Why is my sprite color darkening in game?

Development Asset Creation
, , , , , ,
1

I am using the Paper2D preset.

The sprites in my game are visibly darkened when in-game versus in the editor. They are using the DefaultSpriteMaterial already in Unreal Engine. I have every Post Process setting switched off in my Pawn’s camera, but haven’t messed around with the Project Settings much.

In-editor (correct color):

294703-e2c903b767aa358e5e730930912bef28.png

In-game (darkened):

294704-3c842c79777ff6434826aa5a765ea257.png

How can I remove this darkening so that the color is exactly the color of its source texture when in-game?

Thanks.

2

I figured out some sort of solution;

294754-05288e24ebd5d2a77986f8e2a958e3be.png

I added this to the BeginPlay event and the colors are correct now. I do not know if this has any drawbacks, however.

3

Posting this for other people trying to fix this issue using a better approach, as setting the viewmode to unlit is not really an option for shipping builds.

In your camera’s post process section:

  1. Set Lens > Exposure > Min EV100 to 1.0.
  2. Set Lens > Exposure > Max EV100 to 1.0.
  3. Set Color Grading > Misc > Expand Gamut to 0.0.
  4. Set Color Grading > Misc > Tone Curve Amount to 0.0.
  5. Set Color Grading > Misc > Scene Color Tint to H = 0, S = 0, V = 0.75.

1 and 2 disable auto-exposure, also setting a fixed brightness.
3 and 4 disable tone-mapping.
5 decreases the saturation.

After inspecting color values, it was the closest I could get to the source texture.

Also, do not forget to apply Paper2D settings to your textures (right click > Sprite Actions > Apply Paper2D Texture Settings), and set the material to one of the “unlit” options (eg: MaskedUnlitSpriteMaterial).