2 questions

Does anyone know why my sims are darker than the things in my house? They are like a permanent shadow.

Second question does anyone have a cheat to raise the relationship bar?

That's odd, perhaps its a lighting glitch. Have you played around with the graphics options to see if that makes a difference?

All of my graphics are set to high or very high. Do you think it would make a difference if I lowered them? Sometimes they arnt dark but only when at the park. I want to see their beautiful faces! Lol

I don't think lowering them will do much, unfortunately. :c I'm not sure, though I've had this glitch in a game before (not Sims though), but it really just fixed itsself. I'm not entirely sure, I'm sorry I couldn't be of much help! All I can think of is it might just be a minor bug that could get patched, but regardless, if you haven't already, try restarting the game and/or your computer. c:

You might just need more windows and lights. When you place the lights, check where the light is falling, and look at different times of day. Sims you're seeing against a lighter background will be darker. Our brains are better at compensating for that in real life than when we're looking at screens, and the devs don't seem to have accounted for that. The light fall-off is pretty natural.

I have like 8 windows in a small room. Still bad. That's the thing that drives me crazy. The fact that it takes so many windows sometimes just to get a little bit of light drives me crazy. It seems like unless I use the biggest windows possible that I just have to live with no light. I'll definitely mess with placing more windows and the lights too. It's stupid how many you need sometimes.

Try ceiling lights.

My sim turned into a shadow too. I reset the game and it got fixed.

But I couldn't see my sim at all, just a shadow. So maybe a different issue.

Just tried ceiling lights and they are still dark!

Try more ceiling lights and light colors.

It might be worth reporting the bug to EA. Not saying it will be of much help, but sometimes if made aware of bugs from enough people they'll release a fix in the next patch...

How do I report it to EA?

I believe, on the website, at http://www.thesims.com/the-sims-4 you can use the Customer Support link at the very bottom of the page under "HELP". You should be able to report it through there. My apologies if I'm wrong.

What graphics card (or integrated graphics) are you using?

Things to try:
First: Check if there are driver updates available for whatever you are using
Second: Try lowering the lighting settings down

The second will only fix the issue if:
A) You are running considerably old hardware that is perhaps incompatible with the shading technology used in TS3 on max settings
B) TS4 just has some odd incompatibility with your GPU at max settings in relation to lighting.

Edit* as others have stated, I would highly suggest sending a report to EA if a driver update doesn't solve your issue.