134 replies to this topic

[Ikon]

Bloom... a fad? Bloom is a real thing in the real world. Especially in lower latitudes and in the summer, bloom is visible on pretty much everything; streets, clothing, flowers, trees, etc. Don't forget that the eye is a lens. Lens flare can too be experienced with just your eyes. Furthermore, if you happen to wear contact lens or -worse- glasses, you should experience more severe lens flare effects more often. Oh, and if you happen to have high astigmatism, even if you wear contact lens, no matter how expensive your contact lens are -and mine are quite expensive-, you will experience strange lighting effects around light sources, such as fuzzy halos, star-shaped effects (Fraunhofer diffraction), pentagonal-shaped or hexagonal-shaped artifacts, strong, circular, big-radius halos around big light sources and much more.

 

I've never experienced bloom in the real world. I agree that the sun can be overpoweringly bright, but I don't call that bloom; it's simply bright. Lens flare is something I typically associate with multi-lens systems. Eyes have only 1 lens.

 

I've never even thought of how contacts or glasses could cause such effects. I guess I can see where that could happen. After all, they both make eyes into multi-lens systems. And astigmatism? Hmmm, interesting. Thanks for pointing that out. It's funny that the topic has never come up before in my life.

 

I have to inject a caveat here. I've had 20/5 or 20/10 vision for the vast majority of my life. I'm used to seeing things very, very crisply, whether close up or far away. Seeing things with artifacts is foreign to me and, to be honest, something I only associated with artificial or man-made objects, like camera lenses. The idea that they could happen to natural systems is an odd thing for me.

 

So, I guess for some people artifacts like lens flare are part of the way they see the world, although, THB, I suspect most of it is still mostly artificial, in the sense they see the effects due to contacts and glasses, which by nature are artificial. That said, if you need glasses or contacts to see, then these artifacts are part of your life (at least until science and medicine can develop a way to see without glasses or lenses )

 

However, I still think they're a fad that will, eventually, fade.

[agirlnamedbob]

I think this might actually be part of why I didn't even notice the issues so many seem to have, particularly in Propast. I'm mildly near sighted and I have an astigmatism...combined with not-so-great night vision. So when I'm in situations like Propast (read: fairly overcast or dim with lots of neon signs or lights) I...tend to see "bloom," halos, blur, etc. 

 

Combine that with the fact that it is a common issue with cameras and video games often striving to emulate film with their visuals rather than real life...and well, there you go. 

 

I'm not sure if it's a "fad" or not, but... yeah. Definitely interesting to consider. 

[Hellegennes]

I've never experienced bloom in the real world. I agree that the sun can be overpoweringly bright, but I don't call that bloom; it's simply bright. Lens flare is something I typically associate with multi-lens systems. Eyes have only 1 lens.

 

Well, unless you only have one eye, there are two lenses on your head and vision is the brain-combined image of them. However lens flare is not that pronounced in real life, so you may have never noticed it. It's more likely to notice it if you see the sun filtered in some way, like when you're walking in a forest. But you can also notice it on artificial lighting or any kind of lighting if you slightly close your eyes. Your eyelids will do the rest and: boom! Lens flare. You must look directly at the light source, though. Again, sun-induced lens flare is more washed out, fades away rapidly and it's far dimmer than what you see on camera lens.

[Dmm]

How flare naturally occurs in the human eye:

 

 

Most of the objection to bloom and flare in games and other media is when it is over done instead of being used judiciously, but even that is highly subjective. What one person perceives as overdone, another will love and feels it add to the immersion, not through realistic representation of what happens in life but by creating an otherworldly effect, an alter state of perception, or a certain emotional response.

 

 

[the red of the kin]

Most of the objection to bloom and flare in games and other media is when it is over done instead of being used judiciously, but even that is highly subjective. What one person perceives as overdone, another will love and feels it add to the immersion, not through realistic representation of what happens in life but by creating an otherworldly effect, an alter state of perception, or a certain emotional response.

 

Yep: exactly what I was going for in my first post. For instance I think Skyrim has improved drastically from Oblivion. In Oblivion the bloom (or HDR) effect was way overused and would sometimes even eat up some details from the final image. In Skyrim there is much better balance.
I thought in Dreamfall the use of bloom and lens flare was just perfect. I still hold Dreamfall as one of my favourite videogames ever, regarding scenery and use of shaders.
In DFC I did notice some more bloom and the use of lots of lens flare (the flares reminded me heavily of the recent Star Trek films). I decided they didn't bother me too much and gave them a purpose: to explain what's happening in Stark is all a dream....but this was only my interpretation.
 

As for the use of such gimmicks..again: this is fiction and whatever works (at least for most people) is worth using. I think the bloom (or HDR) effects and lens flares contribure (if used well) to immerse into the 3d world and to make te experience feel more like a movie.

 

Some might not like them as I hate shaky cams in movies, but they are there and they are effective to at least some degree, since they keep being used ;-)

[Ikon]

I don't understand the linking of blooming to HDR. HDR is a technique for compressing the dynamic range of a scene into one that can be handled by current photographic tools. Blooming is the spreading of strong highlights into surrounding areas of the image. The two are not equivalent.

 

Of course, HDR processing can cause blooming in photographs, but so can many other digital post-processing techniques.

[Hellegennes]

Damn! I didn't have my camera with me today. Driving in the early morning, bright sun, bloom everywhere.

[Ikon]

How flare naturally occurs in the human eye:

 

 

Most of the objection to bloom and flare in games and other media is when it is over done instead of being used judiciously, but even that is highly subjective. What one person perceives as overdone, another will love and feels it add to the immersion, not through realistic representation of what happens in life but by creating an otherworldly effect, an alter state of perception, or a certain emotional response.

 

Interesting video. I have to say I've don't recall ever seeing coloured rings around light sources, at least not with my naked eyes. Well, except once I saw a large ring around the moon, but it was explained to me that it was caused by an atmospheric effect, not my eyes. I've also experienced the 'street light effect' when driving. It was caused by my windshield. If I stop the car, get out, and look at the light, there's no blooming. Get back in the car, there it is again.

 

I completely agree about the 'overdoing'. I think it's the same with many things that are relatively new to the mainstream. I clearly recall how people went nuts with fonts when desktop publishing first went mainstream. People who had never done anything like it before could suddenly create newletters, brochures, posters, etc. They were like kids in a candy store — they wanted to use everything. They would produce newletters with 5 different typefaces, using 3 fonts in each typeface. The result was, shall we say, interesting, if not somewhat nauseating

     The same goes for HDR. It is still relatively new to the mainstream. I don't think most people have tried it even yet. Of those that have, many have, naturally, overcooked the photos, resulting in oversaturated, overly contrasty, 'crunchy' photos that look like they're about to shatter. That effect can be used deliberately of course, to create a particular look, but I doubt that that's what most people are trying to do. I think they're still getting used to the tool and will eventually look back on their early attempts and cringe.... "What was I thinking?"

     Used judiciously, HDR can be a fantastic way to make a scene look the way the mind's eye saw it when a person was actually at the location. It helps compensate for the fact that the eyes and brain constantly adjust things like brightness, contrast, and focus, making a scene look much better in the mind that it does on 'film'.

 

Well, unless you only have one eye, there are two lenses on your head and vision is the brain-combined image of them.

 

I believe this is a misuse of the term. Each eye's lens has only 1 element between the source and the 'film'. Combining 2 negatives (as in film negatives) to create a single image is not the same as having a lens with 2 elements. The inner surfaces of a 2-element lens create much greater opportunities for reflections and, therefor, flare.

[magic88889]

Looking at this, I think it's less a matter of what is realistic, and what looks realistic.  To me, removing the bloom and flare effects makes things look less realistic.  I think it can hide some of the fake-ness that we often see with 3D models and characters.  Adding in those effects helps hide those issues and creates a look that actually looks more realistic.

 

It might also have something to do with the long history of having lens flares and bloom in our entertainment.  It's what our brains have come to expect when looking at images on a screen.  We now have cameras that are good enough to make lens flares very rare.  Why then are filmmakers digitally adding them back in?  It's because that's what people expect to see, and removing them actually will upset more people and make them think it looks fake.

 

I've noticed this when working with photos, sometimes you have to alter or enhance reality in order to make it look more real.  Let's face it, reality can look damned strange sometimes, and when you're watching a movie or playing a game, it can be distracting to see those kinds of things, so the creators of that content have to "fix" it.  It is real, no.  But sometimes fiction can look more real that reality.

 

Do people go overboard sometimes?  Sure they do.  Just look at any JJ Abrams project.  So. Many. Lens. Flares.  And every single one of them is fake.  But the fact remains that these tools serve a very real purpose.

 

 

 

Plus, you know, there's that whole "artistic vision" thing.

[Aj17]

Screens after the latest update from yesterday, lightning looks a lot better in game to me at least..game doesn't look flat anymore so the speak xD

 

http://i.imgur.com/mJPXIBE.png

http://i.imgur.com/82gTbz3.png

http://i.imgur.com/HjbxXE0.png

http://i.imgur.com/hUiaNU7.png

http://i.imgur.com/cFtoXq2.png

[Vainamoinen]

http://i.imgur.com/hUiaNU7.png

...is that entire lamp thing new? Never seen it before.

Southwest corner of South Gate square, isn't it?

[toremygg]

Festive decorations, perhaps?

[Vainamoinen]

Hmmmm. Looks like Book 2 to me. Or did that strange Arcadian mist dissolve for Unity 5?

[Hellegennes]

I believe this is a misuse of the term. Each eye's lens has only 1 element between the source and the 'film'. Combining 2 negatives (as in film negatives) to create a single image is not the same as having a lens with 2 elements. The inner surfaces of a 2-element lens create much greater opportunities for reflections and, therefor, flare.

 

It's not just a single image, the two images at the focus point overlap. There are certainly more opportunities for artifacts when using multiple lens, but the word "more" is the key. Like I said before, flares can be naturally experienced but are much fainter, disappear quickly and are more washed-out. If you go out and try to look at the direction of the sun, you will immediately experience multiple flare-like effects due to the fact that we tend to automatically squint in harsh light.

[Aj17]

Hmmmm. Looks like Book 2 to me. Or did that strange Arcadian mist dissolve for Unity 5?

Book 3,