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#1 Old 31st Mar 2013 at 12:34 AM Last edited by Mootilda : 31st Mar 2013 at 12:46 AM.
Default Making nighttime brighter for the user.
From posts #1499-1515 in this thread:
Quote: Originally posted by gummilutt
I want a mod that makes night be less insanely dark. I hate that 10 hour out of the day are totally dark, because between young Sims going to school and parents often working during the day, I feel like I always play in darkness. Maybe I am just half blind, but it really bugs me.

Best would be one that adapts light hours according to season, but I was told that is not possible, so I would settle for one that just means night is more like day.
We were able to find two different ways to set the night lighting to be identical to the day lighting. I'll try to copy some of the conversation here, so that we can continue the discussion in a better forum.
Quote: Originally posted by neriana
Looking at the files, it appears that brightness is stored in .txt files and should be a quick fix. Look in c:\program files [or wherever you installed the game]\EA Games\The Sims 2\TSData\Res\Lights. The Lighting.txt file appears to be the one that controls brightness at night. Make a backup of it before doing anything else. This is the important bit of code:

lightingState night
environment (0.5, 0.5, 1) 0.7 # override environment lighting state

end

If you want night to be as bright as day, try changing that (after making a backup!) to:

lightingState night
environment (1, 1, 1) 1 # override environment lighting state

end

If you want night to be brighter, but not as bright as day, try numbers between 0.5 and 1 -- 0.75 might be good. I think you'll have to change this file in the folder of every EP and SP you have. Let me know if it works, and if not, I'll dig around some more.
neriana, you have the right file and the right section of that file, but changing the environment line isn't adequate.

I tried copying the entire section for day over the entire section for night and there is no obvious difference between day and night with that change. However, each line in that section controls something and they all need to be modified in some way to make the change. It's not a simple change unless you just want daytime and nighttime to look identical.

Skylight appears to be the skybox. Light sun is likely the spotlight and light sky the ambient lighting. I haven't gotten much further, but it would be nice to know how to modify all of the parameters so that nighttime was twice as bright as it is right now.

Spookymuffin has a mod which enables the dusk / dawn lighting, so that might be another good reference point for the lighting parameters.

Unfortunately, setting dusk and dawn to be longer doesn't actually work very well, because it affects the day / night button in the game. For example, I set the transitionTimes for dusk to 60 from Spooky's original value of 2 and changing from night to day in build mode became an incredibly slow process.

That said, extending the dusk and dawn is the only way that I know of to extend daylight hours. If you're willing to put up with the limitations, I'd recommend downloading Spookymuffin's mod, copying the entire DayTime section to both Morning and Evening, and then increasing the transitionTimes.
Quote: Originally posted by gummilutt
Crazy nice of you to look at it for me. Really, thank you!

Unfortunately, I am slightly confused. The file you mention, Lighting.txt in base game folder, does not contain that line for me. I had a look at some of the ones in EPs and it seems very uneven what has what. OFB/AL/Seasons all have only a # in the file, and Uni has something weird about EP1 specific stuff should go there. Nightlife, Freetime and Pets does have the line you mention.

Should I just change it in those three, or what do I do? =O

EDIT: I now see Mootildas reply. Honestly, I would not mind night and day being identical. Better light and sunny always, than how it is now =P
Then you should just need to change the lighting.txt file for your latest EP. You need to keep the line "lightingState night", but just copy the entire daytime section to night and you'll get what you want.

Be sure to backup before changing the file. If you need any help, let me know.

[update:] Ah, you're using Gunmod's lighting mod. You can't make this change without getting rid of that one, because his mod deletes the contents of the lighting.txt file.
Quote: Originally posted by gummilutt
Alright. I will uninstall Gunmods lightning mod, and give it a try. Just to be sure, when you say EP you mean EP, right? Not latest game motor? Cause I know M&G adds some things and therefore should be edited instead of AL, just wondering if this is one of those cases.

EDIT: Also, to be sure I understand, am I to take this

"lightingState night

environment (0.5, 0.5, 1) 0.7 # override environment lighting state

end"

and copy what is between "lightingState day" and "end" and place it instead of the environment thing?
Quote: Originally posted by gummilutt
I decided to just try it and see what happened, and editing AL file doing exactly what I said, does make night and day have no difference, so I guess it worked. And yes, what I copied is all that is there under lightningState night, when looking at AL-file. Did not look at the rest after uninstalling gunmods lightning mod, so it may be that others have more stuff.

So, for now I have successfully eliminated night. Thank you to both of you for helping me =) If either feels like continuing to take a look at it and try to figure out how to actually change the level of light, I would love to help out in any way I can. Would be crazy neat to be able to edit Gunmods lightning mod, since I do like the effects it has, but I imagine that is a lot more difficult and probably not worth the time =P
That's funny. I just made the change to the base game lighting file and it worked in my M&G game, but when I changed just the environment line in the M&G file, nothing changed.
Quote: Originally posted by gummilutt
That's really weird. Sounds like it works no matter which lightning file you edit =O I wonder also why it's not enough to change the environment thing.
If I've missed anything important from the conversation, please add it in a new post.
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#2 Old 31st Mar 2013 at 12:47 AM
Here's my first guess: the game reads every single lighting.txt file and every single .NLO file in every EP and SP that you have installed, then removes conflicting statements and arrives at the lighting for the game.

As well, the nearly empty lighting.txt files are shipped with Gunmod's mod, so that nothing will accidentally override his mod.
Mad Poster
#3 Old 31st Mar 2013 at 12:55 AM
Would attempting to edit every environment-reference be any point? I have no idea how Sims works, but if your guess is that it reads it all and removes conflicts, maybe that would work.
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#4 Old 31st Mar 2013 at 1:04 AM Last edited by Mootilda : 31st Mar 2013 at 1:24 AM.
The last occurrence should always be the one which overrides all of the others, so if changing the M&G version doesn't do what you want, then you're probably just changing the wrong thing. I believe that each line in the (base game) Night section is required and changing just the environment line is inadequate.

I haven't checked all version of the lighting.txt file, but my guess is that the base game is the only one that contains the full Night section. However, when you copied Day to Night for a later EP, you created an override.

Note that this strategy (read everything then perform overrides) is exactly what the game does with the objects.package.

If I'm correct about the strategy, that implies that you should be able to use Gunmod's lighting mod, plus the changes that you've made to the lighting.txt.
Mad Poster
#5 Old 31st Mar 2013 at 1:16 AM
Alright, that makes sense I guess. I think I'll make a new backup of my entire game installation (because I am lazy and just backing up the light-files is annoying xD) and have a go at Gunmods + same change as now in the morning (I am beginning to get too tired to be reliable, plus it'll take forever to backup installation).

It sounds like the key to altering light level is breaking down what each thing in the day variable does, and figure out which ones are involved in lighting level.
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#6 Old 31st Mar 2013 at 1:29 AM Last edited by Mootilda : 31st Mar 2013 at 1:55 AM.
That's right. If one had the time, it would be great to change each line individually, run the game to see what changed, then document what each line controls.

I've already talked about the Skylight, Light Sun, and Light Sky. Here's something else that I'm pretty sure about: If you see three numbers inside of parenthesis (0.3, 0.8, 0.675), those will be RGB (red, green, blue). So, if you wanted your nighttime to be bluer, you could increase the third number and possibly decrease the other two a bit.

Sounds like this is a link that contained a lot of useful information. Unfortunately, the site is gone and the wayback machine was only able to archive the logon process.
http://www.gaysimsclub2.net/forums/...?showtopic=3053

A related thread. Looks like he did exactly what I did (copy day to night in the base game lighting.txt file):
http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?p=1692725
Mad Poster
#7 Old 31st Mar 2013 at 1:55 AM
Well, I could probably do that part. The problem is that I don't trust my ability to detect what actually changed, unless it is super obvious. Any ideas for a system where I could do that, and take screenshots for someone more knowledged to analyze?

I am curious of what is in your lights document. I checked M&G, and I have the same one line thing there too.
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#8 Old 31st Mar 2013 at 1:56 AM
Yes, I looked again and Night only has the environment line. I was looking at Day.
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#9 Old 31st Mar 2013 at 2:01 AM Last edited by gummilutt : 31st Mar 2013 at 2:13 AM.
Phew, okay. Was starting to worry that mine was weird in some way.

I can't get the first link to open anything, but the second is promising. The screenshots posted clearly show a difference in lighting, so it IS doable, it's just a question of what did that guy/girl do. Looking at the people posting in that thread, one of them last logged on yesterday, so perhaps he/she has some tips. I'll try asking tomorrow.
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#10 Old 31st Mar 2013 at 2:36 AM
Yes, the first link is gone, as I explained. That appears to be where all of the parameters were discussed. If anyone had a copy of that thread, it would be invaluable.

Have you looked at SpookyMuffin's mod? If you like the Dawn or Dusk parameters better, you could download the mod, find the appropriate section, and copy those parameters to your Night section.
Mad Poster
#11 Old 31st Mar 2013 at 3:10 PM
That is a mighty good idea. Looking at the pictures in the thread both dawn and dusk are definitely improvements. I had a go yesterday with day all through the day, and it is quite easy to forget the time, so some difference is probably a good idea.

I'll take a stab at figuring out what to copy from his mod, and come back once I did.
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#12 Old 31st Mar 2013 at 4:03 PM
IIRC, look for sections labelled Morning and Evening.
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#13 Old 31st Mar 2013 at 4:57 PM Last edited by gummilutt : 31st Mar 2013 at 8:01 PM.
Yeah, I figured those were dawn/dusk. Sadly, I'm doing something wrong. Following the instructions of the thread I placed the file in the folder of Base Game. With no alterations, it works fine. But when I swap night for what is under evening, nothing happens.

This was without Gunmod's lightning mod installed, and no previously made alterations. Everything as it was from start, but replacing that one file with his.

EDIT: Success! I must have accidentally copied too much of what was said, because I tried it again with same result and when looking closer I saw I had copied the "lightningState evening" line as well. I took it out, and it now works. I will see if I can get it to work with Gunmods lightning mod aswell.

EDIT: Success yet again! I installed radiance 2.4 via the scriptorium, and edited Lightning.txt in C:/program files/ea games/the sims2/ts data/res/lights (or wherever your game is installed). I actually prefer Spooky's light settings, so I copied his morning to the morning in radiance, and his evening to both evening and night, and that is exactly what shows up in game.
Thanks a million Mootilda for helping me figure this out. I can't describe how much I appreciate it. I am so very excited to play now!
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#14 Old 1st Apr 2013 at 4:08 PM
Glad if I could help. It's such a shame that the information about the various parameters seems to be lost forever.
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