Given what I read, there is the possiblity that you've plugged an image into Ambient_Color and Ambient_Value. "I initially plugged another copy of the texture into the ambient color"

The ambient parameter pair works as follows:

Ambient_Color * Ambient_Value

Multiplication. The ambient value is supposed to be used as a "volume" knob.

But if you plug the image into both, you are doing:

image * image

This is basically f(x) = x ^ 2, or a parabola.

Which means already bright parts get brighter still relative to darker parts.

That is an interesting effect but I doubt it is what you're trying to do. So don't do that. If you do random things, you get random results.

---

Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)