How to color rooms with lights & invisible lights

[Vincent]

A quick tip I discovered and would like to share:

Most regular lights in Sims 3 have two disadvantages:

1) They give off an ugly, artificial color of light
2) They clutter the screen, often getting in the way of your view of your sims.

Invisible Lights

After a lot of frustration and experimenting, I found out that there are invisible light sources to be found in the catalog, under the 'Debug' category. To access this, you need to press CTRL + C, then type 'Testingcheatsenabled on' and then 'Buydebug on.' A new category will open up with lots of items not normally available to you.

The particular item I am talking about is called 'Ceiling Light 1x1' or something similar. It may be exclusive to World Adventures, I'm not sure, but I do not think so, since EA builders use it in practically every community lot they build. It provides a strong light source, just a couple of them spread over a room are usually enough to light it up perfectly.

Coloring your light sources

The next technique I'm now completely in love with is to give my light sources custom colors. I find the regular, white light that most lights give off both artificial-looking and ugly. Whenever you want a cooler light on something the defaults just won't do. Nor do any of the other presets, for example, selecting 'blue' will make the light 100% blue, which is a total overkill.

It's a good idea to save beforehand in case you don't like the results. Changing light colors cannot be undone by clicking 'undo.'

To give your light a custom color, hold Shift while you left-click it (in live mode) or hold CTRL + Shift, then left-click (in build/buy mode).

This can be done in live as well as in build/buy mode, but if you're using invisible lights like I am, you'll obviously need to do the latter.

A menu pops up. Select 'Change color' then 'Custom color' then 'This light,' 'This room,' or 'All lights,' depending on your preference.

Now you get to fill in a series of three numbers, separated by commas. These are RGB values. This means that you can look up the exact color you want in an RGB table like this: http://www.rapidtables.com/web/color/RGB_Color.htm.

Cool colors

Now for a final treat, here are some of the very beautiful, cool light colors I've discovered through experimentation:

100,150,255 (Subtle cold light)
50,50,255 (Blue without overkill)
0,150,255 (The aquamarine used in some EA lamps)

I'm still trying to find out the exact RGB color of Sunset Valley moonlight. If anybody knows, please let me know. I made a home with open roof once and I've been obsessed with finding that color ever since.

Happy simming!

[saltpastillen]

What great information! I've been using the invisible lights for a while but didn't know that you could change their color as you can the regular lights. Thanks for a great tip!

[Gheez]

That was really interesting. Just been to try it out.  Think I may be doing something wrong:

In Live mode I can change the colour of the visible lights by clicking on them.  In Build/Buy mode, though, I can't get a menu to pop-up.  Shift clicking (left mouse button) on the light makes a duplicate light appear for me to place.  I turned testingcheats on but still couldn't manage it.  (Also tried control/clicking and right clicking but to no avail.)

Any further instructions on how to change the colour of the lights whilst in Build/Buy mode would be most gratefully received.  Thank you.

(I run The Sims 3 from Windows Vista - if that makes any difference?)

[Seabody]

In Live mode I can change the colour of the visible lights by clicking on them.  In Build/Buy mode, though, I can't get a menu to pop-up.  Shift clicking (left mouse button) on the light makes a duplicate light appear for me to place.  I turned testingcheats on but still couldn't manage it.  (Also tried control/clicking and right clicking but to no avail.)

Isn't it Ctrl + Shift + Left Click? Unless I'm misreading you, you're just doing Ctrl + Click or Shift + Click.

[Vincent]

Isn't it Ctrl + Shift + Left Click? Unless I'm misreading you, you're just doing Ctrl + Click or Shift + Click.

You are right, sorry, I forgot to mention you need to press CTRL + Shift while leftclicking in build/buy in my post. I've corrected my original post.

So again, anyone wondering why it doesn't work in build/buy: press and hold CTRL + Shift, then left-click.

[Gheez]

Thanks, Seabody and Vincent.  Off to give this a try. 

I'm hoping that altering the light shades may stop some of the flare I get on white objects and maybe correct some odd colour casts I sometimes get on walls.

Thanks again for the information.

ETA - that worked beautifully.

[PolarBair]

This is good. I stumbled on to this fact while upgrading the park at the end of Waterfall Way in Sunset Valley. I was so frustrated with trying to put so many colored ground based spot lights (I think they're called lime lights in game) with little to no effect and then I found that just one of those invisible round area lights circling the fountain brings so much more color to bear on the fountain than dozens of spot lights.

[AllieMDA]

Thanks for this info! I am perpetually annoyed by dim houses in sims, this seems to be a decent work-around.