Why do modern video games still have so much over the top bloom?

[sxr7171]

I get it. When bloom lighting was new developers were inclined to show it off. But years later why do video games have such unnatural amounts of bloom?

I don't think I've seen a game with lighting that looks halfway natural to date. Do we need to petition developers to think about natural lighting?

With digital cameras getting better dynamic range and HDR techniques gaining popularity the blown out highlights we see in games is so gimmicky.

Is it my settings? I've tried to adjust contrast to reduce it as much as possible. I've tried to disable bloom. That only causes another kind of unnatural wash out of highlights. How do we get the message across to developers? Otherwise gorgeous games like AC4 and BF4 look ridiculous.

 

[blackened23]

Hmm. Not sure this belongs in the GPU forum, but I have mixed feelings on the matter. I can see how it might bother some, but it doesn't get to me that much. However, I would prefer if such games allowed the bloom to be disabled, I really don't understand why BF3 and BF4 don't allow that. Witcher 2 was an amazing game in terms of graphics, and it also (by default) has quite a bit of bloom. But, you can disable the bloom in Witcher 2 if you want to. That's one aspect of Witcher 2 that I really like; the graphics settings are very configurable - it has more than the standard SSAO/MSAA fare, there are TONS of things you can turn on and off in that game, bloom being one of them.

Seems easy enough for developers to implement a way to disable bloom. More developers should do this, even if it doesn't bother me to a great extent.

 

[lavaheadache]

Real life looks boring. Same reason why hookers wear obscene amounts make up. Nothing like hooking up with a raccoon with faux eye lashes so long that oral pleasure puts you at risk for a needle in the gut

 

[sxr7171]

Hmm. Not sure this belongs in the GPU forum, but I have mixed feelings on the matter. I can see how it might bother some, but it doesn't get to me that much. However, I would prefer if such games allowed the bloom to be disabled, I really don't understand why BF3 and BF4 don't allow that. Witcher 2 was an amazing game in terms of graphics, and it also (by default) has quite a bit of bloom. But, you can disable the bloom in Witcher 2 if you want to. That's one aspect of Witcher 2 that I really like; the graphics settings are very configurable - it has more than the standard SSAO/MSAA fare, there are TONS of things you can turn on and off in that game, bloom being one of them.

Seems easy enough for developers to implement a way to disable bloom. More developers should do this, even if it doesn't bother me to a great extent.

What I've noticed is that even with bloom disabled the graphic design washes out textures in another very unnatural way. It's sort of like "bloom" only done in a very inaccurate way. I'm a little shocked that no developer to date has looked at natural scenes and tried to replicate that or use that as reference.

One game that was ridiculous is hitman absolution. Great looking game otherwise but my gosh bloom on or off it had no concept of appropriate dynamic range representation. I tried all settings. I settled on bloom on low and reduced contrast on my TV. It still looks very bad.

Another related issue is the huge exaggeration of dynamic lighting. Areas without a light source are too dark to even see while a single light source washes a cone area of beam out. Developers seem to not have any sense of natural contrast. It's a universal problem with modern video games.

Do you think there's another forum I should ask this question?

 

[sxr7171]

Real life looks boring. Same reason why hookers wear obscene amounts make up. Nothing like hooking up with a raccoon with faux eye lashes so long that oral pleasure puts you at risk for a needle in the gut

Agreed. However some setting for degrees of contrast ranging from natural through mild exaggeration to obscene exaggeration (which seems to be default) would be an appropriate option to offer gamers.

To add to your point, I'm watching a TV where certain scenes do have high contrast. And it creates a nice effect. But it's done only for a few moments for artistic effect. So that style of exposure is great for a nice cinematic scene or for emphasis. But playing a game that for hours has the same exposure constantly is bad art design IMHO. When thousands of people work on a game and hundreds of millions of dollars are spent on making some of them it's a little disappointing to see so little though given to the actual look of the finished product.

Anyway, in an attempt to try to bring this thread within the confines of this forum does anyone know if any settings in NVidia CP or AMD CC can control this within a game? I know you can change video settings easily but is there a way to change 3D settings?

Also I'm continuing this topic in the pc gaming forum. I think that's a more appropriate forum.

 

[BrightCandle]

I suspect they use a lot of bloom to hide artefacts of both the lighting system and especially edges. One of the effects in BF3/BF4 was when inside looking out you would get large amounts of bloom around the opening. This bloom effect had the impact of not only bleeding the light inside but also in appearing to light the edge, which you would expect in the real world. But in a presentation Johan did he showed that without the bloom, looking out from a tunnel in BF3, you saw the jagged polygons of the tunnel geometry starkly against the sky and you saw how incredibly unnatural the lighting was.

We don't have genuine global illumination yet, we aren't really casting shadows its all faked. When you don't use bloom you don't hide these artefacts of cheating with the lighting system and it just looks wrong, far more wrong than the bloom does.

Ambient occlusion is typically done with SSAO. There are actually quite a lot of artefacts this algorithm uses, in particular its screen space occlusion which means it changes as you move around the object! Shadows are dependent on where I am they are dependent on where the sun is, yet with SSAO the shadow moves somewhat as you look from different angles. The change is subtle enough that you don't notice but equally its not really a shadow being cast by the sun through the object its just some reduction in the lighting being applied based on how close material around it is. It doesn't look very natural at all, but it looks better than no ambient occlusion at all. Indeed ambient occlusion is completely a hack around the fact we can't case rays of light and cast real shadows everywhere.

Even the shadows you see following characters around are a total hack. Its just a dark patch that is angled based on the direction of the sun or some main light source. If you take multiple light sources you don't get multiple different shadows and they don't interact to darken further when multiple peoples shadows combine, its a great hack that seems to look reasonable but its not even remotely accurate because again the shadow is just an algorithm applying reduction in lighting at a particular angle, it isn't based on cast light.

All these effects look better than not having them, but we are a very very long way from genuine lighting systems that look real. The reason is we simply don't have a enough computing performance to do real lighting in real time.

 

[sxr7171]

I suspect they use a lot of bloom to hide artefacts of both the lighting system and especially edges. One of the effects in BF3/BF4 was when inside looking out you would get large amounts of bloom around the opening. This bloom effect had the impact of not only bleeding the light inside but also in appearing to light the edge, which you would expect in the real world. But in a presentation Johan did he showed that without the bloom, looking out from a tunnel in BF3, you saw the jagged polygons of the tunnel geometry starkly against the sky and you saw how incredibly unnatural the lighting was.

We don't have genuine global illumination yet, we aren't really casting shadows its all faked. When you don't use bloom you don't hide these artefacts of cheating with the lighting system and it just looks wrong, far more wrong than the bloom does.

Ambient occlusion is typically done with SSAO. There are actually quite a lot of artefacts this algorithm uses, in particular its screen space occlusion which means it changes as you move around the object! Shadows are dependent on where I am they are dependent on where the sun is, yet with SSAO the shadow moves somewhat as you look from different angles. The change is subtle enough that you don't notice but equally its not really a shadow being cast by the sun through the object its just some reduction in the lighting being applied based on how close material around it is. It doesn't look very natural at all, but it looks better than no ambient occlusion at all. Indeed ambient occlusion is completely a hack around the fact we can't case rays of light and cast real shadows everywhere.

Even the shadows you see following characters around are a total hack. Its just a dark patch that is angled based on the direction of the sun or some main light source. If you take multiple light sources you don't get multiple different shadows and they don't interact to darken further when multiple peoples shadows combine, its a great hack that seems to look reasonable but its not even remotely accurate because again the shadow is just an algorithm applying reduction in lighting at a particular angle, it isn't based on cast light.

All these effects look better than not having them, but we are a very very long way from genuine lighting systems that look real. The reason is we simply don't have a enough computing performance to do real lighting in real time.

Thanks for the explanation. I think you're right. I notice that even in the most modern of games large circular or semi circular forms look polygonal. It amazes me that with the graphics power we are supposed to have today that it still happens.

As for lighting I see what you're saying. Does HBAO fix any of these issues or does it too have its own set of flaws?

 

[BrightCandle]

HBAO isn't screen based, its viewing angle independent. It also produces a darker shadow which is a bit more "natural looking". Its obviously not global illumination/ray tracing, you have shadows pointed directly at sunlight with HBAO just like with SSAO. Its a better hack, HBAO+ is an even better hack with similar costs but its all what you would expect from a shadow algorithm based on close occlusion and not light rays.

 

[Mushkins]

BrightCandle pretty much hit the nail on the head, it's the rendering equivalent of camera tricks and airbrushing magazine covers. Lots of bloom hides lots of graphical blemishes, and cranking up the bloom is "cheaper" than cranking up the AA, so it makes the game look a little nicer on lower end machines even if it looks unnatural.

 

[Subyman]

The more lighting effects and post processing, the less detail you need in the textures and geometry which are where the real cost of making a game is at.

 

[amenx]

worst of the worst imo, Bioshock infinite.

 

[NTMBK]

worst of the worst imo, Bioshock infinite.

In my opinion Bioshock Infinite had some of the best art design of this generation, and it worked perfectly with the technical side to produce a consistent and stunning visual. Better than yet another brown military shooter. *shrug*

 

[videogames101]

doing rendering with other methods like ray-tracing would be awesome because it lends itself to accurate source based lighting and shadows

too bad the computational requirements are too steep to render real-time

then again there is always moore's law

 

[tential]

Put 2 games next to eachother. One with natural lighting and one with bloom. You'll look at the bloom game first most likely (well maybe not you because you're complaining about it but 90% of people will look at the brighter more appealing picture first).

Same tactic they use to sell HDTVs. Brighter the better. Every TV in a store has Backlight at maximum and contrast all the way up.

Same reason why most females in videogames/movies/tvshows are attractive despite the fact that 70% of this country's women are overweight or obese. Because no one wants to look at the reality, we want to see a bunch of attractive people in our media consumption.

 

[sxr7171]

BrightCandle pretty much hit the nail on the head, it's the rendering equivalent of camera tricks and airbrushing magazine covers. Lots of bloom hides lots of graphical blemishes, and cranking up the bloom is "cheaper" than cranking up the AA, so it makes the game look a little nicer on lower end machines even if it looks unnatural.

The thing is that I personally crank up the AA because I have enough power to do so. And this excessive bloom is less useful to me with the settings I use. Which is why "Ultra" settings in games IMHO should reduce bloom while increasing AA.

 

[sxr7171]

Put 2 games next to eachother. One with natural lighting and one with bloom. You'll look at the bloom game first most likely (well maybe not you because you're complaining about it but 90% of people will look at the brighter more appealing picture first).

Same tactic they use to sell HDTVs. Brighter the better. Every TV in a store has Backlight at maximum and contrast all the way up.

Same reason why most females in videogames/movies/tvshows are attractive despite the fact that 70% of this country's women are overweight or obese. Because no one wants to look at the reality, we want to see a bunch of attractive people in our media consumption.

Very true. I use a plasma myself. But people used to LCDs wonder why my TV is so dim. When I see their TVs I think everything looks like a cartoon. It's unbelievable how much brightness and saturation they come with out of the box.

 

[Raduque]

Very true. I use a plasma myself. But people used to LCDs wonder why my TV is so dim. When I see their TVs I think everything looks like a cartoon. It's unbelievable how much brightness and saturation they come with out of the box.

Those people just don't know what a good picture is supposed to look like, nor do they know how (or care) to adjust the settings to MAKE it look correct.

My LED isn't professionally calibrated, but I eyeballed it to look "right". Dark scenes are dark and bright scenes are bright, and nothing is washed out. In a dark room, the TV disappears and the picture just seems to hang there, and it always amazes people.

 

[BFG10K]

Bloom isn't bad per-se. But like anything, there are good implementations and bad implementations.

 

[kukreknecmi]

Is it my settings? I've tried to adjust contrast to reduce it as much as possible. I've tried to disable bloom. That only causes another kind of unnatural wash out of highlights. How do we get the message across to developers? Otherwise gorgeous games like AC4 and BF4 look ridiculous.

What's your card, 660ti?

 

[Stuka87]

I actually like bloom in some cases. i think it worked very well for the Mass Effect series. I feel it added to the art direction and that the game would look worse without it.

But there are cases where i think it feels very out of place.

 

[PPB]

Cause games would look like crap if they intended to copycat real life, at least with current rendering techniques in video games.


In the rendering scenario, there is a (not so new) software called Lumion, it uses a video game engine (Cryengine 2, methinks) and to render animations and walkovers in real time as it does, it has to apply absurds ammounts of blur playing with DOF to not look as crappy as it would be otherwise (even compared to biased renderers).

To sum up, we arent quite there in terms of real time ray/path tracing. Unlike some over-utopistic people, I really dont think that we really need unbiased path tracing, its really overkill for the purpose we are aiming at. You can do Global Illumination, mixing techniques for the first couple of bounces and for the rest of them like some biased rederers do, saving a crapload of time and getting 95% of the quality of an unbiased method, AND still looking a lot better than AO methods.

 

[OCGuy]

There are games that look great with and without it, but they aren't numerous.

 

[TeknoBug]

Since I don't have good vision, bloom bugs the living shit out of me and I disable it in every game I play. Bloom makes it look like I need to rub my eyes all the time, without glasses I see halos around lights, I don't need games to emulate this for me.

 

[tential]

Those people just don't know what a good picture is supposed to look like, nor do they know how (or care) to adjust the settings to MAKE it look correct.

My LED isn't professionally calibrated, but I eyeballed it to look "right". Dark scenes are dark and bright scenes are bright, and nothing is washed out. In a dark room, the TV disappears and the picture just seems to hang there, and it always amazes people.

Lol my friend was mindboggled when I mentioned calibration. He was like wtf you calibrate your TV? Is mien calibrated?!?!?!!?!?!

People don't care. I went over to AVSforum and used one of hte predone calibrations available for my HDTV. I don't mind the art direction of Bloom at all really though. I think it's odd to see Bloom in a horror game or a serious shooter (War isn't bright/pretty) but other than that I don't really care.

Very true. I use a plasma myself. But people used to LCDs wonder why my TV is so dim. When I see their TVs I think everything looks like a cartoon. It's unbelievable how much brightness and saturation they come with out of the box.

I got an LED solely because the colors popped in store more. Even though I knew the Plasma had better accuracy. I promised to get myself a plasma later but now that they aren't making new ones and OLED is coming out, I'll wait for an OLED.