5/29/18 ATTENTION: Please report any new issues not already listed on this thread in a new, individual post. We are now tracking all issues here and will no longer be using this compilation thread. Thank you!
I would like to keep a compiled list of known lighting glitches in The Sims 4. We originally began discussing the majority of them on pgs. 27-29 of the Build Mode Feedback thread in the forums, so there are many images available there.
1. Interior lighting is too dim.
There have been a good many complaints about the need for an inordinate amount of light fixtures in order to brighten up indoor spaces. The various light types (floor lamps vs. ceiling lamps, etc.) definitely create different effects, and within each category, there are individually varying levels of brightness. Here are examples of how things stand presently:
Floor lamp
Table lamp
Wall lamp
Ceiling lamp
2. Interior light affects outdoor areas much too brightly at night.
3. Interior light spills over too brightly and with a stronger hue into adjacent room via arch, window, door, etc. (brighter than in original room)
By contrast, if you knock out the wall, the light has a much more natural spill pattern (both for the adjacent interior room as well as the outdoor space):
4. Interior light creates long shadow beneath exterior door, depending upon door facing. Now you see it:
Now you don't:
This glitch also happens in the interior and happens with archways as well as doors:
5. Exterior lighting - hues are too strong - either correct or give us a neutral option in build mode.
Here is the color of the wall style Plaster Makes Perfect when viewed inside of a room that has been lit with lights set to neutral color:
Same wall style in the morning in Willow Creek and then in the afternoon:
Same wall style in the morning and afternoon in Oasis Springs:
And in Windenburg:
6. Exterior lighting - The bottom of curved sections are too bright when lights are positioned above them.
7. Pools built on lowest basement level display as if outside light is reaching them, even when they are not exposed
8. Interior lighting in open stories does not flow down from upper levels to lower levels when a roof or roofs covers the area, even though there is a ceiling/flooring present between the roof(s) and structure. Using a partial roof (that doesn't fully cover the room) or no roof prevents the problem.
With partial roof:
With full roof:
9. Light shines in a line through bottom of a half wall placed above (and joining to) wall below and shows a weird cutoff between them that you wouldn't normally expect to see:
10. Certain lights cause odd blocky shadows on exterior walls at night. Rotating the lamp has no effect on the shadow:
Lights with the glitch include: Georgina Outdoor Lampost with Double Hanging Planter, Dual Lit Ole Fashioned Lamppost with Planter, Great Attractors Street Lamps, and A Modern Illumination.
11. Stairs and some window frames are unnaturally darkened in the interior. Additional lighting can help mitigate the effect on windows but not on stairs.
Exterior lighting:
Interior lighting:
Other objects subject to the darkening effect which cannot be mitigated by lighting are The Living Vase (from GT), Country Flowers (from GT), Decorative Corbel (base game), and Scrollwork Corbel.
12. New after the 6/2/16 patch - Window coverings that are not floor length take on extreme hues when snapped to windows in the interior of a room.
Color the curtain should be:
Color once it has been "snapped to" the window:
There are a few workarounds for this problem: 1) position the curtain on the window such that it doesn't "snap to", i.e. lower it a bit down or raise it above OR 2) change the facing of the window so that it is arrow in, instead of out (may not be practical for windows where the exterior is a very different design than the interior), OR 3) place the curtain on the wall first and then the window.
13. New after the 6/2/16 patch - Lighting is incorrect in basements with stairs up into rooms with foundation height greater than one notch up.
You can reproduce this issue by 1) drawing a room at ground level, 2) drawing a basement room beneath it, 3) raising foundation height to greater than one notch up, 4) adding stairs from the basement up to the room above it. It then looks as if light is streaming into the basement via non-existent windows:
And looks like this from the room above:
Adding lights to the basement does not fix it:
But it will cause a glow around the foundation to show up in the room above it:
The only workaround is to remove or lower the foundation to one click up.
14. New after the 6/2/16 patch - Laptop mode lighting post the 6/2/16 patch looks as if rooms are missing their ceilings.
15. New after the 6/2/16 patch - More problems with basement lighting:
Objects placed outside of rooms in the basement receive full outdoor lighting. It is as if there is no ground covering above the object:
This matters because it also applied to objects placed within rooms in basements but then elevated above ground level. Prior to the 6/2/16 patch, objects placed in this manner would be subject only to room lighting. Now, the part of them that extends above ground is being subjected to what seems like a weird combination of both room and outdoor lighting. This makes it very difficult for the builder to get the color right on an object they want to elevate. For example, in the image below, the object on the left is subject to full outdoor lighting and appears white (it's actual color). The object on the right was elevated from within a basement room and has a greyish hue with more shadows.
Adding more lighting in the room to try to brighten the object further doesn't work. There's no way to get a true color in this situation, and it hampers creativity that was supported pre-patch.
16. New after the 6/2/16 patch - Half wall trim color is incorrect in rooms with windows and/or windowed doors.
This problem is similar in appearance to the curtain problem in that the color tends to take on a blue hue. For example, this is what the white trim looks like when windows are present:
But when the windows and door are removed, it is the correct color (although a bit shadowed)
I tried various windows and doors in various positions. The only way to get the correct color on the half wall trim was to delete them all. I also tried moving the half wall to various positions in the room with no change. I tried rotating the room to see if different orientations might impact the color. They don't, but it is interesting to note that where light from the windows actually falls on the half wall in some orientations, the area of trim that it hits looks to be the correct color. Thus, I don't think it's the light itself necessarily that is causing the blue tint.
17. New after the 6/2/16 patch - Open story flooring and trim is also subject to the blue lighting problem:
18. Lighting colors and intensities are set to default when placing a lot via Manage Worlds. The colors and intensities are maintained if placing the lot via Build Mode.
19. Blackened corners on exterior trim used in an open story arrangement (see
The Glass House by StSciurus):
20. Foundation is also subject to the glowing effect:
21. Protruding wall décor, such as The Living Vase (from GT), Country Flowers (from GT), Decorative Corbel (base game), and Scrollwork Corbel (base game) are overly dim in interior light. Compare indoor lighting:
to outdoor lighting:
We have also found that the same effect occurs with certain plant décor objects (not wall objects):
22. Cabinets are unnaturally darkened under certain conditions (seems to have to do with number of light sources).
We have found that this effect also applies to Wall o' Gym Lockers, Small and Wall o' Gym Lockers, Large:
23. Morse's Window Shades (GTW) appear too dark in certain rooms in 121 Hakim House:
24. Striped shadows appear inside (and outside) of the Landgraab apartments:
25. Some object shadows (those coded to the object vs. natural lighting) are too dark:
26. Excessive Light glowing outside structure with windows on ground around it at night:
27. Gates brightly lit by interior light flowing out but fences remain dark: Gates appear darker than fences in some cases when interior light flows out to the exterior.
28. Several doors with cut-outs are missing the appropriate level of detail in light and shadow cast through them:
29. New in the 3/23/17 patch - turning lights on, turning lights off, or selecting auto lights will revert lighting colors and intensity to default settings. Edit: this glitch also occurs when the electricity is turned off as a result of sims failing to pay the bills. When the electricity is restored, all settings are reverted.
30. Interior lighting that can cast upwards is causing exterior trim, exterior friezes, and columns to be too brightly lit. Arguably, walls can also be too brightly lit. This issue may tie into #'s 2 and 26 already in this index.
31. Windows randomly turn black when loading a save (both the frame and the window itself darken):
32. Some non-electrical lights (such as candles) go dark when electricity is cut off, whereas others don't (see full list
here).
33. Counter backsplash unnaturally darkened for counters placed on a diagonal:
34. Placing the following doors unnaturally darkens the wall upon which they are placed:
- Modern Wood Door Plus Tall Sidelights and Transom
- Two Curves Double Door
- The Action-item
- Tall Curves Double Door