OFB windows no longer let light in.

[Zii]

This seems to be limited to OFB windows, anyway. A few downloaded ones have this effect but I suppose it depends on what they were cloned from in the first place.

Example of my problem:



This was happening before and after GunMod's lighting thingee (I installed it to see if it fixed it xD). I have nooo idea what could have caused this. The only things I've downloaded lately besides clothing, hair etc. is the College Adjuster.

I do recall a table I downloaded once ages ago actually affecting the item it was cloned from. Could it be another case of this? I'll have to move out some of my downloaded windows and see what's going on. But if anybody has any ideas besides that, it would help XC

[Eleonora]

My OFB windows do this as well. I generally only use those old-fashioned ones, with the diamond shaped little pieces of glass, they don't let in any light either. To keep my houses from being completely dark I've started to use them only for show on the street side of my houses, and put base-game windows on the other walls.
I reckon it's caused by Maxis, since I didn't have any kind of lightning mod when I started noticing this problem. It's just weid they haven't fixed this with the patch.

[Kyna]

I've always had that problem, since the base game.  I remember building my first house in the game, building the walls then adding the windows and expecting the inside to light up as in TS1.  It didn't happen.

In my case it's because I don't have a graphics card, my crappy computer uses Intel integrated graphics instead.  I'm definitely no expert on graphics cards, but I'm wondering if it's possible that OFB requires a slightly better graphics card (and/or driver) than you have to get light through the windows.

[Eleonora]

In my case it's because I don't have a graphics card, my crappy computer uses Intel integrated graphics instead.  I'm definitely no expert on graphics cards, but I'm wondering if it's possible that OFB requires a slightly better graphics card (and/or driver) than you have to get light through the windows.

Mmm, but that doesn't explain why my older windows do let in light. If OFB upped the requirements for letting in light, than all of my windows should be borked.

[Zii]

Moved out entire download folder, problem remained. Seems strange though, because I'm sure I remember at least the modern-y shop windows letting light in when I first got OFB. Maybe a patch broke them?

It's not my graphics card. I'm on a GeForce 6600, all settings are on high except for anti-aliasing (because it's ugly) and the game runs like a dream ^^;

[jrd]

Apparently, by design. It may be related to the window shopping passerbys do on comm lots using these windows.

[travellersside]

I've had a variant of that.
I had a sim move onto a large patch of land. I measured up a few things and made a small shack for him and his family to move into, occupying the space the the garage would eventually go. Then, as time went on, I built a house on the rest of the lot.
What was odd was that in the little ground level shack, all the lights worked fine, and the windows let light in too. However, the rest of the house, up on a raised foundation (if that's relevant) had no light at all. Even with every scrap of wall filled with windows and lights covering the ceiling, there was no illumination. The best I got was a pathetic glow on the bulbs themselves, but nothing else. Well, almost nothing. Don't ask me why, but empty plates were properly lit.
Eventually I just moved the family out and into a new home.
The problem only occured on that one lot though. No idea why.

[jrd]

Portals.
Light will only travel one portal, and by building a foundation after building a ground level object the game doesn't know that the foundation should be treated as ground level, thus it lets light travel from ground to foundation, but not further than that.

Do not build on ground level until after laying down foundations.

[travellersside]

Ah, but I've done this sort of thing several times before with no ill effects. Still, I'll just put down a piece of foundation first from now on.

[jrd]

RLS is weird that way.

The 2.2+ beta from Peasantry (native shaders) works better than 2.1/2.2 from CEP by the way.

[Zii]

Since last post I have..

1. Deleted some custom windows & doors I never use
2. Turned pixel shading back on in userstartup.cheat (the lighting mod disabled it, right? I removed the thing, got sick of the darkness)
3. Started a new hood.

My OFB windows now let light in. .__. My pools are also now very shiny xD So it was one of those that fixed it...

[MellissaSue]

I'm having this problem too and I did all of the above except this:

Turned pixel shading back on in userstartup.cheat (the lighting mod disabled it, right? I removed the thing, got sick of the darkness)

I'm not entirely sure what that entails. I'm hoping someone can elaborate.

[Zii]

Go to My Documents/EA Games/The Sims 2/Config, and open userstartup.cheat with Notepad. You're looking for something like 'boolprop UseShaders false'. Put a # in front of that line so the game ignores it.

Of course, if you're using the lighting mod (with Gunmod's pixel shaders) then it's probably a good idea not to change that unless you're taking that mod out...

[jrd]

Or are using a native shaders version (1.0 or the 2.2 beta from MATY).

[MellissaSue]

So here's the steps I've taken (some rec'd at MTS2)

1. I took out the entire EA games folder from My Documents so the game could generate a new one.
2. I uninstalled and then reinstalled Open For Business.
3. I double checked to make sure I didn't that have the Radiance Lighting mod installed (I never installed it but the lines were in the lighting.txt file so I removed those)
4. I added the # in front of the boolprop UseShaders false in my startup cheat file.

And still, the houses are dark. I would really rather not reinstall the entire game but I'm starting to feel like that's my only option.