for vehicle lights.
Fade Start Distance
If batched light is set to false, this controls the distance at which the light effect starts to fade out, usually around 300.
Fade End Distance
If batched light is set to false, this controls the distance at which the light effect is no longer visible, usually around 500. Higher values may have no effect because of the limited prop render distance unless a mod like ULOD increases this distance.
Off Min & Off Max
Daylight values under which the lights turn off. For night-only lights usually 0.4, 0.7. If both values are the same, all instances of this light will turn off at the same time(more specifically daylight brightness), but if they are different, they will turn off at random times. Check this spreadsheet to see how many hours during the day the light will be off using which values.
Blink Type
If and how the light should blink: None, Blink_050_050, MildFade_0125_0125, MediumFade_500_500, StrongBlaze_0125_0125, StrongFade_250_250, Blink_025_025
Rotation Speed
The speed at which the light will rotate around an axis, usually 10 to 50. Rotation works only if batched light is set to false.
Rotation Axis X Y Z
Rotation axis vector around which the light will rotate.
Publish
You can publish the asset as usual, but you must include your modified XML file in the content folder. Make sure the mod is enabled while you publish the asset, this will add a custom tag which can be used to find all custom effect loader assets in the steam workshop.