Dynamic objects look ugly and flat sometimes in our scenes

[AndersMalmgren]

Hey guys. So our game uses baked lighting (VR). At various spots through out the game dynbamic items (Light probe lit items) looks very ugly. Like here

I do not know how to get it better without changing how the light is cast in the scene.

The light probes looks like they are over exposed

If I bring down the intensity from 4.8 to 2 it looks better, but now the light cast to little light. If I increase range to compensate it dramatically changes how the scene is lit.
Here at 1.0 and increased range which changes scene complete

Still looks dull

So any tips or pointers on getting less flat and dull dynamic items in the world?

Same item in other places looks much more interesting

[AndersMalmgren]

Mixed mode directional light

Its also not the item itself, other items look also dull

[AcidArrow]

Are you sure you are plugging the correct maps to the correct slots?

Are you using metalness shaders or specular?

[AndersMalmgren]

Yeah, and the items look fine in our places

It depends on the artist, most common is metalness I would say, but we have some specular setups too

Here is another scene and it looks much better

[AndersMalmgren]

It looks best in realtime light

Here is the material for this specific item, but I doubt it something wrong.

I think its something with lightprobes, reflection probes etc. Combined with baked lighting

[AcidArrow]

I think the lightprobes, for some reason that I’m unsure of, become very bright, so the parts that are not completely metal become unreasonably bright and it makes it look weird.

[AndersMalmgren]

@AcidArrow

I think the lightprobes, for some reason that I’m unsure of, become very bright, so the parts that are not completely metal become unreasonably bright and it makes it look weird.

Yeah thats a theory I have too, just dont know how to fix it

[AcidArrow]

I’m guessing you’re on Gamma, right? Light probes on Gamma have issues in general. If you can switch to linear, try it (although I don’t know how wise it is to switch to linear in a VR project )

The second thought, is that you’re missing specularity, since the reflection probes don’t see the lights and are inaccurate anyway, you don’t get the “proper” metal shine from the light, which could potentially make the non metallic parts look reasonable.

Maybe try having the light in a mixed mode and use the lightprobes only for indirect light? Not sure how big the performance hit would be.

[AndersMalmgren]

No we are on Linear already. Forward path. We basicly only have mixed mode for the sun and some rare places to create effect like the service tunnel above. In VR and forward rendering too many mixed mode or realtime lights is not practical. But even without specular I get good results in low light conditions like dark picture of the Beretta pistol with the shiny metal tank in the background

edit: I will post a video tomorrow walking aroudn the differetn parts

[AndersMalmgren]

I put this little teaser up for our incoming bots, look at the helmet, it looks like crap

Bots patrolling

The camera as the mixed mode directional light in the “back” here so the NPC faces it.

It looks better from the other side, so I think its a problem with light probes.

Bots are coming to town

This is actually a pretty big problem and makes the game looks so, so from many angles