Automatic exposure should be based on the light buffer instead of the image buffer

Automatic exposure control appears to expose based on the final image rather than the intensity of the lighting values. This causes viewing dark materials to cause the exposure to shift. While this is how cameras operate I think it’s valuable for games to be able to use the lighting information instead. This would produce a more stable exposure level which allows objects to appear dark when they are dark and filling the entire view which I think is generally more desirable and accurate.

By way of example if a player is standing on a black asphalt road and looks down the scene will currently adjust the exposure dramatically brighter causing the road to never appear “dark grey” and causing another dramatic exposure shift when the player looks back up.

If this isn’t a bug then would it be reasonable to ask for an option in the globalPP? Perhaps a scalar that controls the weight that the final scene texture affects the exposure control?

Cheers,

ook

Hello ook, Unfortunately automatic exposure based on light buffer is not possible using the current rendering methods. There are a lot of rendering features that are currently in the works, and it may be possible in a future release, but as it stands the image based solution is the only one that is supported. I can hopefully offer a way that you can adjust the exposure manually.

If you look under the auto-exposure settings in the GlobalPostProcessVolume Details panel check the boxes next to Min Brightness and Max Brightness, then set both to the same value.(setting them to the same value will disable the eye adaptation and lock the exposure to whatever value you have set both on. I suggest using .5 and then adjusting up and down from there until you find a value that you like.

If there is anything else that I can help with, or that is not the correct answer just let me know and I will try and find the correct answer for you.

Thanks,