I'm working on a top-down 2d game in Unity. assume my world/map looks like this through the player's eyes:
(The art isn't mine, this is just an example) Now by making art directly like this, I can control the "lighting" as in drawing lighter and darker areas in the grass to create the illusion of sunlight and shadow.
I like this since it's very convenient and lets me have a lot of control, however, How would I make the player sprite "react" to this "light"? for example, if the player sprite were to walk into the sunny/bright parts of the map then it should be lit up/ bright and if it walks into the shadow regions then it darkens up.
I'm okay with creating multiple sprites for this if necessary, however, how do I detect whether the player is in light or not? Is there a way to create some sort of mask or texture map that lets me change the sprite or add lighting somehow?
I'm sorry if this isn't a good question, I'm still new to unity.