Quick question about this "light bloom" effect.

[Transient]

I know what it is. Or, rather, I know what it looks like. That's about the extent of my knowledge though. What I'm curious about it if it's something that needs to be supported by a video card, or if it always works in the game you play?

[Fender]

I'm guessing it is a D3D9 (or the equiv OpenGL) thing. I don't see it when I play GW on my laptop which only has DX8. The "enable post-processing" effects check box in the game's video options gets turned off automatically on my laptop.

Just a guess, though...

[spl1ff]

http://wiki.beyondunreal.com/wiki/Bloom

don't know if this is of any use tho

[Transient]

OK, that makes a lot of sense. For shits and giggles, I fired up GW to check for myself. Disabled on the left, enabled on the right:



Apparently my video card/version of DirectX supports it, so I'm happy. The reason I ask is because it's a new feature being implemented in City of Heroes' expansion: City of Villains. =)

Thanks.

[Transient]

http://wiki.beyondunreal.com/wiki/Bloom

don't know if this is of any use tho

Yep, I stumbled across that when Googling before I posted here. That didn't help, but a link I found about a UT game reaffirmed my vague idea of what bloom was in the first place. Nothing answered what was required to get it to work, however.

[Ryoki]

City of Heroes' expansion: City of Villains. =)

:icon25: :icon14:
Not an expansion though, but a new game, right...?

[dzjepp]

HDR > bloom cuz it includes a bunch of other neat tricks that bloom by itself dosen't.

Wish Valve would hurry up and convert HL2 to hdr already.

[dzjepp]

OK, that makes a lot of sense. For shits and giggles, I fired up GW to check for myself. Disabled on the left, enabled on the right:



Apparently my video card/version of DirectX supports it, so I'm happy. The reason I ask is because it's a new feature being implemented in City of Heroes' expansion: City of Villains. =)

Thanks.

The no bloom shot looks way better. Bloom here looks like a cheap gimmick to hide the texture details on the model. Or maybe you need to town down the bloom slider a notch if there is one.

[R00k]

I agree. What's the point, exactly?

[Transient]

City of Heroes' expansion: City of Villains. =)

:icon25: :icon14:
Not an expansion though, but a new game, right...?

Erm, yeah, actually it is a stand-alone game. I'm just not used to MMORPGs doing something like this.

[dzjepp]

I agree. What's the point, exactly?

Well bloom by itself is just bloom, with hdr you have bloom and a bunch of other visual enhancements. Look up the HL2 lost coast video if you can find it.

Some games like brothers in arms, have an 'hdr' setting in the game, but afaik there trying to hide the fact that it only renders bloom, maybe that's what they should of called it. 8|

HL2 already has bloom, it looks pretty wank imo. Implementing full scale hdr is gonna take em more time than just adding a simple bloom render, thats why the full conversion hasn't been released yet. But according to doug l. Valve is gonna transform the entire game to hdr.

EDIT: Also bloom seems to look really crappy on player models and such, but it can make the sky look pretty damn nice, and imo overall it should be used in moderate quantities.

[Grudge]

When used sparingly, bloom can look nice. It added some nice atmosphere in Thief III IMO.

[MKJ]

When used sparingly, bloom can look nice. It added some nice atmosphere in Thief III IMO.

indeed. those beams of light from the moon for instance look great

burnout2 used the bloom effect nicely on the asphalt, too

[Timbo]

Base image:


+

Gaussian blur of the base image:


=

Bloom:

[Foo]

What do you mean by '+' though?

[Timbo]

Alpha blend.

[R00k]

So bloom is just a blend of gaussian blur over the original image?

Surely it isn't that simple?

[o'dium]

The way bloom works is that it renders the screen to lower res texture, brightens the bright spots and darkens the dark spots, blurs the effect, then blends the render to texture with the current screen render, thus resulting in White having a glow, and black having no glow at all.

Some (most) games over use this feature, and have it turned all the way up. But when used on a smaller degree with a sligh bloom effect and only in certain explicit cases it can look VERY good.

For example, check out halo 2, that has some nice bloom areas. Things liek a bright snowy world would usually bloom a lot, but it doesn't yet his little glowy parts on his armor DO glow. This is shader specific blur, and its a little more slower but much better. How that works, is that it check to see what material should or shouldn't use bloom, and for every one that should it renders normal, but for every one that doesn't it renders black.

This method is much much better. The pic above of the game with the skin head is how NOT to do it

[o'dium]

So bloom is just a blend of gaussian blur over the original image?

Surely it isn't that simple?

It is pretty much to that regard "simple" however you have to render the world to a texture which, depending on the resolution of the bloom and/or your resolution, can bog down your frame rate.

[Transient]

Thanks guys!