Who can do this?
Owners and co-authors with rights see and change the calendars. Each person chooses the display calendar for themselves.
Calendars and world time
World time is the shared time axis of your world; a calendar only displays it in readable form.
What is it for?
Everything dated in your story sits on one shared time axis, the world time. It is a whole number of minutes from a zero point that you choose yourself. Scenes, births, changes of ownership and status changes all use the same axis. It is not a real-world date.
A calendar is only a display of this number. It translates it into year, month and day, with the months, the day length and the leap years of your world. If the months or the year length change, only the display changes, not the stored world time. Without a calendar, Illumentis shows the plain number of minutes.
You can create several calendars, for example one for each people or each planet, and activate a template as a starting point. The converter shows the same world time in all calendars.
How it works
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In the project settings, under “Modules”, switch on the “Calendar” module.
What you see afterwards: The “Calendar” section is available in the project.
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Open “Calendar” and, under “Available templates”, activate a template with “Activate”, or choose “New calendar” and enter a name, the number of months and the days per month.
What you see afterwards: The calendar appears in the list, the first one with the “Default” marker.
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Open the calendar and adjust day length, year length, leap years and months. Weekdays and seasons are optional.
What you see afterwards: The “Summary” shows the average year length.
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Under “Epoch and numbering”, set at which world time day 1 of the start year begins.
What you see afterwards: World time entries now appear as a calendar date.
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In the “Converter”, convert a world time or a date into all calendars.
What you see afterwards: The “Result” shows the value in every calendar.
Your data
Calendars belong to the project. They only change how world time is displayed, not the stored values. The display calendar you choose applies only to you. A calendar in the trash keeps its world time values.
Limits
By default, a project can hold at most 2 calendars unless the project owner has a studio subscription; with a subscription, at most 20. The operators can change these values; Illumentis tells you the value currently in effect in the app once you reach the limit. A template only takes up a slot once you activate it. The year length is a decimal number whose whole-number part must match the sum of the days in the months. The engine’s age check for scenes needs the “Calendar” module with a defined year length.
Frequently asked questions
Which templates are there?
“Standard calendar”, “Gregorian calendar”, “Lunar calendar”, “Planet calendar (example)” and “Stardate”. Illumentis copies the template in your language when you activate it. You may change the copy freely.
What happens when I delete a calendar?
The calendar moves to the trash. Stored world times stay unchanged; only the display is dropped. If it was the default calendar, the oldest remaining calendar becomes the new default.
What is linear time (“Stardate”)?
Instead of year, month and day, it shows a number that grows in fixed steps of base minutes, for example one unit per day. You set the step size, the decimal places and the value at the epoch point.