I actually wanted to simply discuss what are people's stance on some of the modern graphic techniques such as Bloom and HDR.
Here's the short version: I hate them. They suck. Do you?
Here's the longer version.
--Bloom http://gangles.ca/2008/07/18/bloom-disasters/
The article is a few years old, but it has never really changed. Where there is obvious bloom effects, then the game looks like shit. Any and every use of bloom that I noticed always looked like crap. There is not a single PC game with Bloom that I didn't just turn it off (unless I couldn't, and that makes me all the more mad).
Bloom has got to be one of the single worst graphic technique ever created, and also brings the next issue:
--Lack of color
This is obviously not a technique per say, but a byproduct of relying on blooms and other techniques. I don't care how realistic it really is in war zones for everything to be brown or gray. And I don't know that it is. All I know is that it looks like shit. Post-apocalyptic settings like Fallout 3 also love to give us some of, in my opinion, the worst looking game ever. I look at a game like Gears of War and Fallout 3 and I see graphics that did not surpass Doom 1, because all it succeeds at is making me puke. I despise these games' graphic with a passion. Regardless of everything you'd ever say, any worlds deserves to have more color. And older 3D games rarely had that problem. I wonder why? Oh yeah, modern graphic techniques.
---HDR
Have you ever just got out of your house with very normal lighting inside, and bright sky outside? Does it do what it does in game? No, it doesn't. Someone kill those HDR designers. I get it, okay? Our eyes need to adjust, we all know this. But it looks NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING like it does in any game.
To make things worst, all HDR I've ever seen in games make it seems like our eyes adapt ridiculously fast. Well, they -do-, but not to the extent the games tell us. For example, I'll just look away from the sky, to a dark wall for a few seconds, and the lighting will change. I turn around, and OH SHIT EVERYTHING IS SO BRIGHT.
Yeah. No. HDR in all its way, just feels completely and utterly wrong. My eyes are annoyed when I first step outside yes, but there's no bright liggt. HDR = turn off. Console = can't turn off. Why don't I play modern console games, you think? Because I can't disable shit like that. I'm dead serious, and I find that so ironic.
--Anti-Aliasing
This one is less important, and I've seen far less people agree with me. I don't like anti-aliasing. I totally understand the concept, but in execution, all it means is I see slightly blurry stuff instead of actually seeing what I should see clearly. This is only obvious when examining objects very closely or the like, otherwise I barely see the difference. I'd rather see a pixel, than something blurry that tries to hide the pixels.
Unlike the others, this is not a big deal and is not a deal breaker at all. Just a personal annoyance that a graphic technique was invented to "fix" something but in my eyes, makes it worse.
For those who don't know what anti-aliasing is, just look at this bad example:
That is all. What I hate about modern games that pretend to look good, but don't. And I'm sure there are more techniques I don't know about that makes games look as bad as they do.
The better they look, the worst they look. That is the irony of modern gaming graphics that really makes me scratch my head, especially when so many people these days wants and love good graphics, yet all I see are horrible looking games.
Bloom - It suits some games, but as it's so hard to achieve realism in a game, they go for the virtual reality effect. They can't trick you into thinking it's real so they exaggerate it a lot to give it a surreal look. Sometimes it works, sometimes it's just over the top. Works better for fantasy games.
Lack of Colour - This is all opinion and it really depends on the game. Sure they could have made Fallout 3 colourful but I don't think it would feel anywhere near as bleak. That's the atmosphere they wanted the game to have. It looks far better than Doom why would you even say that? The detail's there.
HDR - I mostly enjoy this technique. The same thing I said about bloom can be applied here.
Anti-aliasing - What... ? Most games look terrible without anti-aliasing. The thing is without it you can't see things clearly because it'll be all jagged and messed up. Plain ugly. In your example "anti-aliasing" is far easier on the eyes. We don't have pixels in real life so what you see in games, heaps of different coloured pixels moving around is incredibly unnatural and almost painful to watch. The blurring helps make it look more like real life (blending the pixels into one smooth picture).
HL2 ep2 used hdr and bloom to great effect imo. I'm not really concerned to much with graphics anymore because when you really get down to it, you can have crysis level graphics but if the gameplay isn't there keep it away from me. I do however long for the day when we have completely destructible environments that don't rely on gibs, a true sandbox game where you can dig holes with a rocket launcher and reduce buildings to ash. We need a true physics emulator. I fear we'll have to wait for the atomic desktop computer, or the 32 core ceramic processor before that happens
HL2 ep2 used hdr and bloom to great effect imo. I'm not really concerned to much with graphics anymore because when you really get down to it, you can have crysis level graphics but if the gameplay isn't there keep it away from me. I do however long for the day when we have completely destructible environments that don't rely on gibs, a true sandbox game where you can dig holes with a rocket launcher and reduce buildings to ash. We need a true physics emulator. I fear we'll have to wait for the atomic desktop computer, or the 32 core ceramic processor before that happens
Isn't that more or less what the latest Red Faction tried to do?
I know the thing has an extremely different physic engine, I remember in an interview the guy said he couldn't make a building like he normally did, he actually had to take into account physics and everything like in real life, have proper support etc, otherwise the building would just crumble under itself. And the game emphasize on destroying those things. Google geo mod or Red Faction Guerrilla.
I never tried that game, though. There's another game, I forgot which one, where you can reshape the Terrain around you.
I think we're closer to it all than you think. The problem is, these things by themselves are still in relatively limited and experimental stage, probably cost a lot to make, and are not very successful on the market. Those with the big budgets would rather play it safe than try that.
Regarding bloom effects, Oblivion definitely was one of the worst offenders out of those games shown in that example. People's faces glowed. As if everything reflected the light and became light mirrors. Sometimes it was a nice effect if you were talking to someone standing next to a fireplace, but when you went outside and it was just the sun shining on things, the reflectiveness of light was blinding. Everyone's clothes blinded you. The sidewalks and streets blinded you. And it all just seemed like a simple matter of turning the effect down a little bit.
I don't see what the problem was with Halo 3's explosion and weapons effects though. If you can justify something being brighter and more contrasting than it should, then I guess it's gotta at least be something like explosions and light effects from alien energy weapons.
In regards to games like Fallout 3 and Gears of War, this depends I guess. I always thought Gears of War looked less colorful because someone was actually turning down the red blue and green like you could on your tv settings. Fallout 3 though seems less colorful because a lack of vegetation really does have that effect. While I'm sure they did things to the graphics to intentionally make things less colorful, it's still gonna be the case things look drab and lack color if it's a wasteland, a prolonged battlefield, or a any kind of environment where plants and animals don't exactly flourish. Some people think they went too far with the aesthetic intent but I thought they did a good job with it. Though personally I still like the graphics of the original Fallout better.
When people utilize those tools the right way, I think they all add to make the game better. They are misused quite a bit though. The bloom in parts of the fable games is pretty ridiculous as well.
I dont see anything wrong with them except they are over done, if they just toned it down a bit, used it a bit more selectively I think it wouldn't be so bad
oh and maybe add clouds for the sky effects to have contrast
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Here's the short version: I hate them. They suck. Do you?
Here's the longer version.
--Bloom
http://gangles.ca/2008/07/18/bloom-disasters/
The article is a few years old, but it has never really changed. Where there is obvious bloom effects, then the game looks like shit. Any and every use of bloom that I noticed always looked like crap. There is not a single PC game with Bloom that I didn't just turn it off (unless I couldn't, and that makes me all the more mad).
Bloom has got to be one of the single worst graphic technique ever created, and also brings the next issue:
--Lack of color
This is obviously not a technique per say, but a byproduct of relying on blooms and other techniques. I don't care how realistic it really is in war zones for everything to be brown or gray. And I don't know that it is. All I know is that it looks like shit. Post-apocalyptic settings like Fallout 3 also love to give us some of, in my opinion, the worst looking game ever. I look at a game like Gears of War and Fallout 3 and I see graphics that did not surpass Doom 1, because all it succeeds at is making me puke. I despise these games' graphic with a passion. Regardless of everything you'd ever say, any worlds deserves to have more color. And older 3D games rarely had that problem. I wonder why? Oh yeah, modern graphic techniques.
---HDR
Have you ever just got out of your house with very normal lighting inside, and bright sky outside? Does it do what it does in game? No, it doesn't. Someone kill those HDR designers. I get it, okay? Our eyes need to adjust, we all know this. But it looks NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING like it does in any game.
To make things worst, all HDR I've ever seen in games make it seems like our eyes adapt ridiculously fast. Well, they -do-, but not to the extent the games tell us. For example, I'll just look away from the sky, to a dark wall for a few seconds, and the lighting will change. I turn around, and OH SHIT EVERYTHING IS SO BRIGHT.
Yeah. No. HDR in all its way, just feels completely and utterly wrong. My eyes are annoyed when I first step outside yes, but there's no bright liggt. HDR = turn off. Console = can't turn off. Why don't I play modern console games, you think? Because I can't disable shit like that. I'm dead serious, and I find that so ironic.
--Anti-Aliasing
This one is less important, and I've seen far less people agree with me. I don't like anti-aliasing. I totally understand the concept, but in execution, all it means is I see slightly blurry stuff instead of actually seeing what I should see clearly. This is only obvious when examining objects very closely or the like, otherwise I barely see the difference. I'd rather see a pixel, than something blurry that tries to hide the pixels.
Unlike the others, this is not a big deal and is not a deal breaker at all. Just a personal annoyance that a graphic technique was invented to "fix" something but in my eyes, makes it worse.
For those who don't know what anti-aliasing is, just look at this bad example:
http://www.snowbound.com/images/antialias.gif
That is all. What I hate about modern games that pretend to look good, but don't. And I'm sure there are more techniques I don't know about that makes games look as bad as they do.
The better they look, the worst they look. That is the irony of modern gaming graphics that really makes me scratch my head, especially when so many people these days wants and love good graphics, yet all I see are horrible looking games.
I'm not alone, am I?
Bloom - It suits some games, but as it's so hard to achieve realism in a game, they go for the virtual reality effect. They can't trick you into thinking it's real so they exaggerate it a lot to give it a surreal look. Sometimes it works, sometimes it's just over the top. Works better for fantasy games.
Lack of Colour - This is all opinion and it really depends on the game. Sure they could have made Fallout 3 colourful but I don't think it would feel anywhere near as bleak. That's the atmosphere they wanted the game to have. It looks far better than Doom why would you even say that? The detail's there.
HDR - I mostly enjoy this technique. The same thing I said about bloom can be applied here.
Anti-aliasing - What... ? Most games look terrible without anti-aliasing. The thing is without it you can't see things clearly because it'll be all jagged and messed up. Plain ugly. In your example "anti-aliasing" is far easier on the eyes. We don't have pixels in real life so what you see in games, heaps of different coloured pixels moving around is incredibly unnatural and almost painful to watch. The blurring helps make it look more like real life (blending the pixels into one smooth picture).
That said graphics are a smaller part of what I look for in a game.
"to the worm in horseradish, the world is horseradish."
Fuck you, I'm a dragon.
I know the thing has an extremely different physic engine, I remember in an interview the guy said he couldn't make a building like he normally did, he actually had to take into account physics and everything like in real life, have proper support etc, otherwise the building would just crumble under itself. And the game emphasize on destroying those things. Google geo mod or Red Faction Guerrilla.
I never tried that game, though. There's another game, I forgot which one, where you can reshape the Terrain around you.
I think we're closer to it all than you think. The problem is, these things by themselves are still in relatively limited and experimental stage, probably cost a lot to make, and are not very successful on the market. Those with the big budgets would rather play it safe than try that.
I don't see what the problem was with Halo 3's explosion and weapons effects though. If you can justify something being brighter and more contrasting than it should, then I guess it's gotta at least be something like explosions and light effects from alien energy weapons.
In regards to games like Fallout 3 and Gears of War, this depends I guess. I always thought Gears of War looked less colorful because someone was actually turning down the red blue and green like you could on your tv settings. Fallout 3 though seems less colorful because a lack of vegetation really does have that effect. While I'm sure they did things to the graphics to intentionally make things less colorful, it's still gonna be the case things look drab and lack color if it's a wasteland, a prolonged battlefield, or a any kind of environment where plants and animals don't exactly flourish. Some people think they went too far with the aesthetic intent but I thought they did a good job with it. Though personally I still like the graphics of the original Fallout better.
I'm old fashioned that way though.
Siaynoq's Playthroughs
oh and maybe add clouds for the sky effects to have contrast