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Version: 2018.3 (switch to 2019.1b or 2017.4) Language: English

Unity User Manual (2018.3) / Graphics / Graphics Overview /
Post-processing overview / Eye Adaptation

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Eye Adaptation
The effect descriptions on this page refer to the default effects
found within the post-processing stack.

In ocular physiology, adaptation is the ability of the eye to adjust to

various levels of darkness and light. The human eye can function
from very dark to very bright levels of light. However, in any given
moment of time, the eye can only sense a contrast ratio of roughly
one millionth of the total range. What enables the wider reach is
that the eye adapts its definition of what is black.

This effect dynamically adjusts the exposure of the image according

to the range of brightness levels it contains. The adjustment takes
place gradually over a period of time, so the player can be briefly
dazzled by bright outdoor light when, say, emerging from a dark
tunnel. Equally, when moving from a bright scene to a dark one,
the “eye” takes some time to adjust.

Internally, this effect generates a histogram on every frame and

filters it to find the average luminance value. This histogram, and as
such the effect, requires Compute shader support.

Scene with Eye Adaptation.

Scene without Eye Adaptation.

UI for Eye Adaptation

Properties
Property: Function:

Luminosity Range

Minimum Lower bound for the brightness range of the

(EV) generated histogram (in EV). The bigger the
spread between min & max, the lower the
precision will be.

Maximum Upper bound for the brightness range of the

(EV) generated histogram (in EV). The bigger the
spread between min & max, the lower the
precision will be.

Auto exposure

Histogram These values are the lower and upper

Filtering percentages of the histogram that will be used to
find a stable average luminance. Values outside
of this range will be discarded and wont
contribute to the average luminance.

Minimum Minimum average luminance to consider for

(EV) auto exposure (in EV).

Maximum Maximum average luminance to consider for

(EV) auto exposure (in EV).

Dynamic Set this to true to let Unity handle the key value
Key Value automatically based on average luminance.
 Key Value Exposure bias. Use this to offset the global
exposure of the scene.

Adaptation

Adaptation Use Progressive if you want the auto exposure to

Type be animated. Use Fixed otherwise.

Speed Up Adaptation speed from a dark to a light

environment.

Speed Adaptation speed from a light to a dark

Down environment.

Details
The Luminosity Range Minimum/Maximum values are used to
set the available histogram range in EV units. The larger the range
is, the less precise it will be. The default values should work fine for
most cases, but if you’re working with a very dark scene you’ll
probably want to drop both values to focus on darker areas.

Use the Histogram Filtering range to exclude the darkest and

brightest part of the image. To compute an average luminance you
generally don’t want very dark and very bright pixels to contribute
too much to the result. Values are in percent.

Auto Exposure Minimum/Maximum values clamp the computed

average luminance into a given range.

Tweak Exposure Compensation (also known as Key Value) to adjust

the luminance offset.

You can also set the Adaptation Type to Fixed if you don’t need
the eye adaptation effect and it will behave like an auto-exposure
setting.

It is recommended to use the Eye Adaptation Debug view when

setting up this effect.

Requirements
• Compute shader

• Shader model 5

See the Graphics Hardware Capabilities and Emulation page for

further details and a list of compliant hardware.

• 2017–05–24 Page published with limited editorial review

• New feature in 5.6

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Copyright © 2019 Unity Technologies. Publication: 2018.3-002U. Built:

2019-03-26.

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