i hate bloom lighting

[Defpotec22]

i know many of you will disagree, but i really hate bloom lighting, or hdr, whatever you call it. it makes things so bright and fuzzy, and things lose their detail, it's annoying. i know in real life when something is extremely lit up that it loses detail, but the regular lighting in hl2 implements this reality, but to a lesser effect where the losst of detail is more subtle, and everything still looks sharp, rather than fuzzy. plus their is the question of how friggin bright the sun must be all the time in city 17 for everything to light up like that, i live in sunny san diego, california, and i swear it never gets as bright as it does in city 17 (or 14, check the new insurrection pics). i dl'd the hdr bloom mod for hl2 and have checked all this out in depth, i just don't like it

 

[Naudian]

At least HL2 is not as bad as BIA :x

 

[Mr-Fusion]

I've hated it in every game i've played, but is that because it hasn't been implemented properly...or because the feature just sucks wangcore?

I'm leaning towards blooming just sucking.

 

[Defpotec22]

this is off topic but i love bia, great squad control and WWII feel.

Bloom sucks!

 

[Kazuki_Fuse]

I agree. Generally Light blooming is overused such as in BIA or say Republic Commando. The best use for it I've seen is in Tron 2.0. I hated the HL2 bloom mod, hopefully HDR won't overbrighten the whole scene in HL2.

 

[Qhartb]

I didn't like the HL2 bloom mod. No, I take that back. I liked it to toy with, I just didn't see it as an improvement to the game. HL2 already has old fashioned light blooms. If the mod just uses HDR computations for only the bloom without affecting anything else, I don't really see what's gained. Plus, they overstate the effect that that people can tell the effects of the mod, instead of being subtle. (BTW, the illustration effect was fun to play around with too.)

There hasn't yet been a game that actually was made for HDR. Far Cry added the engine capability for use in game, but the textures, maps, and such weren't made with it in mind.

I therefore eagerly await the Lost Coast, as it will finally be something that had HDR through and through, developed around it rather than having it thrown in as a bonus feature. They're drawing each sky four times, for how it looks at different "shutter speeds". It's affecting map design and gameplay even, with some enemy shooting out a window to temporarily blind you. We should see how the effects of HDR look when they're done right before complaining about the effect in general.

Just be glad HL2 didn't have lens flare, like Halo. That could get annoying.

 

[Eunoch]

i never even to download it because it looked pointless and crap
boo to those who did >(

 

[Sparta]

There hasn't yet been a game that actually was made for HDR. Far Cry added the engine capability for use in game, but the textures, maps, and such weren't made with it in mind.

Splinter Cell Chaos Theory has HDR and uses it well unlike Far Cry. I mean in Far Cry, when its night, for some reason when you look into the sky, the clouds are blinding but the sky is pitch black with only a few specks of light.

 

[CREMATOR666]

Just to make sure we're clear :
HDR is different from bloom

 

[MiccyNarc]

Just to make sure we're clear :
HDR is different from bloom

LOGIC LIVES!
But yes, most instances I've seen of HDR suck.
Here's hoping Valve gets it right.

 

[Alec_85]

In R.O.S.E. Online (www.roseon.com), certain rare armors etc have a glow effect to them. Especially when high level players have them equipped. It makes them look Godlike to those who have a way worse level than those people. That was a very neat effect. One of the better design ideas in that game & used in a very original way. Go Korea

 

[Qhartb]

Just to make sure we're clear :
HDR is different from bloom

Yeah, of course. Strictly speaking all modern graphic cards use HDR natively (for the math, not the rendering), as the color of each pixel is stored in a vector of floating point values (they are supposed to be very precise, but can alternatively be very large). It just can't be displayed correctly for values outside of [0, 1], but the HDR info is potentially there. If you tried to display a HDR scene without interpreting for HDR rendering, pretty much the whole screen would look full white.

So if we use a wide range for light values, we'd need to adjust for whatever the average brightness is to make most of the screen within the displayable range of colors. If we still have some part of the screen that is fuller that full bright, a good way to convey that is bloom.

So HDR is just a lighting scheme that can use a wide range of colors and stay displayable, instead of artificially staying in [0, 1]. In the real world there is no "full bright," you can alway get brighter. Bloom is not technically part of HDR, but is a common addition, as bloom can help HDR convey brightness, and HDR can tell bloom where it would be appropriate. Hopefully Source's HDR won't tell bloom it's appropriate where it's not, but I don't worry about that too much, since Valve is good at being subtle. The HDR bink was good. The was some bloom for very intense light, but it looked like not all light beyond full bright bloomed, just the light that was much bright that full bright, so detail didn't get lost in the Antlion Guard's shine or the shingles, for instance.

That's my understanding anyways...

 

[Ravioli]

agree, its not that good actually, in BIA, everything looks bad, so bright, like everything is a "light" of its own...

 

[Foebane]

What is BIA?

 

[CREMATOR666]

BIAtch

 

[dream431ca]

It depends on what your talking about....Thief 3 had great bloom lighting.

 

[Ravioli]

BIA= Brothers in Arms.

Also the HDR mod for hl2 also sux

 

[kupocake]

Abuse of Bloom... another one of Deus Ex 2's crimes against humanity...

 

[Greatgat]

Yeah, I'm not too impressed with the Bloom mod, but "Hate" is probably too strong a term. I am looking forward to the true HDR though.

 

[PvtRyan]

Just to point out: as far as I know, the only game to have HDR so far is Far Cry with patch 1.3 All the blooms which you have seen are NOT HDR.

Blooms to make things... 'bloomey' != HDR

HDR can be very useful for realistic pictures.

Imagine the following: a metal plate that's 50% reflective is reflecting the sky with the sun. In LDR, the sun's brightness in the reflection would have been cut in half. So white in the sky (255,255,255) would be gray (128,128,128) in the reflection like the rest of the sky. But with HDR, the sun has a brightness of lets say 4000, it would still be full white in the reflection, while the sky which is much darker, would be darkened in the reflection. So the reflection becomes infinitely more realistic and vibrant. In rendering, HDRI's are the key to realistic reflections.

Also, look at this picture for example:
http://www.unrealtechnology.com/screens/p_soldier.jpg

One of the main reasons it looks so realistic, is the light on his face. Now, any engine could render this model, but it wouldn't look quite as realistic without the HDR blooms of UE3.

And to come back to the openingpost: indeed, cities are not as bright as in those Interception screenshots. But the blooms in the pictures are not dynamic, it would be that bright if you just walked out your dark house into the full bright city. Then, slowly it would adjust, and if you would look back into your house, everything on the inside would be very dark. And on the contrary of what you say, detail isn't lost, HDR actually prevents detail from being lost, as it adjusts exposures, and controls the brightness of the scene.

So far, Source's HDR looks great. An example from the G4 video in my attachment. It is indeed very bright, but the nature of HDR allows it to adjust itself as your eyes adapt to the light.

 

[Dill]

One thing to Keep in mind about the whole "bloom" Lighting effect is that it is used to give an impression of one watching something on film. Because, in fact, when looking at something with ones own eyes, the so-called "bloom" does not occur. Which is most likely why this effect was pretty much excluded from the release of Half Life 2. The world is rendered as if one is looking through the eyes of Gordon Freeman.

 

[MiccyNarc]

One thing to Keep in mind about the whole "bloom" Lighting effect is that it is used to give an impression of one watching something on film. Because, in fact, when looking at something with ones own eyes, the so-called "bloom" does not occur. Which is most likely why this effect was pretty much excluded from the release of Half Life 2. The world is rendered as if one is looking through the eyes of Gordon Freeman.

Ehm, bloom lighting does occur in real life, obviously you've spent too much time indoors o.0

Stand in a dark area and then walk into the sunlight or stand in a darkened room and open a window just a crack, and then tell me there's no bloom.

 

[Dill]

Well Taken(i do need to get out more tho, this is true), but never to the extent that it is used in many games does it occur in real life, ala Halo 2/Brothers in Arms(or so im told, havent played or seen it yet) or many others.

One must admit that the way all the effects are used in most games today resmble the way a film looks rather than actual human vision.(as far as Image quality and the way things are percevied)

 

[Zeus]

Abuse of Bloom... another one of Deus Ex 2's crimes against humanity...

There was a deus ex 2? When did it come out???


(I refuse to belive invisible war ever existed)

 

[Beerdude26]

There was a deus ex 2? When did it come out???


(I refuse to belive invisible war ever existed)

Lol, was it THAT bad for you?

I just absolutely LOVED the dynamic lighting. Apart from that, you're right.

 

[ThrasherX9]

I... like bloom

I like it especially in Halo 1 and 2. I think it looks nice and neat and give certain things a more realistic look (for the most part).

HDR; now thats another story. It's bloom x20000 It's super cool and gives lighting a whole new realistic approach in gaming. Awesome stuff.

 

[A.I.]

BIAtch

LOOOLL

 

[kaf11]

i cant wait to get my tax refund so that i can buy a new graphics card and play the lost coast. then replay hl2 again, but this time with hdr.

 

[Ultimape]

Interesting, if rather long read on how HDR is pretty cool, if only in terms of digital photography. -> http://www.cybergrain.com/tech/hdr/

The Problem
Here's the problem in a nutshell:

Real-world scenes contain light ranges that exceed a 50,000:1 dynamic range.

For over a thousand years, media has been limited to around a 300:1 dynamic range.

So you have a mapping issue: how do you represent light values in a scene using a much more limited set of light values for a particular media?

It gets behind the the understanding of it all. WHile it doesn't directly address HDR as applied in video games, its a good summation of what we are looking at. HDR in source will esentially be faking this range on the screen, so it looks prettyer.

 

[corkscru74]

Is it wrong that I like Lens Flare?

 

[jondy]

Is it wrong that I like Lens Flare?

Heh

From what I've seen, the HDR in source will be implemented realistically, like the rest of the DX9 effects they've used - no shiny character models ( farcry ), plastic normal maps ( farcry, doom3 ), stencil shadows ( doom3 )

farcry's lighting was fantastic as it combined the best of both worlds, with stencils, lightmaps and textured lighting for dynamic ( swinging etc ) lights; I'd like to see this done in HL2 someday, it'd be sweet :O

If you have a look at the old Source: HDR Bink, you'll see the implementation of HDr there is very realistic