Overused graphical effects

[AetherWolf]

(Double post. My bad.)

 

[veloper]

Not sure what I dislike more
Bloom, Depth of field or motion blur.

These effects simulate the artefacts of poorly used camera's, not human eyesight. Unless I'm roleplaying a short-sighted drunk.

Incase you've never noticed, your eyes will take into account depth of field, especially if you have an object close to your eye and you're focussing on something further away.

A good example is this, if I'm aiming down a gun and focussing on the front sight, the butt and back of the receiver are going to appear out of focus in comparison to the front sight.

And before you say anything, I've never experienced a single problem with my vision in all my life.

Not to mention that depth of field is not an example of 'poor use' of a camera, it's an effect designed to draw your eye towards what is in focus.

No, it is poor use of a camera. A good photographer focusses on what's important. DoF doesn't do this.

The human eye immediately focusses on anything that has your attention. Effectively everything you notice is in focus. Again DoF doesn't do this. It just blurs everything at a distance.

 

[captaincabbage]

If it's done right, bloom is brilliant. Got Uncharted: Drake's Fortune yesterday and the jungles are lush. Not bad for a game made 3 years ago. I bet Uncharted 2 looks much better.

lol if Bloom is done wrong then it's just a pain in the arse. And yes, Uncharted 2 looks much better than the first.

Another game where I think bloom was used perfectly was Red Dead Redemption. That whole bloody game looks brilliant.

 

[Caliostro]

Usually Bloom is the most shamelessly abused. Also because it's sometimes used to "hide" some graphical imperfections. After all, it's hard to tell jaggies or low res textures when you can't fucking see anything.

Also a couple of years ago the rage was to make EVERYTHING shiny. Everyone looked like they were made of latex or metal.

http://gangles.ca/2008/07/18/bloom-disasters/
This old article shows the most triumphant examples. I also hate excessive realism in general.

One of the reasons I liked Mirror's Edge was that it avoided the "Real is Brown" trope almost completely.

On the other hand, Mirror's Edge is one of the most criminal examples of a bloom disaster. Bloom. Bloom everywhere. And god help you if you run from an indoor or underground area into an open and sunny outside... Say goodbye to your retina.

 

[MrEnigami]

Personally, I think 3D. Yeah; I went there. There's too much focus on having the grittiest, most realistic graphics. Why doesn't retro get any love? T^T

EDIT: fixed typo

 

[Tupolev]

stuff

No, it is poor use of a camera. A good photographer focusses on what's important. DoF doesn't do this.

I'm not sure you know what depth of field actually is. "Focusing on what's important" in a shot is an example of a photographer using depth of field. For example, a photographer might use a shallow depth of field focusing on an important person in a shot to emphasize that person's presence.

 

[Ironic]

Jam Blood on the screen when you get shot. It's a handy damage indicator but it seems like every single game needs to scale up the jam factor amount of blood.

It just gets irritating.

I'm looking at you Call Of Duty:Jam Black Ops.

 

[Zero_ctrl]

Not sure what I dislike more
Bloom, Depth of field or motion blur.

These effects simulate the artefacts of poorly used camera's, not human eyesight. Unless I'm roleplaying a short-sighted drunk.

Incase you've never noticed, your eyes will take into account depth of field, especially if you have an object close to your eye and you're focussing on something further away.

A good example is this, if I'm aiming down a gun and focussing on the front sight, the butt and back of the receiver are going to appear out of focus in comparison to the front sight.

And before you say anything, I've never experienced a single problem with my vision in all my life.

Not to mention that depth of field is not an example of 'poor use' of a camera, it's an effect designed to draw your eye towards what is in focus.

No, it is poor use of a camera. A good photographer focusses on what's important. DoF doesn't do this.

The human eye immediately focusses on anything that has your attention. Effectively everything you notice is in focus. Again DoF doesn't do this. It just blurs everything at a distance.

A good DoF is hard to notice.
Remember that.

Crappy ones, however...

E: Quotes were off

 

[Zipa]

Motion blur and Film grain from ME, srsly why did bioware waste time on them when they look aweful?

 

[AmrasCalmacil]

No, it is poor use of a camera. A good photographer focusses on what's important. DoF doesn't do this.

The human eye immediately focusses on anything that has your attention. Effectively everything you notice is in focus. Again DoF doesn't do this. It just blurs everything at a distance.

I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to get a little condescending here.

Have you ever even tried photography or film-making? Or perhaps aimed down the sights of a weapon?

For the first two, depth of field is not some cheap little gimmick, it's a rather important aspect when used, one that immediately draws the viewer's attention to what needs to be seen, whether it's in the background or the foreground, one can generally use the camera to focus on whatever is important in the shot.

And in real life, depth of field will show when you're aiming down the sights of a weapon, you need to see what's past the crosshair and that's all, given how close it generally is to your eye (and I don't mean rammed right into it) the rest of the gun will appear out of focus.

 

[A Pious Cultist]

DOF with iron sights always looks great to me. You wouldnt naturally be able to focus on it if you had a gun that close to your face in real life.

 

[blankedboy]

Bloom and 3D.
(shut up, I love motion blur. in zeno clash i turned the resolution to 720x400 just so it'd look good -.-)

 

[Baneat]

DOF with iron sights always looks great to me. You wouldnt naturally be able to focus on it if you had a gun that close to your face in real life.

Depth is great, though terrible if you want to get the best score possible :/

 

[imnot]

Jam Blood on the screen when you get shot. It's a handy damage indicator but it seems like every single game needs to scale up the jam factor amount of blood.

It just gets irritating.

I'm looking at you Call Of Duty:Jam Black Ops.

Holy shit, if it where called jam ops I would actually buy it!

 

[Mr.Napier]

I got to say jiggle physics

 

[Minky_man]

Flashes on the screen for me, mainly found in late 90s games but there's still some about now. And why does almost every game featuring a sword have to have a quick flash of white when ever a blow is landed?

 

[DustyDrB]

Motion blur. How is that a good idea? Makes me dizzy.

 

[spartandude]

When i game uses colours only from the dirt spectrum and forgets that battles in lush green fields dont immediately turn grey or brown as soon as a battle starts