Why are my cubes super dim/washed out colors?

[cold stump]

I'm referring to the top 8 cubes on the screen. They are using lit materials so I assume it something to do with lighting but I can't figure out what to change. The blue cubes in center of the screenshot are working fine and are in a similar position.

More shots of the cubes:

Here is cube inspector :

camera :

Lighting :

I tried all different lighting settings/positions and it didn't help

[zinc palm]

Their dimness is determined by materials, post processing, light components and scene lighting
There's no information about those visible in your screenshots so it's hard to say anything concretely

Or what "trying all lighting settings" actually means

[cold stump]

Lighting was provided prior, that is the only lighting in the scene. There is no post processing. Here's is the material :

I tried modifying the position of the light along with color, intensity and indirect multiplier and that did not have an impact.

I'm happy to provide any other information. The only other information I found since my original post is that lowering the cube Y position fixes the dim issue. I don't understand why at all.

(and I need them where they are so moving them is not a fix)

[zinc palm]

Where did you give information about lighting?
The screenshot labeled "lighting:" shows a selected mesh renderer, not lighting

You say you have no post processing, but you do have a "GlobalVolume" there, and since you're using URP you probably have a default volume defined elsewhere

Since you say changing Y position fixes the issue, that suggests to me you're seeing the directional light reflected by the material's smoothness

Changing a directional light's position has no effect because it's a global light source, and changing its indirect intensity has no effect either because it'd be a realtime light with no indirect light

But changing its rotation and color should have an effect

Also I see you have a gameobject named LoadingCubeVolume which could be another volume component overriding your GlobalVolume

Post processing's tonemapping profile override can affect the washed out look

[cold stump]

@zinc palm : Here is the only lighting I am running (sorry about the mix up on the prior image) :

Sorry..I didn't realize volumes were considered post processing. Let me provide

Here is LoadingCubeVolume :

[zinc palm]

You could try rotating it, as well as changing the materials' smoothness

[zinc palm]

URP by default has a Tonemapping override that stretches the dynamic range, moving most colors towards grey
the GlobalVolume likely has it, but if not you can add that override to the highest priority volume component in scene and set it to Neutral or one of the other options to see what the effect is

In any case the dullness you're seeing is probably primarily because of the way your light is angled, so given the specific material smoothness you are seeing the glancing light which washes out colors visually

[cold stump]

So these things seem to be right next to each other yet I am getting very different colors blue.

Tonemapping is set to to None on global volume (see first image). I can't seem to find a light position shows them both in the proper color.

or even shows the colors in a way that feels not heavily manipulated.

[zinc palm]

Are you seeing any change in appearance when you change the tonemapping

The screenshot shows you modifying the default volume

Which other volume overrides are added on top of

A "global volume" is any volume that isn't local in its effect

GlobalVolume on the other hand is a gameobject in your hierarchy that sounds like it might have most of your scene specific volume overrides

You say you can't find a good "light position" but by that do you mean position or something else
Like I said the position of a directional light doesn't matter, only its rotation does

And did you try changing the material smoothnesses like I suggested

A very low smoothness spreads the light evenly with very little sheen, while a high smoothness would reveal the reflected light clearly giving you an idea of how it works and also confirming that the washed out sheen really is from specular reflection

[cold stump]

@zinc palm : Thank you for your patience. Here is why I'm stuggling so much. Attached is a screenshot showing the exact same material on two cubes (the blue bars that are in a bunch of columns and the ones at top) that are very close to each other in the scene but render very very different :

When I was adjusting the lighting it was the rotation.

In regards to volumes...first here is my GlobalVolume object. That was the default volume that Unity provided. I didn't enable anything manually but it seems like it has everything enabled for some reason. Should I disable them all? The only effect(? not sure name to use) I need for this scene is Bloom. My understanding based on reading was volumes are used based on the scene the camera is in. So, what I did was deactived MainCamera, then enabled LoadingCubesCamera which is in the same scene as (interference) LoadingCubeVolume which has bloom enabled. My assumption was MainCamera + GlobalVolume was in a different scene (Bootstrap) so they wouldn't have an impact on Interfence scene. This was all based off my readings and I didn't realize the GlobalVolume automatically enabled all my settings...so now I don't know

In regards to material smoothness...as I showed in my screenshot at the top, the material is capable of displaying blue like I want.

[zinc palm]

Your scenes are loaded additively, so all gameobjects in the exist together
Cameras don't differentiate volumes based on which scene they're in

But still I don't feel like you're still focusing on the most important thing which is the light and the material

You say you've been rotating the light, but to what result?
I suggest changing the material properties, but you have yet not?

The material preview even shows how the same material can have two different shades of blue

[cold stump]

@zinc palm : Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. I had a family emergency. So smoothness did absolutely help the issue. So I'm going to mark this solved. I still don't understand how my directional light works however. My understanding is that is basically a sun. Why would two objects in a scene that are right next to each other and the same general shape have a completely different color from the sun? I understand I might just have to accept that its how unity does things but I'm just trying to make sure I'm not missing something. Thank you very much for your time and help.

[zinc palm]

It is due to the perspective camera
Even if the sun is at infinity, its reflection isn't infinitely big to the camera when you take FoV into account

Example
Left is orthographic projection, right is perspective

Because with perspective the view angle changes when object or camera position does, unless the object keeps rotating towards the camera when it moves

But even then its rotation relative to an orthographic light source would change