Changing the console variables is not good. If you’ll use console “exec” to set ShowFlags.Tonemapper to 0 or 1, then it will be either enabled or disabled, and viewport’s checkbox under “Show” button (Postprocessing / Tonemapper) won’t work unless you’ll set it back to value 2 (default state). Also, fully disabling tonemapper will stop bloom etc effects working. Another case is if you’ll try the game in PIE, and want to restore console variable back to value 2 when PIE session ends - you can’t catch any event of shutting down a game in Blueprint, no events will be generated. In other words, changing console variable to 0 or 1 during PIE will break tonemapper checkbox functionality.
I came another way to solve bad (or “unwanted”) picture contrast when tonemapper is enabled. I tried to tune tonemapper to get picture as much closer to disabled tonemapper as possible. I think I’ve found a way of setting tonemapper to keep it working, but still with having picture which is closer to disabled tonemapper appearance. Here are my results.
Original picture, with default tonemapper:
Then with tonemapper disabled:
And finally, adjusted tonemapper:
You may see that default tonemapper make everything grey-ish - clouds, reflections. Bright areas are darker, and dark areas are almost black. Adjusted tonemapper makes picture much closer to no-tonemapper appearance, and still have bloom etc working (look at sun). To adjust tonemapper settings, select PostProcessVolume in your scene, reset all settings to default values, and change the following ones:
ColorGrading
- Contrast = 1.57
- Gamma = 0.96
Tonemapper
- Toe = 0.0
- Shoulder = 1.0
Lens / Auto Exposure
- MinBrightness = 0.4
- MaxBrightness = 0.8
Pictures with settings:
I hope this will help to someone.