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Colors are washed out (upgrade?). Can't fix it

Discussion in 'General Graphics' started by slider115, Apr 13, 2021.

  1. slider115

    slider115

    Joined:
    Sep 23, 2019
    Posts:
    5
    Hi All,

    I have tried everything I can think of to solve this and have not been able to fix it. I have googled, searched and compared settings and could not overcome the issue. Any suggestions provided would be GREATLY appreciated.

    I am developing a 3D representation of a construction project (specifically a dam). The application has been under development for about a year and we have been pleased with the graphics. Yesterday morning we upgraded to 2020.3.3 LTS. After that the colors became washed out/devoid of color. I have attached an image showing how things used to look on top and how things look now on the bottom. The bottom is much better than how it looked before I changed the Rendering of the Color Space setting to Linear and the decreased the light intensity from 1.5 to 1.0.

    The top image is from an earlier version of the application that I still have kicking around. I compared all the settings in
    Edit > Project Settings > Player,
    Edit > Project Settings > Quality,
    Window > Rendering > Lighting​
    and could not find any differences.

    Is there a setting I can change or something I can do to get back to how the scene used to look for colors?

    upload_2021-4-13_14-54-13.png
     
  2. slider115

    slider115

    Joined:
    Sep 23, 2019
    Posts:
    5
    Sorry, I did not prefix my title with 'Help Wanted'. I am completely a noob here.

    I seriously appreciate any advice anyone can offer.
     
  3. lilacsky824

    lilacsky824

    Joined:
    May 19, 2018
    Posts:
    171
    Need more information.
    Do you use built in render pipeline?
    Looks like below screenshot has ambient light.
     
  4. GoGoGadget

    GoGoGadget

    Joined:
    Sep 23, 2013
    Posts:
    864
    Agree with lilacsky, in the bottom it looks like your shaders are actually managing to get a sample of the skybox.

    I would try tweak the skybox (maybe even try remove it, as the first screenshot looks like there's 0 ambient reflections at all).
     
    arkano22 and helgrind21 like this.
  5. slider115

    slider115

    Joined:
    Sep 23, 2019
    Posts:
    5
    I am very appreciative for your replies.

    lilacsky: I am using the built in render pipeline. Ambient light is not the only light source, there is a directional light in the scene.

    GoGoGadget: I turned off the skybox and went to environment lighting by color. Environment Reflections > Source are set to 'Custom'. Things are better, but it is still not back to the way it was.

    Are there any good tutorials/videos that you could recommend for lighting, reflection, etc? I would like to make the scene more vivid.
     
    helgrind21 likes this.
  6. UnityLighting

    UnityLighting

    Joined:
    Mar 31, 2015
    Posts:
    3,866
  7. gene_miller

    gene_miller

    Joined:
    Aug 23, 2019
    Posts:
    10
    SIMILAR ISSUE.
    Some of my colors get washed out when I upgrade from 2019.2.12 to a later version.
    However, when I downgrade back to 2019.2.12 the original saturated colors are restored!?!

    (See https://forum.unity.com/threads/unexplained-color-shift-after-upgrading-version.1122952 for details.)

    Interestingly, the same color shift occurs when I force Unity to rebuild the asset database while still in 2019.2.12. E.g. if I move Library/metadata and Library/assetDatabase3 to a temporary folder.
    Also note: the original saturated colors are restored when I move the original metadata folder and assetDatabase3 back into Library.

    Note that this change is most noticeable for some of my older TiltBrush FBX export objects. I verified that there are no changes in the lighting settings, quality settings, light properties, TiltBrush material properties, TiltBrush shaders, etc.

    My hunch is that sometime in the history of the project some settings for the more saturated colors got saved in the asset database, but rebuilding the database from scratch loses these colors.

    I would appreciate any insights into troubleshooting this problem!
     
    solkyoshiro likes this.
  8. BlinksTale

    BlinksTale

    Joined:
    Dec 15, 2013
    Posts:
    13
    I was able to fix this by removing the Flare component that Unity had added to my camera, and by setting the Camera Clear to Solid Color (and setting that to pure black). I'm not sure which of those did it (and I'm posting now since I'll forget to check on this later) but hopefully that helps someone else! It definitely was tied to upgrading 2018->2019 for me.
     
  9. solkyoshiro

    solkyoshiro

    Joined:
    Aug 25, 2021
    Posts:
    27
    I just had the same thing happen to me after rebuildingu library in 2021.2.12
     
  10. helgrind21

    helgrind21

    Joined:
    Sep 13, 2018
    Posts:
    24
    I encountered the same issue when updating my editor version from 2019.4.13f1 to 2021.3.23f1 and other LTS versions within the 2019.4.XX range. However, I was able to resolve my washed-out colors problem that only affected my 3D objects.

    As fellow users @slider115 and @GoGoGadget have mentioned, the solution involved changing the Environment Reflections > Source setting from Skybox to Custom. Alternatively, if you prefer to keep the Skybox as the Environment Reflections source, you can achieve the same results by changing the Environment Lighting > Source from Color to Gradient and adjusting the Sky color intensity.

    For those who are new to these settings, you can access the Lighting settings by clicking on Window > Rendering > Lighting. Once the Lighting window opens, click on the Environment tab.

    I hope this information is helpful to others who may encounter similar issues.
     
    ribarra_unity likes this.
  11. welch89

    welch89

    Joined:
    Mar 7, 2013
    Posts:
    2
    Hello, I had the same issue upgrading from 2019.4.17f1 to 2021.3.18f1.
    At first the issue happened only in the build (WebGL) and not in editor.
    I solved it by changing the Intensity Multiplier from 1 to 0 for both Environment Lighting and Environment Reflections under the Lighting settings.
    I also had to adjust the Reatime Shadow Color.

    Now the WebGL build looks exactly like the old one.

    Immagine 2023-06-21 134126.png
     

    Attached Files:

  12. YasmineH

    YasmineH

    Joined:
    Nov 12, 2017
    Posts:
    1
    Hello,

    I had this same problem with UI menus after update from Unity 2022.2.1f to Unity 2022.3.10f. The solution that worked for me was disabling "Vertex Color Always In Gamma Color Space" checkbox in the Canvas component.

    Hope this helps.
    upload_2023-10-31_19-26-42.png