Insimenator.org

Here is another question, for some reasons I had to reinstall my entire Sims stuff. That is not the problem, the problem is; now when I try to create Sims to start over again all of their faces are black, and when I try to add makeup or something it remains black. What did I do wrong? I already tried taking out all the custom makeup and eye color.  It is apparently called a lightning mod but no one will explain to what that is or what it means or how to deal with it.

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Pigsrule, a lighting mod is a customisation of the in-game lighting scheme that you add for a different look or feel to the game.  Some are better than others, but all are prone to causing this error in Nightlife or later EPs.

It will be something you installed.  It is usually in the game's installation folders, not  your user files.  If you try to remember what you might have installed that required you to do a change in:

C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2\TSData\Res\Lights

you may recall where you got the lighting mod.

Usually making the sim go to a mirror and do a "change appearance" will correct the issue; this does not mean it will not return as a problem episodically.

My advice is this : Lighting mods are cool, but prone to this bug, so don't use them.

Also - there were reports of the patch for FFS/OFB corrupting game textures so that the faces, bodies, and certain clothing resulted in this issue.  In this sort of the problem, only re-installing seems to help.

But I have never put anything in that folder

You can use the fix appearance in the InSIMenator to fix this issue as well if the mirror doesn't work.

There is a mod that comes as a self-installing exe that will install the Radiance Lighting Mod by default (from MTS2 iirc.) I use it, I have no trouble with it but I have a decent video card setup.

Thank you very much everyone for your amazing assistance and support.  However, I gave up and just reinstalled the entire game.  BUt your help is greatly appreciated