Hit lighting is one of these seemingly annoying things that every new player that watched that Cookiezi video tries to get rid of - if the best doesn't use it, it can't be any good after all. Or can it?
One thing that pretty much none who fiddled with skinning knows is that hit lightning is skinnable.
The according element is called lighting.png.
That means other than toggling that button you also have the option to simply replace the hit lighting for your specific skin just as you would with 300s.
Now to the more interesting content: How hit lighting can actually help you with playing.
Hit lighting appears when you hit a note. Usually that is not very interesting because we already get that feedback from hitsounds.
But what hitsounds don't tell us is where we hit the note.
Playing without mods this is information we already have but on Hidden this information is only accessible through hit lighting.
This becomes especially useful when aiming flowy patterns:
The advantages don't end here though.
As you can see on the screenshot given above, you can see hitlighting for the red notes 4 and 5 even though they weren't even hit yet!
What is this wizardry you should wonder?
Well, the screenshot was done in a Kiai section. During Kiai section the hitlighting is shown behind hitcircles. When playing with Hidden the hitcircle is faded out but the hit lighting is not!
This can be a massive help in aiming the Kiai section of any map as there's a lot less guessing involved.
Especially playing HDFL this is literally hax in Kiai.
Conclusion:
Don't turn off hit lighting in the options!
If you don't want to use it regularly, skin it out!
Consider making a special skin for HD gameplay where you skin the hit lighting in a way that benefits your gameplay.
One thing that pretty much none who fiddled with skinning knows is that hit lightning is skinnable.
The according element is called lighting.png.
That means other than toggling that button you also have the option to simply replace the hit lighting for your specific skin just as you would with 300s.
Now to the more interesting content: How hit lighting can actually help you with playing.
Hit lighting appears when you hit a note. Usually that is not very interesting because we already get that feedback from hitsounds.
But what hitsounds don't tell us is where we hit the note.
Playing without mods this is information we already have but on Hidden this information is only accessible through hit lighting.
This becomes especially useful when aiming flowy patterns:
Example
As seen on this screenshot done with the skin of Maxe191 you have a very good idea where your cursor is in relation to the stream!
As seen on this screenshot done with the skin of Maxe191 you have a very good idea where your cursor is in relation to the stream!
The advantages don't end here though.
As you can see on the screenshot given above, you can see hitlighting for the red notes 4 and 5 even though they weren't even hit yet!
What is this wizardry you should wonder?
Well, the screenshot was done in a Kiai section. During Kiai section the hitlighting is shown behind hitcircles. When playing with Hidden the hitcircle is faded out but the hit lighting is not!
This can be a massive help in aiming the Kiai section of any map as there's a lot less guessing involved.
Especially playing HDFL this is literally hax in Kiai.
Conclusion:
Don't turn off hit lighting in the options!
If you don't want to use it regularly, skin it out!
Consider making a special skin for HD gameplay where you skin the hit lighting in a way that benefits your gameplay.