Maya Software Renderer makes textures too bright and washed out.

[s.zoeter]

I am working in Maya 2020 and encountering a rendering problem I didn't have yesterday with all the same settings (as far as I am aware). The textures in my render are much brighter and don't reflect their look in the viewport at all:

For render settings I am using the Production Quality preset. I can't find anything wrong with my lights, texture or camera. I've even tried resetting my Preferences but nothing works.

For reference, this is what one of my rendered frames looked like yesterday:

Does anyone know how to get the Software Renderer to give me the colors I want, or at least not to wash out the texture? It looks fine in Arnold but I can't afford it to batch render my project.

[luisandro.garza]

Why don't use Arnold with an hdri?

[mihirsbcc]

I think insted of using Ambient light is causing some issues. Ambient lighting is very old practice. You may change that light to a point light and render it to see if you notice any change. Baked textures can be an issue too.

Render groups of objects  as separate in render layer. Then when you load all your rendered images you will have a complete control on color correction. 3D rendered images need color correction.

What you see in the viewport is not what exactly you will get when you render in Maya software. Instead you can use Maya Hardware to match what you see in the viewport.

Learn how to use RENDER LAYERS to solve these types of issues.

[s.zoeter · Accepted solution]

Apparently the problem was caused by a checked "Apply Output Transform to Renderer" in the render settings, which can't be checked/unchecked while in Software Renderer Settings, but can be checked/unchecked in Hardware 2.0 Renderer settings.

Every single one of the Output Transform options (except raw) would cause the problem I had.