Since this really isn't showing off a build, it wouldn't go in gallery and I couldn't find a better place to put it.
I've recently came up with a new idea for "Manual Lighting" where you manually paint blocks to make it look like they're being lit by a light source, which means you can do manual ambient occlusion, manual shadows, and if you're up for it, manual volumetric lighting. Of course, this will take time, and probably lots of it. I've put together a small build to show a very basic version done with the default paint set, although you could make it look a lot better I imagine.