Why are my lights so dark during the day?

Have you tested for an outdated/conflicting mod, perhaps?

"luthienrising;c-16873564" wrote:
Have you tested for an outdated/conflicting mod, perhaps?

i don't even know how i would do that

but i have no mods that affect lighting

i have very few actual mods, all of which were updated before i started playing

i also notice this doesn't happen in certain rooms

it happens mostly where there is more windows...

@Castiel What do you have your lighting set to under Game Options->Graphics? That can have a pretty big impact on the quality of lighting as well, I believe (never played on anything below Very High myself, but I've seen it said here in the forums).

My experience is the opposite of yours, rooms with windows are quite bright during the day, even without lights on. Unless it's dreadful weather outside. I always wonder how my sims stay asleep when the sun starts coming up, with the darned curtains that cannot be closed.

Just noticed your edit with screenshots...that light is doing absolutely nothing in the first screenshot. That's not normal for the game at all. Regarding mods, they can often effect things you would not expect them to. You should test to see if your lighting is normal with mods and cc completely disabled (turn them off in options). If it is, start using the 50/50 method to figure out what is causing your problem.

If everything is still a problem with mods and cc switched off, try a game repair.

Is the game confusing the room as an outdoor room, and giving it "outdoor lighting"?

Rooms get different lighting depending on whether they're completely walled/roofed (indoors) or are open to the outside, even if it's just a single opening in the wall (outdoor).

Though the first screenshot does look very strange, even if it were considered outdoor lighting.

@Iyasenu
@Stormkeep


turns out i am an idiot, it is indeed treating it as outdoor lighting though i'm not sure why it did nothing during the day

i have some stairs that lead from one floor to an outside rooftop area, so the steps were leading directly outside and opening up the house to the 'outdoors'
it turns out every room connected to those stairs in some way (the bottom floor was too, because there was no 'rooms' to separate it, only stairs) was the one having the lighting problems.
i closed in the outdoor area and the lights once again started working

Just an FYI check the ceilings. If their blue it will be darker anyway regardless of lighting. This is an issue we'll probably see fixed soon. It started with the Get Famous Patch.

Maybe this is a stupid question but is it because there are no windows in the kitchen?

Maybe change the colors?