Meta Developers

The Environment gizmo lets you access settings for lighting and environment features. From here, you can adjust the skydome, texture of your environment and the fog density.

The Environment gizmo

To use the Environment gizmo:

From Build Mode, select the Three Line icon, then select the Build icon.
Select Gizmos.
Grab the Environment gizmo. You can now edit the properties by grabbing the gizmo and selecting the Three Dot icon with your controller.

Skydome types

With the environment gizmo, you can also adjust the appearance of your sky using the skydome property. There are two types of skydomes:

Cubemap skydome: A skydome type that uses cubemap textures (i.e. a custom image) with a small number of Horizon-provided presets.
Custom gradient skydome: A skydome that allows people to create a custom gradient colors across the sky of your world.

Additional information

Setting an Environment Gizmo to Active:

Worlds can have multiple Environment Gizmos in them, but only one Environment Gizmo can be active at a time and affect the world.
Opening an Environment Gizmo’s property panel and setting the Active toggle to “On” will make that Gizmo’s setting affect the world.
Other Environment Gizmos in the world will not affect the world environment when a different Gizmo is active.

De-spawning an active Environment Gizmo with a script:

If an active Environment Gizmo is deleted/despawned by a script in Build mode, it will still affect the world.
When deleting an active Environment Gizmo using the Disk UI in Build Mode, deleting the Gizmo will remove the Gizmo’s effects on the world. Because of this, you will know what your worlds look like when they’re published.
To do something like a day-night cycle, we recommend spawning a new active Environment Gizmo and then de-spawning the old one. As an example:
- The world is Daytime by default.
- You spawn an active Afternoon Environment Gizmo, and the world becomes Afternoon.
- If you want it to be Night, spawn an active Nighttime Environment Gizmo first, and then de-spawn the Afternoon Environment Gizmo.

Fog density:

Adjusting Fog Density lets you change how light spreads through the world. The higher the number, the denser the fog, and the harder it will be to see objects at a distance. The fog will take on the color of the ambient lighting (sky).

Floor grid:

You can also show or hide the floor grid with the Environment gizmo. The grid is 64 square meters in size, with each tile representing one square meter. The grid can’t be edited, moved or selected, and doesn’t have a Properties Panel, but it’s a solid surface that players and simulated objects can move around on. The grid is only visible from above.