December 21, 2010, 09:36:17 am
We've been staring at the shadows many times during testing thinking they were too dark. If you select the white landscape you can see that the shadow amount is in fact correct.
What I think is causing this is the tone map routine. The tone map converts real color values into color on your screen. The tone mapping we use is inspired on traditional film. The curve of this exposure function makes dark colors more saturated and bright colors less saturated and it looks good. Another effect is it makes the image deeper. Essentially it works as a contrast enhancement. The shadow on the green floor is of a darker tint than the shadow on the white figure. The exposure inreases contrast making the shadow on the grass much darker than the shadow on the figure. You can tweak this by tweaking the contrast slider. You will see that the precieved difference between the shadows will get less when you decrease contrast.
In this image you see the same effect: The shadow should look darker on the doors but it's darker than expected. A straight simple linear tone mapping would remove this effect but you will loose all the benefits of the color processing. Try using some of the other sliders to get the effect you want.
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We are rechecking the colors to see if there is a problem. It's always possible there is a mistake and if there is we will fix it.
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