Just to be sure that all the Radiance-lovers read this, I'm quoting here one of the CEP FAQs (sorry for the cross-posting ):

The water reflections look spectacular but please allow me to throw in some point that doesn't suit my taste. The light falloff distance is way too short. Take the screenshot with the ceiling lamp for instance: The room is almost dark with it. According to the picture with the statues I'd have to place a ceiling lamp at every third square to make a room comfortably bright. Also the pool lights seem to have almost no effect.

I had this hack forced upon me when i downloaded a lot. I had to delete 2 files from the sims 2 folder in My Documents and then reinstall the whole game plus EP's.
Despite putting a light on nearly every square outside it would never seem to light my sims up at night plus inside the hair would be brighter than the rest of the sim!!!!

Nvidia Geforce 6200 LE Driver version 91.47

Next time, the new CEP installer can help you restoring the original Maxis files: just run the installer and choose "CEP only / Restore Maxis lights". The only thing that the installe can't do, in a situation like yours, is restoring the userStartup.cheats located in MyDocuments\EA Games\The Sims 2\Config. Unless you have edited it personally, you can just delete it.

Anyway, I'm curious, because the Radiance mod is NOT supposed to be exported along with the lots (it's a bunch of text files; only the shaders are in a package in the Downloads folder).
Which files have you deleted from your Sims2 folder?

The one line in my startup file I do use is "useshaders true" and that is so I am able to see bumpmapping and the last line that is needed in this mod is just the opposite so I don't think this is going to work for me lol....I see the pool water just fine using this cheat but if there's any other way to fix the lighting without altering the bumpmap cheat, unless i'm missing something about this mod, let me know

This earlier post may help you; there was some interesting discussion on this point in the last hundred of posts.

After installing 2.2, all the in-game icons (buy and build mode stuff, the little boxes in the wants panel, the character avatars, etc.) gradually began turning into black silhouettes. I know someone else had a problem with their pie menus turning black. However, I didn't make the same mistake (my WinRAR isn't set to delete after compression), so I'm thinking my situation might have been caused by something else.

If it helps, I had 2.1 installed prior. However, I uninstalled it and restored the Maxis defaults before installing 2.2.

I also don't know whether this will help, but I'm using Windows XP. My computer and video card specs are:

Computer: Intel Pentium 4, 3.4 Ghz, 1GB RAM, 250 GB hard drive. My card is an nVIDIA GeForce 6800 GTO with 256mb of video memory. I'm using nVIDIA's version 61.78 drivers (I don't use the latest drivers because they've proven to be unstable with my configuration).

Hacks (at the time): InSimenator, Squinge's Hula Dance, GunMod's Camera Mod, Jaydees OFB Reaction Tester, ChristianLov's dresser.

Downloads folder: 5.41 GB/20,104 obj.

I also noticed that some of the lights would go wonky in that, I could no longer turn them on or off.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help.

Ephemera, will you please run a test for me? I think that the CEP/Radiance installer can restore a bad Radiance installation, but I'd be glad if you try this for me (and it may fix your problem, too )

1) Run the installer and choose to install the CEP + Radiance 2.2
2) Run the installer again and choose "CEP only / Restore Maxis Lights"
3) Repeat step 1

This install/uninstall/install loop should fix any previous problem in the installation of the Radiance 2.2

Huge thanks Numenor --- I shall run the test later today and then get back to you soon after. Oh, I reinstalled so my game is fresh once more ---- should I still follow the above steps anyway?

On a fresh installed game, you just need step 2 (normal installation fo the Radiance).
Remember to keep a copy of your custom userStartup.cheat, as usual (if you have a custom userStartup...)

*dances* Thanks so much for helping me out! Things are running smoothly and without any blacked-out icons!

I just wanted to let everyone know that I've experienced, too, the problem described by Ephemera and others: very dark rooms, dark sim thumbnails, dark pie menus...
You can easily guess that I install, uninstall and change the CEP and the Radiance quite often, and I must have done something wrong...

My solution was:

1) Run the CEP installer to restore Maxis lights
2) Extract the entire "Lights" folder from the compressed.zip located in the 4th CD of the base game
3) copied the entire "Light" folder in my game installation (in The Sims 2\TSData\Res).
4) Reinstalled the Radiance 2.2. using the CEP installer.

This proves that no matter how careful or experienced you are, a problem is always around the corner

I just installed the CEP with the 2.2 radiance mod and it looks great. Only - am I missing some option somewhere? Some of the community lots are quite dim, I.E. the bowling alley, and the rooms where the lights are turned off are almost black at night. Is this the way it is supposed to be or has something gone wrong?

thanks,
ramseyazad

Also, after playing with it for a while, it seems to work fine but just need a lot more light in every room than I have ever had. I checked some of the other community lots and places like the "lost in love hedge maze" and the parks are impossible at night, because all the sims run off where you can't see em anymore, and there aren't enough lights to see much at all. It's realistic, and nice looking, the pie menus work fine, the thumbnails look fine, it's just as if someone replaced all the light bulbs with very low watt bulbs.

thanks again for all that hard work,
ramseyazad

I think that GunMod's original idea was exactly the one you describe: unlit rooms, at night, are pitch black; parks at night have many pitch black spots.

As for the lower lighting of the community lots, this is a side effect: the Radiance IS generally darker than the normal Maxis lighting, and all the community lots have been tweaked using the Maxis lights as a base, so no wonder that some of them may look a little too dark.

If you are going to use the Radiance forever (like most of us ) you should take in account the idea of manually adding some light to the most visited community lots.

im using it forever, my sims looks better and more realistic

I installed the CEP with the 2.2 radiance mod und everything works great in the game. The new lights are realy realistic and I love them very much. There was only one little problem: there are no fishs in the aquariums. Sims watch and feet "Nothing". You can´t see the fishs any more. I take one day to install the game and all expansion packs again and again, with downloads, with no downloads, only the CEP alone (works great) and with 2.2 radiance (no more fishs). If you can fix this problem, it will so great (thanks, thanks), because I miss the new lights so much! You did a great work and my Sims can`t life without this (me too).

Amber987 - Probably the most fascinating - but controverted - innovation of the Radiance 2.2 (as opposed to the 2.1) is that disables the Maxis shaders and replace them with custom ones.

The benefits are mostly related to the new pool water animation, while the drawback is that some elements are missing from the game:
- the bump maps get disabled
- the fish in the aquarium are not visible

You can keep the radiance 2.2, removing only the custom shaders:
- open your userstartup.cheat (located in MyDocuments\EA Games\The Sims 2\Config), look for the line "boolprop UseShaders false" and change the last word to "true";
- then go to your Downloads folder and remove the file "RLS-Shaders.package".

This procedure should give you back the aquarium fishes and the bump maps, but you will lose the pool water animation.
Some user has reported, though, that editing the userstartup.cheat as explained, but leaving the "RLS-Shaders.package" in the Downloads should fix the fishes *and* keep the pool animation. I haven't tried myself, but it woths a shot

Thank´s for helping. Just one more question: how can I open the userstartup.cheat?

Ok, everything is great. I open the file and changed it to true but I leave the RLS-Shaders.package in the Downloads and everything works great. Thank you for your help.

I have tried it, too; and now I have back my bump maps and the fishes, without having lost the pool animations.

BUT I'm more than sure that GunMod had a good reason for deactivating the Maxis shaders, so I guess that sooner or later I will notice something different in the Radiance effects, now that I've enabled again the Maxis shaders.

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26 SEPT 2006 - The support from the custom lights and the Radiance mod have been stripped from the CEP installer (now the CEP is again the CEP only )

The installer for both the Radiance versions, as well the support for custom light (and meny other functions) are now included in the new SCRIPTORIUM.

NOTE: the SCRIPTORIUM installs the Radiance 2.2 without GunMod's shaders, i.e. without modifying the userStartup.cheat.
I've choosen this way because I feel that it's less "invasive", and anyway losing the bump maps (and the fishes ) was too high a price to pay, just to have smoother shadows.

If you *do want* the Radiance to use GunMods shaders, just manually add the line "boolprop UseShaders false" at the end of your userstartup.cheat, after the SCRIPTORIUM installer finishes its job.
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..... lolz i dont know to try it or not lolz

Should i?
il just download it just in case...

lol

Are you talking about the Radiance 2.2 or the Scriptorium (with included Radiance)?

I suggest the Scriptorium: you can always choose to install the Radiance only, with it.

Chesspieceface (and anyone interested) - First off, these are the relevant data of my installation:
Radiance 2.2 RC1 (downloaded from here) without any personal change or additions, except the "useShaders false" line, that was removed (I use Maxis shaders). My graphic card is an Nvidia 5700LE. I have all the EPs and SPs, and I always install the latest patches.


Yes, I've read your notes about the roomLightingType variable on this thread. GunMod used a value of 2 (ambient only), Maxis used 4 (ambient + 2 dir.), you used 6 (ambient + 4 dir.).
You are right that 2 isn't suitable (for the bumbmaps) but 6, too, looks quite bad in my game: when a sim walks through a room, the lights and shadows on him have too sharp transitions (see video HERE - 3Mb).

I've tested values from 0 to 7 in my game, and all the values greater than 4 produce the same "flashy" shadows. Let's discard also 0 and 1 (no ambient) and 2 (no directional), the best value seems to be Maxis default, 4, that has ambient light and the maximum number of directionals that ensure smooth shadow transitions.

NOTE: I guess that this "maximum number of directionals" varies depending to the graphic card (I have an Nvidia 5700LE) and this explains why a value of 6 looks good in your game. I think that Maxis choosed the value that would have fit the average capabilities of the various graphic cards.



Now, this is very odd. That OFB windows and lights don't work in your game, I mean. They work perfectly in mine, and I would be surprised of the opposite... (see attached pic)

When the game loads, it reads all the "Lighting.txt" included in each EP (this is done automatically, no need to instruct the game on purpose).
Each "Lighting.txt", in turn, contains one or more "include" instructions (include, sInclude or wildInclude), that instructs the game to load other text files, containing other light definitions. The process is recursive (every file can call other files, with no limits).

GunMod edited the base-game Lighting.txt, deleting the original "include" instruction (thus, preventing the game to load the base-game Maxis lights), and adding a new "include", pointing to GunMod's "RLS-Main.txt" (thus, calling all the Radiance lights).
Then, GunMod nulled out all the light definitions for UNI and NL, and added his own definitions into the various "RSL-....txt" files, located into the base-game folder.
I'm not sure why he didn't leave them in the proper folders: I guess he just found easier to have all the table lamps, from any EP, into the same file etc... Or, more probably, he did so in order to freely use the "setLotLightingFile" cheat, to swap the various Lighting.txt on the fly, without reloading the game. However, he didn't need to move all the light definitions to the base-game folder: he chose to do so.
Obviously, GunMod could not edit the lighting.txt for the EP/SP newer that Nightlife, and therefore, the original files are read when the game is loaded.
Since you have experimented a lot, I guess that at one point you have put in your OFB and FFS Lights folders a "nulled-out" custom version of the lighting.txt, instead of the original ones.

I admit I haven't read the whole Radiance 2.2 threads (here and at MATY); but how many people complained about the Radiance 2.2.1 not working with OFB? I'm going to search the threads.