Reply To: When normalizing the HDRI and candle, what is your goal when adjusting the exposure?

Hey @ryanocerous777 ,

3.) Change exposure… <— QUESTION: What are you looking for or tweaking here? Are you trying to get the candle to match what it would look like under an actual sun? Maybe it was just hard to see on my screen, but I saw you adjust the exposure but couldn’t see the candle even a little.

The scene was over exposed with the sun at a setting of 750, (based on a reel world value on an overcast day) So the need to lower the exposure value.

Think of it as if you are taking a photograph outside on an overcast day, the exposure is a setting on your camera, the wrong setting will result in an over (or under) exposure, you cant change the sun’s value to suit your camera but you can change the exposure setting on your camera.

The example of taking a torch or a candle outside during the day, it would not cast light on any object, but it will in a scene using an HDRI and a lamp. You may want a lamp in your scene, if for example you had a scene where your character is standing outside a cave and shining a torch into the dark cave, you want to cast light into the darkness but the light should not be visible on the cave entrance as it would be without adjusting the HDRI value and lowering the exposure.

Remember your dealing with digital lighting not a real sun or lamps.

the issue is that the HDRI range isn’t realistic

this is not the case, the HDRI will do a great, realistic job of illuminating a scene. The problem arises when you add lamps to the scene which cast light on nearby objects.

I hope you understand my explanation, I know a little about photography which helps me, @jlampel maybe able to explain it better.