How can you ensure that lighting in a scene remains consistent across different devices and GPUs?

• A. Use a gamma color space, inconsistent exposure, and test on target devices.
• B. Use a linear color space, consistent exposure, baked lighting where possible, and test on target devices to calibrate lighting.
• C. Disable baked lighting and always rely on real-time shadows.
• D. Rely on post-processing to fix lighting differences across devices.

Answer: (B)

Achieving consistent lighting across devices comes from using linear color space, keeping exposure stable, baking lighting when possible, and testing on target hardware to calibrate the results.

Using linear color space ensures lighting calculations reflect real-world physics, so brightness and color ramp how light adds up stay predictable across different GPUs and displays. Gamma color space, by contrast, introduces non-linearities that can cause different devices to render scenes with varying brightness and contrast, leading to inconsistency.

Keeping exposure consistent is also crucial. If exposure varies between devices or runs, the same scene can look brighter or darker, making lighting appear different even if the actual light setup is identical. Locking exposure or controlling it with a fixed, calibrated setting helps maintain uniform brightness.

Baked lighting precomputes light interactions into lightmaps, which are static and not dependent on per-frame real-time calculations. This greatly reduces variability across GPUs and enables a stable, repeatable look on all target devices. Real-time lighting can introduce discrepancies due to performance differences, shadow resolution, or dynamic tone mapping.

Finally, testing on target devices lets you account for device-specific factors like display gamma, tone mapping, and HDR capabilities, so you can fine-tune the setup to look correct where it matters most.

The other options fail because they either introduce or rely on conditions that cause divergence in lighting between devices (gamma space, inconsistent exposure, or reliance solely on post-processing), or neglect the stability that baked lighting provides.