Hi! First time poster so apologies if this is messy or whatever, but I need help with a world that someone else has previously made...

So I downloaded Cink Sims' world called Alpine Meadows and I loved everything about it apart from the buildings. So I was going to give the world a complete makeover but I began noticing that the world was very dark at night... I mean PITCH BLACK. I looked to other forums for help in the chance I could fix it myself but I genuinely don't have the skills to mod this world at all I have attached screenshots to show you just how dark the world gets at night (I know the photos seem unrelated but they're the only screenshots I have from that world) I have been told that it could be dark because of the lack of streetlights but I have no idea how to fix it!

So what I ask is to either guide me to some resources that may help me, or if its possible I would be forever thankful if someone took their time to fix the lighting in this world! Thanks for reading and good luck! <3

TL;DR: I downloaded a world made by someone else and it is pitch black at night. Help? (see screenshots)

Is it this world?
https://cinksims.blogspot.com/2013/...ne-meadows.html
How do you want this world? It looks like it has custom lighting to make it appear turquoise, so do you want the turquoise without the black, or do you just want the world to use the default lighting (or your lighting mods)?

Yes that's the one! (I would have linked it but didn't fully know if it was allowed!)
I think it would be nice to keep the turquoise but remove the black so nighttime isn't impossible to navigate, or perhaps just reverting it to default lighting is safer?

Also as I have began building in this world is it still possible to fix the lighting and keep everything in that save file? Thanks again! :D

Yes, it's possible but getting the colours you want is tricky and time consuming! I had a thread about it here:
https://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=459198

In the world file there are ten ini files which look like this:

These files contain numbers that determine all sorts of things about the five possible sky types. Star intensity, manmade light intensity, probability weight (probability of that weather type appearing), day time bloom (how much the world 'glows' in the sun), cloud direction and speed and fog parameters for each of the five sky types. There are also global details of sun/moon size, sunrise time, how often a new sky type is chosen and if there is heat shimmer. One is for the flythrough that the camera follows when you enter the world; another for the sea direction and wave parameters. Lots of information!
You might want to try extracting those files from the world file using S3PE and increasing the figures for man made light intensity in the five sky types first, but I'm not sure this will make any difference to your problem as they already seem to be set at the same levels as some of the EA worlds.

There are also five DDS image files- these look like stripy images with bars of different colours, they govern the sky colours.

Extracting those files using S3PE and then opening them in GIMP I can see this for example:

There you can see the turquoise colours of the sky, and also there are some patches of reds and oranges- those are the sunrise and sunset colours. Each strip of colour is a gradient that starts at midnight and ends at midnight, so the night time colours are before and after the orangy bits. The parts in the middle are daytime colours. The strips are different aspects of the sky and sea- one is sky colour, one outdoor shadow colour, one indoor shadow colour, one water colour... those we have identified are labelled in this image. So what you'd have to do is to change the contrast/ brightness- or even the colours- of the areas of the colour ramps that you want to change- again there are five for the different sky types- and then import them back into the world and test.

Things you should know-
-You need software that can handle DDS files
-You need to use S3PE -If you have already edited the world in Create-A-World, then the DDS files will most likely have been discarded, as CAW only keeps them if they are labelled specifically and put in a special folder when you export the world. So you just need to import them manually to the exported world file from a fresh copy of the world.

If all this seems a bit much then you have alternatives-
-Delete the files altogether from the world and use the default lighting
-Delete the files and use a custom lighting mod
-Import some ready made files from a different world (there are a number shared throughout that main thread, and in the CAW Resources forum, or you could export some from a world you like and use those).

I hope this helps a bit, I hope it's not too complicated! This is why most people just use a lighting mod. I spent around six months fiddling with the sea and sky parameters in my world, it's one of those things where you could tweak things forever.

Wow, thank you so much for that information! I think I understand it well enough and I'll try fiddle with it and see what works. I'm glad that if anything I could just delete the file and go back to default lighting haha. I'm always surprised to see how tricky it is to mod certain parts of the game, the people who know what they are doing are extremely impressive! Thanks again and if I come across any problems I'll be sure to come back here

Actually can you tell me how to delete the img files from the world? I found them through S3PE but I can't seem to find the option to delete the files...

Yes, just click on the resource to select it and right click>Deleted. It will then appear with a strikethrough; file>Save and it will be permanent.

I seemed to have an outdated version when I tried to delete the files, but I redownloaded it and everything worked fine! Just tested the world at night too and its much better! Thank you so so sooo much and I'm so excited to continue building this town up for myself! I'll be sure to post it up here once I think it's done
Thank you thank you thank you!!!

Oh good, glad you got it working!
I hope you will post some pictures when you play, good place is here:
https://modthesims.info/f/689/