House of Fallen Trees

[strangetomato]

Has anyone else ever noticed the intense lighting effects that happen inside at night when you play the House of Fallen Trees downtown? I thought it was just because of the lack of lighting or the placement of the lights, but even after I added a bunch of extra lights (yes, to a huge empty room), I was getting these crazy highlights and shadows. And the sims hair is often lit up, as seen below. Is there something about the way this house is built that causes this, or am I just imagining all of it?

This is Ripp's baby from that last post, the adorable Ron Grunt. A nice blend of both fathers, don't you think?

 
 

Update: I just read the wiki entry on the House of Fallen Trees, and it also mentions the dimly lit quality of the house. How was this effect created, I wonder? Does anyone know? I was thinking that maybe the ceilings were created a little higher, but I remember removing a wall in one of the rooms and I didn't notice anything.

Comments

[hat-plays-sims.livejournal.com]

It's got something to do with the setLotLightingFile cheat, but I have no idea what the baseline is or how to really use the cheat.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Ah, that's interesting. The wiki mentioned that the lights seems to dim themselves after being placed and that the effect travels with the lot it you move it, so this seems make sense. It's really a great effect on that lot. It makes it so much creepier.

I'd be interested to see that cheat used on another lot, perhaps to make it brighter, just to see how that works. Now that I think about it, there are probably some other Nightlife community lots that use it. The Crypt O'Night Club, perhaps?

[simgarooop.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... I was not aware of this lighting feature, but it is very neat! I love little details like that. I also wonder if other lots have this trait or not.

I mostly want to comment on Ron Grunt. He's such a cutie pie and that hair suits him very well :)

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Isn't it great that we're still discovering new things about this game all these years later? I love all these hidden details.

I suspect that some other downtown community lots must use this feature, making the nightclubs darker and the shopping malls brighter. I'll have to investigate further. I'd also like to try using this cheat myself to see how far you can push it.

That hair really does seem to suit his face, doesn't it? And of course any son of Ripp's would look right in longer hair. ^_^ His face is a lot like Ripp's. I think he has Johnny's eyes, but I'm not completely sure.

(Edited because gace isn't a word, to my knowledge. :P)

[pbanda.livejournal.com]

Woah. I never played the House of Fallen Trees, but there's definitely a nightclub downtown with wonky lighting. I sent my sims there a while back and it was lit just like your pic above. My sims also happened to be wearing custom clothes that didn't display right because of that lighting. It baffled me at the time, but it's very interesting to learn that was intentional. Trouble is, it's not just dark - the lighting is -wrong- with those crazy face shadows and lit up hair, and those custom clothes displaying wrong - which makes it very annoying.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

That's really unusual about the custom clothes not showing up right. What could have caused that, I wonder?

From what I've looking into about it, it seems like the cheat that was used to create this lighting effect changes more than just the overall dimness, and maybe it allows you tochange the properties of the lighting for different objects in different ways. That might explain the unusual effects.

[pbanda.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the issue with the clothes was the lighting. The pants were lit brighter than the top (or vice versa, I don't remember) and they were "untuckables" so it looked especially ridiculous. I guess if the tops and bottoms were handled as different types of objects that might explain it.

[missadiasims.livejournal.com]

I can't say I noticed it when I was making over the house, but I didn't play much when I was building...I'll have to go back and have a look, as that sounds rather nifty.

[rocking-kitty.livejournal.com]

I have noticed with some communtiy lots in downtown have odd lighting. IIRC, LuLu Lounge is one. But this is very interesting indeed

[muslemura.livejournal.com]

Ron is a cutie <3

I've seen the weird lighting effect but never bothered finding out why. Always fun to learn new things :)

[eyexofxnewt.livejournal.com]

I... don't have anything useful to say. However, Ron is incredibly cute and I want to see more of him! Also I'm curious about what's going on, household-wise here.

[hidden-kitten.livejournal.com]

I used the house for the final few gens of my selfsim legacy: the lighting is terrible. http://allsims.livejournal.com/15189.html that's the first post using that lot as home, and you can see the teaser is all sorts of weird. I absolutely regretted moving the family in there.

[wolfieslice.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... you know, I never played that house when I had Sims 2 installed. I got very [understandably] bored with Downtown after awhile, so I didn't really use it for anything besides uber hoods. But that's really interesting, it reminds me of that Radiance lighting system mod from MTS2.

[pbanda.livejournal.com]

Psst. Hey there wolfieslice. I can't reply to your PM because of your privacy settings. But hi, and yes that's me. :)

[wolfieslice.livejournal.com]

:O Oh, I'm sorry! I'm new to LJ, so I had no idea that there were settings for that. >_<" Thanks for clearing that up. And my apologies to strange tomato for spamming your LJ! XD

(YAAAY, I'M FRIENDS WITH FANSEELAMB. :D <3)

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Heheh. No worries.