• Godot Help3D

  • different color render results on different monitors

i've been checking my project on different monitors and the difference in lighting is huge.
is this a monitor issue, or is there a setting in the godot project settings i can use to make it less noticeable?

Monitor, OS settings & icc profiles, godot all of them can contribute to this being an issue. But yes, there should be a couple of different ways of introducing color correction to your project. I don't have any examples or links at immediate hand however google should be able to find something I'm sure.

Monitors are all different. But, you can calibrate your production monitor to be closer to a certain studio standard. Some visual artist buy special expensive monitors because of the color to shows.

It's the monitor. Every monitor is slightly different (even two monitors of the same make and model). Most AAA games just use brightness sliders that sort of calibrate to get them closer. This is where when you start the game is shows you a gray image and tells you to adjust so it is barely visible. This is also related to gamma, which is a huge topic in itself. There is no automatic way to do this as it is perceptual and there is no way to programmatically check how a monitor is calibrated.

    cybereality Every monitor is slightly different (even two monitors of the same make and model).

    Yep, which is why I also mentioned OS settings and ICC profiles.

    Most people just disregard that CD that comes with their fancy(or not) monitor but usually that CD includes a very valuable asset: an .icc color profile file that holds the factory calibration data. You don't even need a fancy colorimeter when you first start using your new monitor, just a CD drive.

    Over time as the monitor ages it goes off calibration slightly so might still want to have a colorimeter perhaps, but assuming you get a new monitor every 3 to 5 years you probably don't need one.

      The problem is that most people don't calibrate the monitor. Even assuming everyone had a colorimeter, consumer monitors would still be off slightly, which is why studio monitors used by film production are so expensive. ICC profiles can help, sure, but most people don't install them. And it still doesn't account for variance within the same make/model. So it's best to just assume you don't know and have some user configuration when you first start the game.

      the biggest difference is on my expensive curved widescreen monitor wich doesnt use hdmi and is calibrated for my work. that one shows everything way darker than a standard widescreen hdmi monitor.

      HDMI or DisplayPort shouldn't matter. It's all digital and the signal is essentially the same. Curved and flat also don't really matter in terms of color. It's just that every monitor is different. You probably want to include something like this.

      However, I can't find any good tutorials on how you should code that (in any engine). However, I know you can use the adjustment properties on the WorldEnvironment to change the brightness. That may be a good place to start looking. I'm unsure if these games are simple doing a brightness post process (or tone map) or adjusting the gamma on a shader level. If it is just brightness, that is easy. But the gamma adjustment would require more work.

        cybereality thats the thing, all lighting effects are done in post processing. same environment setup looks different on different monitors, but ill leave it for now

          Yes, it's always going to look different. This is the case for every game on every engine, that is what I'm trying to say. You need to have user configurable settings. This runs the first time the game starts and then saves for just that computer system (see the Dishonored example). Then each monitor will look closer (they will never be the same, but it should avoid gameplay breaking problems like hallways being to dark to see enemies).

          Can''t be the same image on different monitors if they're not calibrated: