Compositing with exposure -7?

Support Lighting and Rendering
1

I set my outdoor scene with sun light 1000 W/m2 and -7 exposure accordingly. Saved as exr and loaded to another blender file for compositing.
Now how can I do compositing and exporting passes to use them in a game if everything is super dim except beauty pass ? Should I set exposure back to zero . Then combined pass gets blown out of proportions . I am totally confused . What’s the right approach? I need to export normal pass with switched channels and be X0,5 +0,5 into 0-1 range . How can get it in normal colors?

2

Try the exposure composite node. I would also use 50-100 for sun value instead of 1000. That matches better up with Nishita Sun&Sky set to strength 1 which for me is working fine as a reference light.

3

Thanks you for the advice but isn’t Filmic and contrast “look” adding something too. I tried to do otherwise by adding tone mapper node to combined pass but it looks nothing like Filmic which I really like and prefer even over ACES . It does truly neutral look with easy control over contrast.

ps. I found if I save normal and position passes as single layer EXRs it works just fine whatever Blender shows . Weirdly when I collect matte masks into single RGBA with Combine colors it exports wrong with bizarre artifacts. Not mentioning that Legacy cryptomatte I prefer doesn’t work with exposure value other than zero.

4

Are you using the Color Management Exposure? This does not get baked into your EXR files, you will get scene referred information and your normal pass and others will be correct.
You should add your exposure compensation and tonemapping in your compositing scene.

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5

Thanks chafouin . I think I got it . I have to do it with color management set to RAW and Zero exposure there, right?
Is there a way to get same Filmic view transform and tone mapping the color management does with Filmic view transform but as a node in compositing pane to apply only on combined pass?

I need to export combined , depth, normal, AO, direct transmit and a few masks from cryptomatte combined in RGBA for a game.

6

If you want to preview the information contained in your EXR without any tonemap and exposure, then yes. But if you use any other color management settings, it doesn’t matter, the EXR does not save it.

You can apply Color Management / Tonemapping by saving to image formats that are not “raw” formats (so anything not EXR).

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7

Thanks chafouin

Looks like it’s working that way . I just need to turn off color management when I pick masks in cryptomatte. Then it exports everything right as exrs even if see nothing but black in compositing pane.

Would be nice to have a button to quickly off and on the color management in compositing pane