This is the exact same scene, first I rendered with Legacy Sequencer and then Movie Render Queue.
Colours are different
Shadows are different
Both are 16bit EXR
4K
Same HDRI
2048 Samples
I’m only using the HDRI Backdrop to light the scene.
The results from Sequencer are 90% what I see in the viewport when I preview path tracing, however the movie render queue produces something totally different. It looks like the Legacy Sequencer is producing the correct/better results.
I’m going to keep using the Legacy Sequencer for now but unfortunately it means I don’t have access the render passes.
You will most likely have to tune your settings in order to get a result similar to the legacy one. They moved away from it because they developed a better technology for the Movie Render Queue. Now, this doesn’t stop you from using the Legacy Sequencer, however in some future version of Unreal Engine it will most likely be removed.
I don’t know the specifics on why they changed, however they most likely implemented or changed the default post process or rendering features with the Movie Render Queue. It would be simple to find changes when you look at the version release log.
I can’t find the exact date, but a while back Unreal Engine changed the entire Tone mapper for Unreal Engine which “messed up” the colors for most projects. There was a bit of complaining, however, it was for the better. More information about that change can be found here: Color Grading and Filmic Tonemapper | Unreal Engine 4.27 Documentation
There are a tonne of tutorials you can watch on how to setup a proper render flow for the Movie Render Queue.
Suddenly the viewport path tracing light is matching the movie render queue. (??)
I have no idea, how or why or what setting must have been different. My only guess is something may have changed when upgrading to 5.1 or I was changing settings I shouldn’t have been.
Regarding the tine mapping, my plan was to do this outside of UE in AF or PS.
Thanks for your response! Now I have no idea how to get back the previous settings…
Also now looks the same in movie render queue. From my understanding we shouldn’t need to do this, we only need to put the HDRI in the HDRI backdrop? Ah well.
