Setting Up Realistic Darkness in Sodium Extras Across Dimensions

guide

Sodium Extras includes a realistic darkness system that makes unlit areas genuinely dark instead of merely dim. This guide covers how to enable it per dimension, adjust fog brightness in the Nether and End, and control how moon phases affect light levels.

What Realistic Darkness Does

The realistic darkness feature makes the rest of the world more realistically dark. It does not affect daytime or torch light. Instead, it controls how dark is considered true darkness — meaning the ambient light level that counts as pitch black.

Enabling Darkness Per Dimension

Darkness is toggled separately for each dimension, so you can apply it exactly where you want it.

Enable on Overworld — when enabled, true darkness is applied in the Overworld.
Enable in Other dimensions — when enabled, true darkness is applied in other dimensions. Note that this option is planned for removal in favor of a blacklist.
Enable on SkyLess dimensions — when enabled, true darkness is applied on dimensions without skylight.
Nether — when enabled, true darkness is applied in the Nether.
End — when enabled, true darkness is applied in the End.

Fog Brightness in the Nether and End

Each of these dimensions has its own fog brightness control, used when darkness is enabled there.

Nether Fog Brightness — configures fog brightness in the Nether when darkness is enabled.
End Fog Brightness — configures fog brightness in the End when darkness is enabled.

Lower values make the fog dimmer; raise them if you want the fog to stay more visible while darkness is active.

Blocking All Ambient Light

There is an option that, when enabled, disables sky, fog, and moon brightness entirely. With it on, blocks become the only source of light. Use this if you want the strictest possible darkness, where nothing in the environment emits light on its own.

Moon Phase Behavior

Darkness can respond to the current moon phase. When the moon phase option is enabled, darkness is affected by moon phases, so nights grow brighter or darker as the lunar cycle changes.

Two values define the range:

New Moon Bright (min) — configures brightness on a new moon, or the minimal bright level on a black moon phase.
Full Moon Bright (max) — configures brightness on a full moon, or the maximum bright level on a black moon phase.

Set the minimum low for dark new moons and the maximum higher if you want full moons to noticeably lift the light level.

Operating the Settings

All of these options are changed through the mod's interface rather than through crafting. Open the settings screen and locate the darkness section, then toggle each dimension on or off and adjust the brightness and moon phase values to taste.

If any of these features are also bound to an action, use the corresponding hotkey and set it in the controls menu — no default key is assigned here.

Practical Tips

Enable darkness only in the dimensions where you actually want it; each toggle is independent.
If the Nether or End feels too murky, raise that dimension's fog brightness rather than disabling darkness outright.
Keep the new moon value low and the full moon value moderate if you want moon phases to matter without making nights too bright.
Remember that daytime and torch light are unaffected, so your normal lighting still works as expected.