More Awesome Than You!

New CEP  at MTS2 (http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=92541) includes Gunmod's radiance lighting mod if you want it too, both the older and newer beta versions.

C

eta:  fixed weird link thingy.

Hm...you'd better fine-tune the link cwieberdink. This is what it links to: http://"http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=92541&c=1"  ;)

But I dont want the lighting feature. Have you seen peoples pics that have the lighting mod *coughBrynnecough*

pfft.

My lighting is just fine. Nyah.

(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y62/Brynne14/CuppaJoe/brightlights.jpg)

Actually, I don't use that mod, anymore, and haven't in months.  :P

Yep, that looks normal to me.  ::)
Silly Brynne.

The good thing is, that you can choose whether or not the lighting mod is installed, nectere. Also, I don't really think the update is really needed unless you have the Glamour pack.

It's specifically designed to be optional.  The installer even gives you a means to restore the lighting to "maxis default" (which would normally be a rather scary proposal) -or so the readme-posts say anyway.  I haven't snagged it as yet myself.

Also, am I correct in my understanding that essentially, all the radiance light system is doing is basically changing the way light emitters are handled in the game?

The post text is pretty vague, and all I really got from the screen shots was "this is not a 3d render!!oneone!"

I tried to read the manual, but frankly, I've become very spoiled by MATY's RTFM's.  Dry text without any mention of halitosis that goes on for pages and pages without just simply explainging the thing is really hard for me to read now.  :P

-Kitt

Yea, that's pretty much it -- it makes the lighting more 'realistic' and adds two twilight periods to the day as well. So folks like it, others think it's too dark.  The nice thing about the way Numenor has included it in CEP is, as you mentioned, it can be added to your game, and if you don't like it it can be reversed very easily.  I tested it, and it does removed the radience mod as promised.

That's good. I was looking at this last night and wondered whether to bother but maybe now some brave soul *hands jsalemi a twinkly star and chocolate* has I'll nab it. I'm still making my mind up about the radiance mod, though. I do like the twilight effect, but I also think it can be too dark. Is there a way of modding this, or maybe I should keep my gob shut and go ask at MTS2?

Keep in mind Numenor's installer overwrites your userstartup.cheat file and disables all bumpmapping.

For a better RLS, use the one here in Peasantry, with the native shaders.

My biggest gripe with that mod was performance hit. Strange, as people with inferior machines reported that it worked just fine for them. Maybe I'm searching for excuses to ditch my trusty old Northwood...?

How do you mean, "performance hit"? I have encountered some strange things since installing this and that bloody toddler mirror *remembers to go and uninstall said mirror* e.g. my screen judders and jumps. Didn't happen previously at all.

Nothing that extreme, no (I have said mirror as well btw, but I've never used it), just a drop in the fps rate. You know, the game started to chug. Not to the point of becoming unplayable, but still slower than without it.

Cheers, mate. I'll go and check this out again.

You know, the more I think of it, the more I'm convinced that the first time I checked this mod out I had my old Radeon 9200 card installed. I've been running with a Radeon 9600 Pro for quite some time now, and though there was a substantial improvement (all settings except shadows maxed out, Smooth Edges at 2/3) I still feel the game chugs along when many sims are around. Dunno though, I might give it another go too.

heh Brynne - I still love that pic lol


*and still dislike the mod :P

That's only if you choose the 2.2 version of the Radiance Mod.  The 2.1 version doesn't change the file or disable bumpmapping.

Well, you'll be happy to know that I, too, got tired of the dark pics (although it does look great in videos), so I haven't had the lighting mod installed for a few months, now.

And, nyah.  ;)

I was positively surprised at Numenor when I uninstalled the Radiance system and my old userStartup.cheat was restored.  I didn't have to do anything.
That was a great relief, as I've made mine from scratch and I can't play without my shortcuts.  It would have taken me a lot of work if I had to re-write it.

Numenor is one of those 'at least AS awesome as you' sort of folk.  I mean, he's can't be quite MATY obviously, else he'd have a section here, but he's one of the people who's stuff I trust on his name alone.  It's very rarely borked, and if it is, he'll fix the damn thing instead of giving you a bunch of lip about it.

-Kitt

Can someone who has tried both versions tell me the main difference between Gunmod 2.1 and 2.2? (Besides bumpmapping being disabled). I've been using 2.1 but am wary to go to 2.2 for that reason, plus I don't quite understand the differences.

It's handy to have the new CEP installer around because I like to go back and forth between Maxis lighting and Gunmod's, but it was kind of a pain to do so. The installer makes it easy.

I'm with Brynne. I installed the lighting mod yesterday to see what it was like, and although it was lovely, especially at sunset, the light level is just too low for taking decent pictures. If I played with it in, I'd be pausing the game to put a lamp next to my sim every time I wanted to take a picture. I wish someone could revise it and turn the light level up a bit.

There's a more up-to-date version here in the Peasantry forum that's better at some of the lighting, especially for things that have been added in E/SPs since the last real Gunmod version (2.1) came out.

Except that one comes with the painful install/uninstall, right?

c

Yea, it is a manual process, though I wouldn't call it 'painful'. :)

I caved in and gave it another go, using the mod found here at the Peasantry section. Still too dark for my liking, though the slowdown was much less noticeable than before (i.e. Gunmod's v.2.2 on my old Radeon 9200 graphics card).