Lighting very dark and contrasty in game??

HI! so i’m new to ue4 but not a 3d noob.
anyways I’ve got a level built. it’s just for visuals, no gameplay.

my problem is that whenever I turn on “tonemapper” in post processing everything gets super contrasty, and extra dark.
kind of like the dynamic range becomes capped.

Though I think turning off tonemapper turns off other good features like aa and such, so I probably need it.

But can someone explain to me what’s going on?

Similar test is when I’m looking at the editor lighting looks nice, but when I go into “game view” mode, it goes back to being overly dark and contrasty.

Just turning up the lights brightness does not help because it just brightens it, but doesn’t fix the bad dynamic range. So it stays overly contrasty.

Ok anyone?
I’ve figured out that it’s basically just post processing effects.
so I can control them using a post process volume.
BUT before I go memorizing all the settings maybe someone can give me a boost, and guess maybe which onces are giving me the overly contrasty look?
I assume it’s going from HDR to LDR ?

There’s a setting called Black Clip (in the tonemapper), increasing this in the slightest will result in heavy darkening/constrasting of your scene. Make sure you didn’t play with this setting, give it a value of 0.

nope, black clip is off.
ALSO i’m noticing my reflections are flattened as well. they’re almost unnoticeable… idk wtf i did…

toe and indirect lighting intensity helps a BUNCH though.

Have you added a sky light to your scene?

no. I believe there was one in there by default but I deleted it.
it’s an interior with no windows.

OK I FIGURED IT OUT!
I had messed with the project settings/rendering settings
I must have fiddled with the lighting/reflection settings in there and fudged things up.
I flipped them back and it went back to normal.

on the bright side (no pun intended) I learned all about post process volume, and reflection spheres/planes, and rendering because of that little mistake :slight_smile: