Staff notice: Please note that this thread is unsupported, and although it contains some valid information is now slightly outdated. Current research into Sea/ Sky/ Weather parameters is being conducted in this thread. Please post any questions there.

What you need: S3PE and notepad. That's it! Although you also need a bit of time and competence. This is a somewhat advanced tutorial and I will not hold your hand. If you try and have issues, tell me, though. This is currently considered 100% functioning. It is also REVERSIBLE!

In ProgramFiles/ElectronicArts/TheSims3/Gamedata/Shared/Nonpackaged/Ini, there are various files which manage the color of the sea.

Each one is really simple to edit: It simply lists the values (Red, Green, and Blue) for that type of sky(clear, cloudy, etc) at specific times of day. While it is a complicated process to do this PROPERLY(By default, each sky type and each time of day has different numbers, changing the water color for different times of day), you can very easily pick a single color you quite like (My initial test was Red 0, Green 0, Blue 20) and apply it to all of them. Ideally, you'd tweak the water much more than that, but for personal use it isn't too bad.

If you're comfortable with that, you can change water color while in-game. Simply load the game in windowed mode and open one of these ini files. Change the values for the type of sky your neighborhood is currently experiencing and the time of day, and your changes *should* be reflected in-game. When you're happy with the color, copy the values and put them somewhere, or write them down, and CLOSE THE FILE WITHOUT SAVING. ALTERNATIVELY, you can use a site like this:

http://web.njit.edu/~kevin/rgb.txt.html

And copy the numbers for the color you think you'd like. I don't know what the number limit is when choosing colors. Usually it is 255 for each color, but the game has no colors anywhere near that in any of the files. So I wouldn't go above 30 for now, but feel free to play around with it and see what happens if you use higher numbers. If your chosen color is 255, 100, 200, then make it 26, 10, 20, instead. Just to be safe.

1. Copy each and every ini ending in SEA. Sky_ClearSea, Sky_CustomSea, Sky_OvercastSea, Sky_PartlyCloudySea, and Sky_StormySea. Paste them into a new folder.



2. Open your copied file for Sky_ClearSea. Note that there are various sections with R, G, and B, followed by a number. These are the color values for the water, for that type of sky, at that time of day. It's a tough process to keep these colors changing consistently, so for testing purposes, I simply made each and every one of these the same values(such as 0, 0, 20, instead of trying to do variations.)



3. Change these values for each and every file. Doing this PROPERLY would involve, like I said, making specific changes for each time of day. But simply to test, I did not bother.

Now you're going to learn how to add these custom water colors to ONE and ONLY one world!

1. Open the world file in S3PE (Documents/ElectronicArts/TheSims3/InstalledWorlds, if already installed). BE SURE TO MAKE A BACKUP.
2. Resource -> Import from File.
3. You will import each custom ini one by one. After importing one ini, skip to step 4.

Use the following for the instance box, depending on which ini you are loading(you will load each one, one by one):
Sky_ClearSea: 0xDAA2DD455D055F37
Sky_CustomSea: 0x577758BD99619673
Sky_OvercastSea: 0x14BCC166ED42C621
Sky_PartlyCloudSea: 0x3119E691AE6018C1
Sky_StormySea: 0x03091256E1A31960

If you used any other INI files, you need to press "Tools-FNV HASH" and type in the EXACT name of that ini file(such as Sky_Common). Copy the number next to FNV64 and use that for the instance when importing that INI.

After putting in the instance, click ok.

4. Right-click the new instance(it will already be highlighted after you click ok) and choose "details". Now put 0x1F886EAD in the type box, and click ok. Now go back to step 3 and repeat for the next ini, doing steps 3-4 until you have all the ini files imported.

5. Choose file->save. Do not save as a new name. Load the world(saved games included!) and marvel at its custom water colors! These colors will not appear in any of your worlds except the one you edited!

You can also change the sun diameter, moon diameter, shadows, sky color, anything by using the Sky_Common file. That is applied in exactly the same way. This has been confirmed and tested and works flawlessly, even if the world is already installed and in-use. :D

If you wish to remove your custom settings, open the world again and arrange the information by "Type". THen find type 0x1F886EAD and delete all the files with that type. You can also copy these files and paste them into other worlds, should you want to just add the effects to another.

Have fun. :D

Default water:


0, 0, 20 water:


Note: This does change the color of water on lots. All water is dictated by these ini files, so no, you can't have a lava world with little water ponds(not that that would make sense). Pools are still blue though, as they are actually clear and their color is dictated by the walls/floors.

Thanks to Ascarrott for posting this which is the basics of how this works, and HP and Inge for helping push the idea along :D


Mod edit: There is more discussion and information regarding this here:
http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=427478

Is there a way to do this so only a custom world will be effected by the changes?

This is for a world at a time.

doh!

wow, this rocks...

very clever!!

I found a INI with fog settings in the Egypt world, and brought it into my custom world. It was IID 0x560C0FD7012DA7F3 and the top line starts [MiscParams]

No matter what I set the fog to, it doesn't seem to affect the world. Any ideas?

Egypt doesnt have ANY fog, I think. There may be a chance that said ini is there to prevent fog, not alter it.

Well it has settings in it that *say* they're meant to be to control fog. The settings for Egypt were such I can believe it would make very little fog, but I edited mine in line with what I thought would make it quite thick from a very close distance.

Does it say anything about it not updating "per frame" or something? I was trying to change water murkiness but it wouldnt change AT ALL, and it mentioned something about how it isn't updated "per frame" which I can only imagine means it doesnt update immediately, but it didnt even after a day...

I came looking for information about creating Terrains for CAW before I tried to customize my world and I found this thread and the possibilities it presents made me more giddy than it probably should...

I have a few questions and unfortunately (or fortunately for my boss) I am no where near my Sims game at the moment. So...

#1 - can this be done on worlds while they are still in CAW or can it only be done to an exported/installed world?

#2 - Any further update/discussion on the Fog INI?

I plan to dive into this over the weekend, try out the tutorial and if all goes well, see what I can find what answers I can find on my own -- but I figured it couldn't hurt to see if folks wiser and more experienced with this than I am had any thoughts or additional information to share...

It can ONLY be done to an installed world, as far as I know. I think the guy making Fairview did it while still in CAW and had no issues but I really REALLY really REALLY wouldnt recommend it as it just seems unsafe.

And I havent figured out the fog ini at all. It doesnt seem to change anything, just like the water murkiness.

Hmm. I'd really like to try changing the colour of the water in the world I'm building. Does anyone know how I could do that?

*Cough* You're in the right place........

I'm sorry, I just didn't want to start a new thread and....



I just thought that maybe someone knows how to do it.... No need to be rude.

HumbleRedblue, did you read the tutorial in the first post?

Pieces of it. But it says how to do it on an already installed world. I just wanted to know how to do it on a world that's not installed. I know it says here it's impossible but then it says that some guy had done it.

I just want to know if I have to use the same technique that's in this post or if I have to find it elsewhere.

-.-

Very good tutorial but it doesn't work for me when I change the values. It seems complicated and I've not the patience lol. I hope a mod to change the sky or sea colors will release one day

Great tutorial!
It works great in my game. I want to make a fantasy world, and wanna have a large blue moon in the sky. I made the moon larger, but is there a way to change the colour of it? :S

This does appear to work in CAW as well, I have worked on my recent world with custom sky and water.

Helena, I don't know of any way to change the moon color yet, but still looking. I know you can change the reflection color of the sun and moon in the sea.ini files...not sure if that is what you are looking for.

You can change the colour and texture of the moon using S3PE but it'll affect all worlds since it'd be a default replacement.

Is it possible to keep the sky as it is but change the water to darker? My sky is great shifting and changing colors I love it but my water is too light of a blue how might I modify that?

Never mind I sort of got it

For those who want to change the colour of the moon and sun they are at the bottom of the sea files, for fog they are at the bottom of the light files, clouds are in the something 1 or 2 files they also have time line of sunlight and other things in there aswell

Does anyone know which file(s) effect the sea color of Bridgeport? o_O I've tried Sky_ClearSea, Sky_CustomSea, Sky_OvercastSea, Sky_PartlyCloudySea, and Sky_StormySea with no luck.

EDIT: I'm doing this wrong! I thought you just had to edit the files in Notepad and save, but you have to use S3PE to apply them to the world... my bad. One question with that, though: S3PE keeps crashing to the desktop for me. Is it not compatible with LN or something?

wolfie - Please report any issues with S3PE at the download site. And yes, it is compatible with LN if you updated it.