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Lab Assistant
#26 Old 23rd Jan 2022 at 1:56 AM
Ok, so I have the Cinema Secrets mod in right now and I do love the dawn/dusk feature and how the Sims look, especially during the day, but I've been really frustrated with what indoor lights look like at night. Like @Softlism mentioned upthread, the two of us were PMing a bit about how we both are bothered by these really bright indoor lights that seem to wash out & oversaturate many objects in the room and we can't figure out if this is the normal, intended effect of this mod or if something is up with our settings...

I attached some images to show exactly what I'm talking about.

Picture 1: This is the Smith living room in Strangetown, basic unedited Maxis house (I mean, I think I maybe moved their chess table, but the light fixtures are the same). I really like how the Sims and the environment look so natural and soft during the day.

Picture 2: ...but, when I switch the hour to nighttime (same moment, didn't unpause, just used the sethour cheat) some of the objects will start to get way too bright. You can see it a little bit on the dining table & plates in this shot. They are very washed out from being underneath a lamp. There is only the ONE main ceiling light in this room.

This "really glaring bright surface" issue seems to crop up with a lot of the Maxis objects especially most countertops, a lot of tables, and even some of the tile floors. Almost anything that's white or just on the lighter side. I've noticed it makes bathrooms a bit of a pain because those tend to be full of flat white surfaces.

Here's two more pictures (3 & 4) showing how glaringly bright it looks on two countertops, a dresser, and the seasons toybox. (Sorry that these pictures are messy and I just shoved everything in one room with moveobjects lol but you get the idea. Again, I just plopped down one random basegame ceiling light.)
Umm, I forgot to take a good shot showing this aspect of it but one of the reasons this is so jarring is that the Sims themselves don't look nearly so bright like this, so they look kind of weird when they're inside at night and stand near or interact with any of these objects.

But... is it supposed to be like this? Or is something wrong with my settings??? When I look at the CinemaSecrets mod preview images that compare it to the other options, it doesn't look so bright indoors at night, but maybe it's just because of how they decorate that particular room. And most of the posts higher up in this thread seem to have an opposite problem -- they think lighting mods make their game too *dark*.

To the people here who use Cinema Secrets or any of the other similar lighting mods: Does it look like this for you too? If so have you found ways to ameliorate the issue, or does it just not bother you? I'm really annoyed by it but I found that when I tried switching back to Maxis lighting, now I not only miss the dawn/dusk but also dislike how the Sims look half the time
Screenshots
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Mad Poster
#27 Old 23rd Jan 2022 at 4:59 AM Last edited by simmer22 : 23rd Jan 2022 at 5:20 AM.
^ I've had that "white-out" issue for a while, but I think I've had it on all my computers, so it's probably a general TS2 thing. Not sure if it's related to a lighting mod or not, or made worse/better by having one (I can't remember when I added a lighting mod for the first time, but I don't think I had one on my first computer, and the issue is present there, although I can't find any night-time pictures).

I think I at one point downloaded some brightness-adjusted lights (with a few other fixes) to help with this issue, but can't quite remember where I found those.

Plop down a light and it's instantly almost too bright, so I don't get why people are complaining about it being too dark. It's more a problem if you want to manage without lights or with minimal lighting, or outdoors, because the lights outdoors work very different (and don't do anything useful at daytime...)
Inventor
#28 Old 23rd Jan 2022 at 10:43 AM
Does anyone know if Dreadpirate's Secret Cinema mod doesn't discolor the objects so much? Currently I have the issue that objects get discolored lighting from colored walls: https://thumbs2.modthesims2.com/img...pname(1099).png
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retired moderator
#29 Old 23rd Jan 2022 at 11:12 AM
Quote: Originally posted by baticeer
Ok, so I have the Cinema Secrets mod in right now and I do love the dawn/dusk feature and how the Sims look, especially during the day, but I've been really frustrated with what indoor lights look like at night. Like @Softlism mentioned upthread, the two of us were PMing a bit about how we both are bothered by these really bright indoor lights that seem to wash out & oversaturate many objects in the room and we can't figure out if this is the normal, intended effect of this mod or if something is up with our settings...

I attached some images to show exactly what I'm talking about.

Picture 1: This is the Smith living room in Strangetown, basic unedited Maxis house (I mean, I think I maybe moved their chess table, but the light fixtures are the same). I really like how the Sims and the environment look so natural and soft during the day.

Picture 2: ...but, when I switch the hour to nighttime (same moment, didn't unpause, just used the sethour cheat) some of the objects will start to get way too bright. You can see it a little bit on the dining table & plates in this shot. They are very washed out from being underneath a lamp. There is only the ONE main ceiling light in this room.

This "really glaring bright surface" issue seems to crop up with a lot of the Maxis objects especially most countertops, a lot of tables, and even some of the tile floors. Almost anything that's white or just on the lighter side. I've noticed it makes bathrooms a bit of a pain because those tend to be full of flat white surfaces.

Here's two more pictures (3 & 4) showing how glaringly bright it looks on two countertops, a dresser, and the seasons toybox. (Sorry that these pictures are messy and I just shoved everything in one room with moveobjects lol but you get the idea. Again, I just plopped down one random basegame ceiling light.)
Umm, I forgot to take a good shot showing this aspect of it but one of the reasons this is so jarring is that the Sims themselves don't look nearly so bright like this, so they look kind of weird when they're inside at night and stand near or interact with any of these objects.

But... is it supposed to be like this? Or is something wrong with my settings??? When I look at the CinemaSecrets mod preview images that compare it to the other options, it doesn't look so bright indoors at night, but maybe it's just because of how they decorate that particular room. And most of the posts higher up in this thread seem to have an opposite problem -- they think lighting mods make their game too *dark*.

To the people here who use Cinema Secrets or any of the other similar lighting mods: Does it look like this for you too? If so have you found ways to ameliorate the issue, or does it just not bother you? I'm really annoyed by it but I found that when I tried switching back to Maxis lighting, now I not only miss the dawn/dusk but also dislike how the Sims look half the time


I think the brightness is to do with maxis lights, some are too dim and others too bright. There are mods around that ajust them.
https://modthesims.info/d/526749/ea...me-edition.html
https://modthesims.info/d/526580/ma...el-edition.html

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Mad Poster
#30 Old 23rd Jan 2022 at 3:13 PM
^ Not sure if those are compatible with other lighting mods, though. I wish they were (or maybe incorporated into the radiance mod). The default lights are not by any means sensible - they're often too bright, too dark, or have the wrong colors.
Lab Assistant
#31 Old 23rd Jan 2022 at 5:49 PM
Thank you everyone for the responses! It sounds like the too-bright lights are an overall game issue and that I just really notice it more with the lighting mod installed because of something about how they do the object lighting. I guess I'll simply have to figure out how to adjust to it.

Quote: Originally posted by joandsarah77
I think the brightness is to do with maxis lights, some are too dim and others too bright. There are mods around that ajust them.
https://modthesims.info/d/526749/ea...me-edition.html
https://modthesims.info/d/526580/ma...el-edition.html

So, I think these tweaks are actually already incorporated into the Cinema Secrets mod? Their readme says that it includes "EAxian lighting fixes by Plasticbox and CircusWolf over at MTS." BUT... those links are very helpful anyways Jo, thanks, because of the explanation in the description that tells you how to tweak the brightness of individual lamps! If what I have to do for my bathrooms & kitchens to look half-decent is to personally tweak most of the .NLO files in the dang game then I guess that's a project I can take on later


Quote: Originally posted by Softlism
Does anyone know if Dreadpirate's Secret Cinema mod doesn't discolor the objects so much? Currently I have the issue that objects get discolored lighting from colored walls: https://thumbs2.modthesims2.com/img...pname(1099).png

OK... I think I found a setting that can help you Softlism! When I was looking into the the lighting mods trying to see if there was something obvious that I could tweak to fix my washed out lights, I found this line in the CinemaSecrets Lighting.txt file (this is in your base-game TSData/Res/Lights folder):
Code:
# This controls how much of the wall and floor colours
# bleed into the object lighting. 1 gives full bleed,
# 0 gives none at all.
set roomSaturation               1.00

So it looks like you could just change that number to a lower one and see how that looks for you! I haven't tried it out myself because I don't mind the wall color bleed. I checked, and the Maxis default has this parameter at 0.5.
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