Why does my lighting and colors shift weirdly when I hit play?

hey everyone , I got my scene looking just right in the editor , got the directional light dialed in, adjusted the temperature and intensity, clouds look nice, fog setup is how I like it, and the post process gives it the vibe i want… But then I press play and everything changes , lighting feels off, colors shift, it’s like a whole different look and I dont know why this happens.

here’s a video to show what I mean … You can see how different it gets the second I enter play mode … So, anyone knows why this happens or how I can keep it consistent between the editor and play mode?

thanks a lot

Looks like Auto Exposure gets kicked in when playing.

You probably have a custom exposure set in the Editor Viewport instead of using Game Settings like the screenshot below.


UE5.6


Instead you can adjust it using a Post Process Volume


Enable Infinite Extent to affect the whole scene

In the Details Panel of the Post Process Volume, Under Lens → Exposure, you can either set both Min EV100 and Max EV100 to the same value (like 0 for example) to turn off Auto Exposure. Or you can set the Metering Mode to Manual (You can also turn it off for the whole project in the Project Settings → Engine → Rendering → Default Settings → Auto Exposure).

You can then use the Exposure Compensation Slider to adjust the Exposure.