AO Map colorspace is sRGB? Too Dark?

Development Quixel Megascans
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1

I’m having to batch process Quixel assets, and I must rely on the .json description file that bridge writes (ATM I cannot read EXR header info).

What I’ve found though, is that the colorSpace value for AO map types is “sRGB”, which of course is not in agreement with the actually EXR colorspace profile “Linear”.

I can patch the data before returning it from my API, but it’s not clear to me if this is a mistake, or if the data is used for some other purpose?

      "minIntensity": 166,
      "name": "AO",
      "colorSpace": "sRGB",
      "maxIntensity": 197,
      "type": "ao",
      "uris": [

You can see from this RV screenshot that the color space is linear.

image

Also… when the map is loaded in Substance, you can observe the lightest portion of the map is roughly a 25% reduction in brightness? Is it really the intention of this surface (concrete_dirty_rm4kulp0) to reduce the ambient term by such a significant amount?

image

2

I’ve audited a number of surface type assets, and many exhibit incorrect AO. The AO visibly looks more like some kind facing angle filter than any kind of displaced plane render or Substance like filter with comparable physical size settings.

Basically, the AO is not very usable across many assets that I’ve come across