When I turn off Tone mapping there's too much exposure?

Usernamenottaken

I've tried turning off every light in the scene and the area is closed off. There's no dome getting in the way. I've read on here multiple times that you should try and see how no tone mapping looks. Why is my scene blindly bright?

Richard Haseltine

Headlamp? That is on by default if there are no scene lights.

Where are you seeing the advice to turn Tone Mapping off?

RL_Media

You will see the same thing if you do a 32bit render. It appears as all white, until you tone map it. At least within photoshop, no idea about other programs that can use 32bit images.

DrunkMonkeyProductions

The short version, because, almost, everything you'll use in DS is setup using the tone mapping settings.

Outside of turning it off to understand just how dark the default settings are, i wouldn't advise ever turning them off.

If you're insistant on turning it off, you'll need to dial you light settings way, way down.

For an HDRI, that'll be around 0.0005, on the envionment map setting, or about 150 lumens(or lower) on other lights.

Then you'll need to redo all the shader settings to compensate. If you don't you can get some really strange results.

In the attached images, the first is tone mapping of with all other defaults, totally white image.

The second has the envrionment map dialed down to 0.0005, from it's default of 2.

The third removes the hdri(Scene only), and uses a single spot light, set to rectangle(200x50) with 1500 lumens. Notice the bikini is visible, but the character is not, this is the shader settings. IIRC, it's a glossy layer response, correct me if i'm wrong on that one.

The fourth dials the light down to 150 lumens, it's still washed out, but is a bit more usable, but is showing more of the problems that can result with TM off.

The fifth image show all default render settings.

 

If you're trying to get a brighter interior, try adjusting the F/stop to a lower number, 2 or 4, or adjust the lights up(lumens), 25000+(if using default tone mapping settings), change mesh light settings(surfaces tab) from cd/m^2 to kcd/m^2(you'll need to dial them back significantly though).

You can also add additional lights to 'cheat' bringing out details, or use 'ghost lights'(mesh lights with the opacity dialed way down).

You might also consider using IES profiles to get a more 'realistic' look and projection from point lights or mesh lights.