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[Blinck]

I prefer the "before" Fallout 3 shot by a long mile, actually

Bayonetta 1 had some awful color ( and "anti-colo" ) filters on top of the screen the whole time. Basically ruined the look of the game, IMO.
Bayonetta 2 also has them but are very much toned down and don't de-saturate/darken so the game basically looks 10x better.

 

[-SD-]

Chromatic aberration, motion blur, color correction/filtering, film grain and depth of field.

I'd also add lens flare/dirt/smear but only if that's NOT used in a realistic manner. Playing as a floating movie camera is a very annoying trend, these days.

 

[MickeyKnox]

Chromatic Aberration takes it.

Any developer that approves of their game shipping with it has about as much taste as Donald Trump.

 

[Crimsonclaw111]

Film grain, motion blur, fxaa, and shit filters like the one in Resident Evil 5 are disgusting.

Fable 3 ruined motion blur for me forever.

 

[Concept17]

Chromatic aberration because dumb fucking art leads in this industry have a rock hard boner for it, for no logical reason, and insist on locking it permanently on instead of contextualising it as an effect suited for particular scenarios and sequences.

It's not that chromatic aberration should never be used, it's that its use is frequently completely out of context and utterly irrelevant to the art direction of the game in question. It's a tacky, ugly, horrendous method of hiding your rendering oddities. Like a next level ultra low quality DOF, managing to usurp the latter in how trashy it makes the game look.

It suits grungy horror games going for a low budget, found footage style (eg: ZombiU). It suits scenes or perspectives meant to emulate low quality cameras and screens. It suits contextual incidents in science fiction games, or to highlight particular abilities in others.

Take some fucking art classes or something and just stop.

As someone going to art school to get into the industry, I can tell you 90% of the students are more interested in the "Easy Button" and shiny bells and whistles than they are learning art.

 

[NCR Redslayer]

Motion Blur, especially GTA3 version, Trails.
http://gta.wikia.com/Trails

 

[Woo-Fu]

While Oblivion was a bit too heavy on the bloom, Syndicate lent on the button and fell through the desk.

Syndicate definitely the best/worst example. The bloom made the game unplayable for me. 10m in, instant headache.

I'm all for artistic vision but in the name of all that is holy give us config options for these things.

 

[NaDannMaGoGo]

I think if it's implemented well it can actually make a game look better. That's why film (which is 24 FPS) can look a hell of a lot smoother than a game running at 24 FPS.

Yeh but good luck simulating motion blur that's even remotely on par with the natural motion blur you get from filming.

 

[Serrato]

I think BF3 was the worst of them all, but I didn't play BF4, so I don't know if they upped their game or were more... conservative.

 

[Bl@de]

Chromatic Abberation, Lens Flare, "dirty lense effect", Bloom, Motion blur ... there are a lot of them

 

[Cmerrill]

Chromatic Aberration and Film Grain are the worst.

There should always be a option to turn them off.

 

[ChronotriggerJM]

I typically don't dislike any graphical effects if the developers though it enhanced the aesthetic. That said, anything over-done is never a good thing. Bloom is the biggest offender in my opinion. I don't know what the hell Nintendo was thinking with Wind Waker HD :/

Also, proper motion blur is amazing! God of War 3 people!

 

[emag]

Dark Souls shitfilter. RE5 brownfilter. Lighting effects in faux-retro games.

 

[Kevyt]

What are some other examples of chromatic aberration in games? I honestly wouldn't know if Destiny had CA right away unless I was told.

 

[CassidyIzABeast]

chromatic horeshit

 

[shark sandwich]

The image on the right is terrible. While the first one isn't great, the second one is obnoxious.

Reminds me of some Skyrim mods where they just over-saturate everything and completely kill any consistency or style the game has.

Here's another shot with less bloom. IMO it looks FAR better. I especially liked it with the mod that puts foliage on the trees.

 

[EatChildren]

DOF and motion blur are great when used correctly, in my opinion. They're logical implementation of cinematic standards in a medium that shares many similarities in the way games are presented through virtual cameras. DOF can be used both as a game system (hindering clarity) as well as a means of framing objects (DOF behind object within crosshair). Motion blur is an aesthetic, but to me can look fantastic in the same way any other effect can. They're games after all, realism not always the goal.

On the other hand permanent CA is the dumbass I-don't-know-what-I'm-doing end of the art spectrum. 99% of the time it serves no purpose mechanically or aesthetically. It's pure shit.

As someone going to art school to get into the industry, I can tell you 90% of the students are more interested in the "Easy Button" and shiny bells and whistles than they are learning art.

Fuck.

 

[Orayn]

Dark Souls shitfilter. RE5 brownfilter. Lighting effects in faux-retro games.

What "shitfilter?" Dark Souls has DoF and motion blur, but doesn't use any color grading outside of a few specific areas, and most of those are bluish or reddish.

 

[oneida]

chromatic aberration and film grain look terrific in alien isolation.

 

[jelly]

Depth of field. I don't understand, do devs not have eyes and understand how the world looks, it makes no sense.

 

[Leafhopper]

While Oblivion was a bit too heavy on the bloom, Syndicate lent on the button and fell through the desk.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_MlSMMV5ek

Holy cow.

 

[neoflcl]

Chromatic aberration because dumb fucking art leads in this industry have a rock hard boner for it, for no logical reason, and insist on locking it permanently on instead of contextualising it as an effect suited for particular scenarios and sequences.

It's not that chromatic aberration should never be used, it's that its use is frequently completely out of context and utterly irrelevant to the art direction of the game in question. It's a tacky, ugly, horrendous method of hiding your rendering oddities. Like a next level ultra low quality DOF, managing to usurp the latter in how trashy it makes the game look.

It suits grungy horror games going for a low budget, found footage style (eg: ZombiU). It suits scenes or perspectives meant to emulate low quality cameras and screens. It suits contextual incidents in science fiction games, or to highlight particular abilities in others.

Take some fucking art classes or something and just stop.

Couldn't have put it better, thank you. "Everything in moderation" comes to mind when it comes to chromatic aberration. Use it when it makes sense, not all the time! And as you guys have pointed out, there was a strikingly similar problem with bloom last-gen.

Edit: Also, I really like the idea of motion blur in games, and there's been a few cases where I've seen it really smooth things up in 30fps games. (I think it was Alien: Isolation where it was implemented really well? Could be misremembering, sorry)

The problem is, the implementation is so different from game-to-game that motion blur ends up looking great in some games, and awful, unrealistic, and jarring others. If more work and attention was put into this effect, it could (potentially) make a lot of games feel smoother at sub-60fps frame rates.

 

[Storm Kyleis]

Excessive depth of field is the one I dislike the most. I don't like blurriness in general, and how most Wii U games use it to hide aliasing.

 

[SliChillax]

What are some other examples of chromatic aberration in games? I honestly wouldn't know if Destiny had CA right away unless I was told.

Dying Light, Assassin's Creed Unity Dead Kings DLC, Payday 2 if I'm not mistaked etc

 

[thechristoph]

I think chromatic aberration looks cool, especially in a game like Destiny or Halo where you're some kind of roboman. It makes sense. What now.

 

[KORNdoggy]

Here's another shot with less bloom. IMO it looks FAR better. I especially liked it with the mod that puts foliage on the trees.

for a fallout zone it looks like you could get a serious gobfull of fresh air in the second one. it looks clean, not very atmospheric.

 

[MatrixMan.EXE]

The chromatic aberration on Lords of the Fallen for PS4 is so bad that you wouldn't believe the game is 1080p. It genuinely looks like its floating somewhere between 720 and 900. Just awful.

 

[EatChildren]

chromatic aberration and film grain look terrific in alien isolation.

This is a perfect example where the effects are aesthetically relevant and deeply ingrained in the source material. Isolation, in visual and audio production, is one of the best accomplishments of the industry this generation bar none. Creative Assembly knocked it out of the park.

Depth of field. I don't understand, do devs not have eyes and understand how the world looks, it makes no sense.

Video games are not real life just like film. If the argument is "the real world doesn't look like that" it's kinda moot.

 

[Kinyou]

Fallout 3: the pea soup-colored haze. What the hell is this even supposed to be? I guess ignorant people just think that radioactivity = green stuff, so more green means more radioactive! Thankfully there's the excellent Fellout mod that removes it. Here's the before/after:

Wouldn't the atmosphere be full of dust after a nuclear war? I can imagine that's why they did it this way

 

[SliChillax]

While Oblivion was a bit too heavy on the bloom, Syndicate lent on the button and fell through the desk.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_MlSMMV5ek

It was a bug if I recall correctly, it was later toned down in a patch.

 

[Loofy]

Overdone physics based animation. Im talking about Lara Crofts hair and Geralts skirt(from pax gameplay). It doesnt look realistic, it looks like theyre possessed.

 

[Unknown One]

Stop mimicking cameras the thread.

 

[OldRoutes]

Here's another shot with less bloom. IMO it looks FAR better. I especially liked it with the mod that puts foliage on the trees.

Nah, see, it's about Art Direction, not 'effects'.

You're just modding the game and remove the original, intended, art direction.

I'm not saying it's bad, but it's definitely part of the charm of Fallout 3/New Vegas.

 

[Atlas157]

I like a little motion blur in games, but FF Type-0 takes it way too far.

 

[NealMcCauley]

Motion Blur, especially GTA3 version, Trails.
http://gta.wikia.com/Trails

I thought it was worse in Vice City. Within five minutes of starting I remember turning it off because I was getting nauseous.

 

[MickeyKnox]

I think chromatic aberration looks cool, especially in a game like Destiny or Halo where you're some kind of roboman. It makes sense. What now.

I'm sure the Clavin pissing, No Fear and bullet hole decals on your car are fucking cool too.

 

[Solid Samus]

The image on the right is terrible. While the first one isn't great, the second one is obnoxious.

Reminds me of some Skyrim mods where they just over-saturate everything and completely kill any consistency or style the game has.

That makes no goddamn sense to me, man. People dislike the green sheen for the same reason people dislike the gold one that plagues Deus Ex: Human Revolution - it works against the art and the atmosphere far more often than it works to their benefit.

Comparing the removal of a color filter to actual modifications made to textures and lighting... that's real shitty. Calling the one on the right 'obnoxious' when that's the game's art unobscured and that's how the game itself looks on occasion... That's extra, extra shitty.
I mean, shit, you've played Fallout 3, right? If you had memory of what the vanilla game looked like in motion I don't know how you could look at the image on the right and see something anywhere near comparable to over-contrasted Skyrim mods where creative liberties are taken.

I prefer the "before" Fallout 3 shot by a long mile, actually

Imagine if that before shot was a full-screen game image that you played for a hundred hours. now imagine all that nice ingame art, all of the atmospherically divergent and unique settings in the game that lose that sense to a pointless green haze.

I doubt I could find a person who's played Fallout with and without Fellout and prefers the former. Although I'd leave it for the first playthrough, why not.

Wouldn't the atmosphere be full of dust after a nuclear war? I can imagine that's why they did it this way

Oh, that's the other thing the green haze helps to do. It helps to further devalue Fallout lore, like the series hasn't existed for over a decade.

I can't blame you because Bethesda themselves seem to have forgotten (with myriad proofs) that Fallout 3 takes place

over two hundred years

after the war

 

[shark sandwich]

What are some other examples of chromatic aberration in games? I honestly wouldn't know if Destiny had CA right away unless I was told.

Here's an example from Dying Light:

 

[Kodaman]

I'll never get why there are lens flare in games. I guess it was funny in the first game that did it.. now it's just stupid.

 

[Fbh]

I don't mind Chromatic aberration, depending on the game and situation it can look pretty good IMO.

I think most graphical effects can add to the game when used correctly.

The only one that comes to mind that I think makes the game look worse under any circumstance is film grain. I honestly don't see the appeal of it

 

[Overdoziz]

Depth of Field
Motion blur
Chromatic Aberration
Bloom
Grain filter
Piss filter

There are some exceptions but generally I turn off those effects instantly.

 

[Summer Haze]

Here's another shot with less bloom. IMO it looks FAR better. I especially liked it with the mod that puts foliage on the trees.

I still prefer the left image. It just suits the mood of the game more imo.

 

[The Albatross]

Depth of field. I don't understand, do devs not have eyes and understand how the world looks, it makes no sense.

Agreed here. I turn off depth of field in most games that give me the opportunity. I thought it was really jarring in GTA V X1/PS4 when you'd come out of cover and have a noticeable depth of field blurriness delay, like a half second or something. I didn't get what that added to the game other than a notch on the technical specs list... I've never gone around a corner and had to wait for my eyes to adjust to something before.

 

[Keby]

As someone going to art school to get into the industry, I can tell you 90% of the students are more interested in the "Easy Button" and shiny bells and whistles than they are learning art.

As someone almost out of art school. I second this.

My vote goes for over used DOF and Chromatic Abberation.

DOF gets to me more though. In an FPS I personally want to see everything clearly, but be blinded by all these post FX.
Why do devs have such an issue with clarity? Clarity is the name of the game!

 

[60EffPeeEss]

I remember playing Dragons Dogma on PS3 and the motion blur was just absolutely horrifying.

I got the 360 edition later and it wasn't present at all. The game suddenly became playable, I could see what I was doing.

Spoiler

Still hoping for that PC version ;_;

 

[Dennis]

Deus Ex HR piss filter

Worst design choice ever

 

[shark sandwich]

Wouldn't the atmosphere be full of dust after a nuclear war? I can imagine that's why they did it this way

Isn't Fallout 3 supposed to take place 200 years after the war?

 

[Wallach]

DOF and motion blur are great when used correctly, in my opinion. They're logical implementation of cinematic standards in a medium that shares many similarities in the way games are presented through virtual cameras. DOF can be used both as a game system (hindering clarity) as well as a means of framing objects (DOF behind object within crosshair). Motion blur is an aesthetic, but to me can look fantastic in the same way any other effect can. They're games after all, realism not always the goal.

On the other hand permanent CA is the dumbass I-don't-know-what-I'm-doing end of the art spectrum. 99% of the time it serves no purpose mechanically or aesthetically. It's pure shit.

The other thing is that DOF and blur are things that make sense in context of how you actually see (at least when done properly). CA makes no sense unless there is supposed to be a literal camera giving us the point of view. I can sort of understand the logic in a game like Destiny, but it is so stupid to see CA in games like Bloodborne or Lords of the Fallen.

 

[adamsapple]

I'll never get why there are lens flare in games. I guess it was funny in the first game that did it.. now it's just stupid.

Lens flare is good if done stylistically, eg Mass Effect

 

[nib95]

Does Motion Blur counts?
Dont understand why games have it..

To give a better representation of motion?