Games that got HDR/Bloom right...

[CreamySpinach]

I will be sure my mod has good effects. Although is it the textures should be made in mind for the effects or effects in mind for the textures?

All i have for easy pop and go gameplay and level editor is the GECK.

I don't feel like scripting out the ass with anything other than what i must to impress Todd H. and the other people at the establishment.

 

[baronjohn]

a) it happens all the time

I posted quite a number of screenshots proving you wrong over the time

So what's wrong with this screenshot?

Have you been outside lately? Shit does not GLOW.

 

[Tycn]

Have you been outside lately? Shit does not GLOW.

Location: Urkanistan

 

[MetalCraze]

Have you been outside lately? Shit does not GLOW.

It doesn't on that screenshot either. But oh shit it has a glowing reflection of the sun in the goggles - unrealistic... OH WAI-



Post processing set to very high:

Totally like Oblibians

 

[DraQ]

You know, there's something about the above screenshot that bothers me. Is that an important enemy, or a generic lvl 15 thief? Since he's clad in a complete suit of Elven gear, that makes it look like he's important, but he looks out of place.

He is level scaled generic thief.

 

[Sceptic]

It doesn't on that screenshot either. But oh shit it has a glowing reflection of the sun in the goggles - unrealistic... OH WAI-

FFS skyway look at the uniform. LOOK AT THE FUCKING UNIFORM. That little part covering his arm is glowing like the sun. So does his helmet for that matter. Even the black utility armor he's got on... US military fabric DOES NOT GLOW LIKE THIS.

And the top screenshot you posted DOES glow, quite badly. It ain't Oblivion, but it glows.
The very bottom one looks great though Snow one looks good too, at least there I expect snow to glow when directly struck by sunlight.

Since he's clad in a complete suit of Elven gear, that makes it look like he's important, but he looks out of place.

Just wait until he upgrades to Glass Armor

 

[RatFink]

one might think it would be a bit counter productive if you could see bloomy us uniforms in the bushes

CPL Bloom KIA

 

[commie]

Here's screenshots of ArmA II that Skyway didn't want you to see:

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Reminds me of that segment in MW2, when the nukes go off

 

[Sceptic]

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT.

I am confused. I see some truly beautiful and non-bloomy screenshots. I see some semi-bloomy but actually good-looking shots (let's call it "tasteful bloom", and yes I am aware of the double entendre). And then I see... abominations.

Are you guys really posting the same game? What's going on here?

 

[SoupNazi]

It comes down to the graphic settings. ArmA2 is really variable in that department, and it can look VERY different on two different computers.

 

[MetalCraze]

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT.

I am confused. I see some truly beautiful and non-bloomy screenshots. I see some semi-bloomy but actually good-looking shots (let's call it "tasteful bloom", and yes I am aware of the double entendre). And then I see... abominations.

Are you guys really posting the same game? What's going on here?

Normal looking in-game screenshots vs. bloomy press-release screenshots. You can see that uniform doesn't really shine on in-game ones - in fact in reality under the sun white colours do tend to "shine" a bit.

I wonder how nobody posted PMC DLC screenshots yet, that would've been a real feast for commie and baronjohn, so get on it

 

[commie]

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT.

I am confused. I see some truly beautiful and non-bloomy screenshots. I see some semi-bloomy but actually good-looking shots (let's call it "tasteful bloom", and yes I am aware of the double entendre). And then I see... abominations.

Are you guys really posting the same game? What's going on here?

Well you can turn off HDR/Bloom (and especially the god awful motion blur) and the game will look great. The thing is, this thread is about games that do HDR/Bloom well and Arma is almost on Oblivion levels sometimes with it on. To make it worse it's not consistent: you'll be looking at something that will be 'tastefully bloomed' and then swivel around and see something shining like a pair of dog's balls.

 

[commie]

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT.

I am confused. I see some truly beautiful and non-bloomy screenshots. I see some semi-bloomy but actually good-looking shots (let's call it "tasteful bloom", and yes I am aware of the double entendre). And then I see... abominations.

Are you guys really posting the same game? What's going on here?

Normal looking in-game screenshots vs. bloomy press-release screenshots. You can see that uniform doesn't really shine on in-game ones - in fact in reality under the sun white colours do tend to "shine" a bit.

I wonder how nobody posted PMC DLC screenshots yet, that would've been a real feast for commie and baronjohn, so get on it

Bullshit Skyway, it's the game with HDR/Bloom enabled and that's why it looks shit like that. It actually even looks far worse, with the bloom washing out everything. If those are press-release shots(they all aren't as you can clearly see with the soldier that it's from a multi game) then they've actually made the bloom better than it is in game.

 

[MetalCraze]

Yes the soldier is the only non-press-release one and it looks way better than the ones where sky shines like the sun is falling onto Earth or something. What's your point?

Try as I might I couldn't get the nuclear exploshun sky on my PC, even using the trick I described above (lots of contrasting dark objects that make HDR overcompensate) and yet this

doesn't look nearly as bad as this

In fact it still looks good and nothing but light shines.
The explanation is that probably BIS did reduce the intensity of the glow effects since 1.00

Also note how bright colours on a sunny day appear to real life cameras.

 

[commie]

Well maybe you have a better contrasting monitor, as with HDR/Bloom enabled here, everything looks fucking horrible starting on the Marine landing ship.

Without any of that crap on game looks great, as realistic as could be in this day and age, but for me those bloom shots actually are an improvement compared to how it looks. Maybe ATI cards do things a bit differently or there's some default setting in the driver that makes it look so shitty?

The real photo you post is more a limitation of the camera taking the picture and in a game which tries to recreate what you'd really see it shouldn't be used as a template.

I'll have to reinstall Arma one day and take these ghastly shots.

 

[Destroid]

^^ yeah was about to say, pretty ironic using HDR lighting to imitate an artifact of cameras which have a poor dynamic range compared to the human eye. In HDR photography you actually take multiple photos of the same scene then cobble them together again.

 

[MetalCraze]

Dunno man, but I wonder what's BIS' secret

 

[Gerrard]

^^ yeah was about to say, pretty ironic using HDR lighting to imitate an artifact of cameras which have a poor dynamic range compared to the human eye. In HDR photography you actually take multiple photos of the same scene then cobble them together again.

 

[Destroid]

Dunno man, but I wonder what's BIS' secret

I guess those bloomerific shots were from an earlier version of the game before they toned it down - even the vehicle models are different.

 

[MetalCraze]

^^ yeah was about to say, pretty ironic using HDR lighting to imitate an artifact of cameras which have a poor dynamic range compared to the human eye. In HDR photography you actually take multiple photos of the same scene then cobble them together again.

Actually HDR is used to imitate the effect of human eye adjusting to the environmental lighting (when used properly at least). It's bloom that makes things shine.

Here's AA2 screenshot with HDR on but bloom off.

 

[Destroid]

That looks pretty good.

 

[Sceptic]

That's the thing, in #3 everything is bright but nothing is glowing. #1 looks good in general, even if the glowing sky is a bit much. I think we're looking at 2 different effects: one is everything glowing with the force of a million suns (see the screenshots commie linked) and the other is the sky itself being on fire but everything else being extremely dark (#2 above). Neither of these is natural, and both can be eye-searing. A good use of bloom would be when things are bright but NOT glowing, such as the 2nd tank picture you linked, and the snow picture from earlier. Another example: Lucius implemented bloom in DaggerXL. When I first saw this I almost had a heart attack. Then I saw his screenshots: he implemented it very softly on windows at night to make it look like there's actual light coming out of them; it works.

BTW skyway, did you yourself take the "HDR on bloom off" pic? Would you like to expand the experiment by taking the same screenshot under all conditions (bloom only, HDR only, both, none)? That pic piqued my curiosity, as I remember Oblivion's HDR being not that different from bloom (and you couldn't turn both on anyway)

 

[MetalCraze]

The problem is that HDR can't be turned off in AA2 (for realism's sake). And they have only one option for all effects there meaning that the higher you put it the more effects come into play but never separately.
So all I can do is "HDR only", "HDR+bloom", "HDR+bloom+DOF+SSAO" (respectively below)

So for your g-ho viewing pleasure:

-

But you have to admit - that glow adds certain "Stephen King" atmosphere (also the sun is there).



P.S.

I'll just leave this here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNzE7HPB ... re=related

 

[Destroid]

Lol, when I hit screenshot 3 my eyeballs felt like they were trying to crawl out of my head. That is seriously the best way to describe the sensation that occured.

It just looks extremely blurred :S