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[Shin Johnpv]

When DoF is used right it can be a very subtle and beautiful thing to add, when used wrong it shrinks the size of everything. That's been my big problem with alot of next gen games, there is this over use of really shallow DoF that causes everything to have this 6 inch tall feel to it because even things that are really close are blurred and it just isn't right. It almost makes everything feel like it was shot with the same type of lens you would photograph bugs with.

 

[XiaNaphryz]

3dfx introduced depth of field back in 1999.

:|

But...but...next-gen!

 

[theultimo]

But...but...next-gen!

Some say that VSA-100 is still next gen with theT-Buffer Effects such as motion blur effects and DOF, just never used though (and having no T+L Gimped it for a DX 7 Part, not only that the V5 6000 was WAY too power hungry for the time)

 

[Lobster]

More sexy pics please.

 

[Haunted]

More sexy pics please.

.


If there's one good thing coming from this discussion, it's the nice pictures being posted.

 

[TheWolf]

 

[_Alkaline_]

 

[AVclub]

Photography people please correct me if I'm wrong. My feeling is that there shouldn't be any real obvious depth of field blurring in a wide shot, especially one wide enough to show planets in space. In cameras, it's only really an issue if you're zoomed into something and focused on the point. At least that's the impression I get from my limited exposure (pun intended) to the world of photography.

 

[John_B]

I welcome all effects that has a positive influence on the visuals. However just like with spices and cooking, effects can be overdone. It's a balance issue.

 

[SapientWolf]

 

[TheIkariWarrior]

that's sweet

 

[BrokenFiction]

Every time I see these screens, I still go "wow".

 

[Gahiggidy]

what about spark blur!?

I'd like to see bump-mapped sparks. Now that would be impressive.

 

[thatbox]

The concept of HDR in games confuses the **** out of me - most games up to this point have squeezed everything into a given range and that's what you work with. So is HDR in games the opposite of HDR in photos - essentially pushing the window out of the dark room into overexposed territory, where the point of it in photography is to bring it back into the range you're physically capable of using? That's how it seems to have been used, at least. People see some blown out scene in that HL2 HDR level and go OHMIGOD HDR, when you're really clipping your histogram!

Bloom is overused, and people need to be more careful with it.

DoF PISSES THE HELL OUT OF ME when it's not done right, like in Windwaker or Super Mario Sunshine. When I look at something, I expect it to be in focus. If it's not I get mad. Feel free to use it in cutscenes, or in circumstances like that Dead Rising shot where the only thing you could possibly be looking at is that goofy schmuck right in front of you. (Also LBP, obviously.)

Motion blur is also used too much, I feel. It's disorienting when the screen blurs more than my eye perceives/expects it to. Be judicious with these things, please ;_;

 

[Gahiggidy]

The only way DoF would really make physical sense is if the game had som way of knowing what you are focusing at. Otherwise it is, as already mentioned, just a "gimmick" effect that makes the game look more like a prerecorded movie, which I guess can look nice with some games.

The Wii add-on visor is reported to track people's focus... so there is no reason developers can't use that info to create a dynamic DOF. Correct?

 

[SapientWolf]

The Lost Planet pic demonstrates how much nicer the game looks with motion blur = on.

The motion blurred explosions in the Lost Planet trailer looked so good I thought the game footage was prerendered.

 

[mrkgoo]

The concept of HDR in games confuses the **** out of me - most games up to this point have squeezed everything into a given range and that's what you work with. So is HDR in games the opposite of HDR in photos - essentially pushing the window out of the dark room into overexposed territory, where the point of it in photography is to bring it back into the range you're physically capable of using? That's how it seems to have been used, at least. People see some blown out scene in that HL2 HDR level and go OHMIGOD HDR, when you're really clipping your histogram!

Bloom is overused, and people need to be more careful with it.

DoF PISSES THE HELL OUT OF ME when it's not done right, like in Windwaker or Super Mario Sunshine. When I look at something, I expect it to be in focus. If it's not I get mad. Feel free to use it in cutscenes, or in circumstances like that Dead Rising shot where the only thing you could possibly be looking at is that goofy schmuck right in front of you. (Also LBP, obviously.)

Motion blur is also used too much, I feel. It's disorienting when the screen blurs more than my eye perceives/expects it to. Be judicious with these things, please ;_;

Hmm. Imagine a FPS which has the subject you're pointing at in a narrow DOF, which constantly changes as you point at different things, and like you were carrying a 200mm lens everywhere.

 

[thatbox]

Hmm. Imagine a FPS which has the subject you're pointing at in a narrow DOF, which constantly changes as you point at different things, and like you were carrying a 200mm lens everywhere.

That would make sense! I haven't played Dead Rising beyond smashing benches and things into zombies last E3, but if the TAEK PIKTURE mode had you managing DoF like that it could be fun. So far though, both Pokemon Snap and the Fatal Frames have had infinite DoF, depriving me of photography nerd entertainment

 

[Bildi]

Photography people please correct me if I'm wrong. My feeling is that there shouldn't be any real obvious depth of field blurring in a wide shot, especially one wide enough to show planets in space. In cameras, it's only really an issue if you're zoomed into something and focused on the point. At least that's the impression I get from my limited exposure (pun intended) to the world of photography.

Generally yes - if something is a few metres from the lens and you are focussed on that with a short focal length (wide angle), the background to infinity will also be in focus.

The effect in Mario Galaxy is therefore really a special effect rather than trying to replicate reality. From the little I've seen of the game in videos it looks really nice. I think the reason it works well is that it's more like macro photography where for instance you have a flower in sharp focus with the background all blurred. Or actually, like my avatar I just realised. :lol

If you had a landscape like say in Super Mario 64 and it gradually got more blurry the further you go, it would probably look weird (a bit like Mario Sunshine really).

 

[mrkgoo]

That would make sense! I haven't played Dead Rising beyond smashing benches and things into zombies last E3, but if the TAEK PIKTURE mode had you managing DoF like that it could be fun. So far though, both Pokemon Snap and the Fatal Frames have had infinite DoF, depriving me of photography nerd entertainment

You know, I've thought of a software program that would be reated as a fully 3D engine with beautiful envrionments - with the main focus on graphics and lighting. It's less a game and more a photography tool - where you could take various lenses, sensors etc...and go and take pictures. You'd have full access to standard camera modes (AV, TV, manual etc), a large range of lens focal lengths, apertures and so on...and the whole point of the software was to go about taking pictures and learning about exposure. Basically a photography simulator for photo nuts. The environments could be a varied bunch, nature, urban, some models for portraiture, some still life, moving subjects etc... and you basically had free reign to go and just take pictures and it would simulate real world effects of DOF, motion blur etc.

Maybe only a photo nut would really love it, but I loved games like pokemon snap. You could also argue why not just go and take photos for real? Well, I guess the same argument against racing/flight simulators - the gear itself can be expensive... Maybe Canon can sponsor development and market it as a learning tool. Lol, I am a nerd.

 

[Mr.Potato Head]

Seriously, it looks wicked - Super Mario Galaxy, Little Big Planet, and everything else.

The use of it more and more, and becoming a default graphical effect, I approve. Helluva lot better than depth fogging.

What other tech would you like to see become standard? OR that you fear becoming overused (lens flare!)?

next gen? LOL Come on.. take a look at the pic that guy that replied right below your so called next gen depth of feild tech that wii uses has to say about true next gen effects.

 

[Bildi]

The concept of HDR in games confuses the **** out of me - most games up to this point have squeezed everything into a given range and that's what you work with. So is HDR in games the opposite of HDR in photos - essentially pushing the window out of the dark room into overexposed territory, where the point of it in photography is to bring it back into the range you're physically capable of using? That's how it seems to have been used, at least. People see some blown out scene in that HL2 HDR level and go OHMIGOD HDR, when you're really clipping your histogram!

I think you're right about HDR. I am not a computer guru and my HDR experiences are mostly in photography so someone better informed might be able to step in with a proper explanation.

But as I understand it, if pure white is assigned a value of say 100, then a light source that is brighter than that can be assigned a value of say 500. This means that the reflections from that 500 light source will be brighter. But it also means that when that 500 light source is displayed, it must be clipped to 100 on a monitor or TV. And so must all light sources with a value of between 100 and 500. Hence you get blown highlights and bloom.

I'm not a fan of it either, I hate the idea that I am not seeing all of the picture that is supposed to be there whether light or shadows are being clipped. Sadly, everyday consumers seem to think this makes for a better picture - just look at all the televisions with dynamic contrast systems that clip dark colours to black because it makes it look more 'contrasty'.

 

[SnakeXs]

That would make sense! I haven't played Dead Rising beyond smashing benches and things into zombies last E3, but if the TAEK PIKTURE mode had you managing DoF like that it could be fun. So far though, both Pokemon Snap and the Fatal Frames have had infinite DoF, depriving me of photography nerd entertainment

I agree 100%. I've always wished for "better" more diverse camera modes in games like that, especially DR.

Ah well, driving games give me something to much on. Lol.

 

[mrkgoo]

next gen? LOL Come on.. take a look at the pic that guy that replied right below your so called next gen depth of feild tech that wii uses has to say about true next gen effects.

Jesus christ! How many times do I have to say that I'm aware it has been used in the past, but the use of it during the next gen will become increasingly prevalent - of which I approve - so I'm aware it wasn't created on the PS3/Wii or what have you, but with the power of the next, gen it has potential to become a default effect.

In fact, I commented on the Crysis pic, and I thought it did lots of stuff really well - including DOF, and most of those effects weren't created during this 'next-gen', but the use of which has improved and the fact these will become more prevalent now is a bonus.

Ok?

The point of this thread was to spark (lol) discussion about technologies you would like to see more prevalent in this next-gen, just as DOF effects are more frequently being used, because it is an effect I like.

LOL COME ON.

 

[65536]

Dof in Oblivion is nice looking. It's not overdone, it just makes a little contrast between foreground and background stuff (the amount of blur and distance is also adjustable).

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v95/Confidence-Man/dof2.jpg

This shot is a perfect example of DoF going horribly wrong. It's basically the exact opposite of how it should be - if anything, the grass in the foreground should be out of focus, with the rest of the scene being sharp. Your eye is drawn to the bottom-left of the image, rather than what the player is looking at.

The concept of HDR in games confuses the **** out of me - most games up to this point have squeezed everything into a given range and that's what you work with. So is HDR in games the opposite of HDR in photos - essentially pushing the window out of the dark room into overexposed territory, where the point of it in photography is to bring it back into the range you're physically capable of using? That's how it seems to have been used, at least. People see some blown out scene in that HL2 HDR level and go OHMIGOD HDR, when you're really clipping your histogram!

As you said, HDR is confusing due to the way it's used. In photography, HDR means capturing several exposures and merging them together to capture a huge range from bright to dark. In gaming, HDR is used to give the scene a high dynamic range, outside what the camera/eye they're simulating is capable of capturing, hence the blown out highlights and clipped shadows. If anything it should be called LDR, as they're essentially giving the "camera" a lower dynamic range that it can capture. The main problem with HDR is that it's mostly used to provide bright colours everywhere which means over-exposing. When I'm looking at anything in real-life, unless it's extremely bright, it's always exposed properly. Now there are times when you can actually see blooming/over-exposure - if you come out of a dark room and go outside on a bright day, for a fraction of a second, the sky is blown out - but then you squint your eyes to stop as much light getting in (same as adjusting aperture on a camera) and then when your eyes adjust, you gradually open them wider. This doesn't happen in games. They tend to take too long to adjust to a scene, place too much emphasis on only what the player is specifically looking at, and give scenes to much dynamic range. I'm not denying that there are areas where highlights should be blown out, and shadows should be clipped, but if the majority of your sky is white most of the time, you're doing something wrong. In reality, only the very edges of clouds tend to look pure white, if at all. (and that's the sort of place where a slight bloom should be used)

DoF PISSES THE HELL OUT OF ME when it's not done right, like in Windwaker or Super Mario Sunshine. When I look at something, I expect it to be in focus. If it's not I get mad. Feel free to use it in cutscenes, or in circumstances like that Dead Rising shot where the only thing you could possibly be looking at is that goofy schmuck right in front of you. (Also LBP, obviously.)

Agreed. Dead Rising is a great game for these effects really; they seem to have done a good job replicating these effects and knowing where to actually use them. The motion blur in it was generally quite subtle, being used where it should, rather than on everything.

 

[mrkgoo]

DoF PISSES THE HELL OUT OF ME when it's not done right, like in Windwaker or Super Mario Sunshine. When I look at something, I expect it to be in focus. If it's not I get mad. Feel free to use it in cutscenes, or in circumstances like that Dead Rising shot where the only thing you could possibly be looking at is that goofy schmuck right in front of you. (Also LBP, obviously.)

For the record, did you meant tha Wind Waker/SMS got it right? Or not?

 

[Bildi]

This shot is a perfect example of DoF going horribly wrong. It's basically the exact opposite of how it should be - if anything, the grass in the foreground should be out of focus, with the rest of the scene being sharp. Your eye is drawn to the bottom-left of the image, rather than what the player is looking at.

Agreed - this is completely wrong. It feels as if your eyes are getting pulled as you try to focus but can't. Frighteningly bad and I can't understand how someone can develop something like that and think its result is a good thing.

For the record, did you meant tha Wind Waker/SMS got it right? Or not?

I read it as he doesn't like it, which I can understand and agree with. Super Mario Galaxy is extremely nicely done though (IMO).

 

[Mustaphadamus]

what game is that, it looks darn good.

 

[65536]

For the record, did you meant tha Wind Waker/SMS got it right? Or not?

Windwaker/SMS' DoF was far too close most of the time, I think it was just used instead of fogging really.

Agreed - this is completely wrong. It feels as if your eyes are getting pulled as you try to focus but can't. Frighteningly bad and I can't understand how someone can develop something like that and think its result is a good thing.

Just to be clear, that's a mod, it's not something Bethesda put into the game, and I can't understand why someone would want it to look like that either.

 

[mrkgoo]

Agreed - this is completely wrong. It feels as if your eyes are getting pulled as you try to focus but can't. Frighteningly bad and I can't understand how someone can develop something like that and think its result is a good thing.

Also agreed. At first I thought it was just over done, but what you is very real. It's like the developers don't fully grasp what DOF is. I mean, why would you focus on the foreground grass? It'd be neat if it was just a moving DOF to get to the main subject though.

I read it as he doesn't like it, which I can understand and agree with. Super Mario Galaxy is extremely nicely done though (IMO).

I read it aas first as reading done right, but it can be either. I don't recall the effect from those games enough to determine whther it was done right. I remember noticing it in Wind Waker, and looking wuite cool, in screenshots at least.

 

[dfyb]

what game is that, it looks darn good.

...mario galaxy

 

[thatbox]

For the record, did you meant tha Wind Waker/SMS got it right? Or not?

I disliked it. At first I thought there was something wrong with my connection to my monitor. I was looking at the roof of a shack on Isle Delfino and it was blurry - why? It perturbed me, especially in SMS, a platformer, where learning the sharp details of your environment is important to your ability to navigate that same environment How silly, I thought!

 

[Kangu]

Depth of field goes on the checklist of next gen effects/features that crysis does better than anything else, along with:

- Dynamic lighting
- HDR
- Motion Blur
- Animation
- Physics
- Soft shadows
- Ambient particles
- Destructability
- Parallax mapping
- Normal mapping
- Beam lighting
- Everything
- Fluid simulation
- Water effects
- LOD

One single engine basically owns every next gen effect concievable. It's incredible. There's not a single next gen effect that you could point out to me, in a game, that isn't being done better (WAY WAY) better in Crysis.

 

[Bildi]

Just to be clear, that's a mod, it's not something Bethesda put into the game, and I can't understand why someone would want it to look like that either.

I thought it might come across that way - yes I meant 'someone' rather than Bethesda. It certainly is an 'interesting' effect... :lol

I read it aas first as reading done right, but it can be either. I don't recall the effect from those games enough to determine whther it was done right. I remember noticing it in Wind Waker, and looking wuite cool, in screenshots at least.

Yes, I didn't find it 'terrible' in either game - but I do remember being on the beach outside the amusement park in SMS and thinking it was a little odd. Generally I didn't like it.

Wind Waker's was a little odd too but I guess since the islands were mostly fairly small it wasn't too bad. I basically accepted it as an effect necessary to reduce lots of aliased edges in the distance and accepted it even more when I pulled out the telescope and things then were in focus.

Still, while it was 'odd' in those games, somehow it is 'jaw-dropping' in Galaxy.

 

[Gattsu25]

hmm...

I liek

 

[noizbot]

Depth of field tricks can create really striking images even if it's not used in a realistic fashion. The video quality sucks but there are a few moments in the recent Mario Galaxy trailer that I can already tell are going to look really fantastic from an artistic standpoint.

Motion blur, on the other hand, is absolutely vital to portraying realistic movement and I feel that it is by far the most important "next gen" tech. Our eyes expect motion blur on moving objects and when all games employ motion blur to some degree, older games are going to look weird. I was really impressed when I saw the motion blur on Lost Planet, which was really the first time I witnessed motion blur used in a game on a nice HD set. I could tell immediately that I was seeing the future of motion design in games.

 

[Confidence Man]

This shot is a perfect example of DoF going horribly wrong. It's basically the exact opposite of how it should be - if anything, the grass in the foreground should be out of focus, with the rest of the scene being sharp. Your eye is drawn to the bottom-left of the image, rather than what the player is looking at.

When you're playing you're not actually looking at some point in the distance as you're walking around, you're watching what's right in front of you.

 

[thatbox]

When you're playing you're not actually looking at some point in the distance as you're walking around, you're watching what's right in front of you.

... while also looking at some point in the distance where I want to be.

RE: motion blur - I'm okay with it for useful purposes (not talking about artistic instances) as long as it doesn't exceed the motion blur that would be generated by the subject in 1/24th of a second and consistently represents the actual motion in the game. I'm conditioned for film, not smearfests.

 

[Warm Machine]

HDR is probably the hardest thing to control in game development right now. The tools to create HDR images and textures are extremely primitive. Even rendering out true HDR images out of a modelling package is a pain because only certain renderers support the floating point format.

Basically with HDR, the outside Sun is thousands of times brighter than a light bulb. The human eye can see quite well in an artificially lit room just like it can see well outside. A film or digital camera cannot expose for the inside of a room and the outside daylight simultaneously without one being too dark or the other being too bright.

The question is...why not make everything bright everywhere so insides look like outsides in terms of light power so everything is even and we don't have to use this effect at all? Well that was the traditional old school way of doing things. If everything is even the realism in the lighting disappears. You have to remember that because this effect occurs in nature, you have been exposed to its effect since birth and in your conscious you can recognize its effects.

Image playing a game where there is outside sunlit areas with interconnecting tunnels linking them. Traditional graphics would render the interior of the tunnel as bright as the daylight outside. That isn't visually realistic and really it isn't interesting. HDR would render the tunnel near black looking in and brightish on the inside of it. This mechanic actually then lends itself to gameplay and design by allowing the tunnels to be somewhat dangeous places to walk into from the bright outer areas.

This is simply a tool or a brush for the artists to paint with. So far I think Lost Planet has come the closest to using HDR extremely realistically and subtlety much like your eyes would handle it in a real situation.

 

[Confidence Man]

... while also looking at some point in the distance where I want to be.

So you want a dof that shifts focus depending on where your eye is at any given moment? Given the game can't actually do that, it makes the most sense that the foreground should be in focus regardless of where you're eye is actually looking.

Most landmarks in Oblivion disappear at a distance anyway, so there's not a whole lot to focus on besides nondescript hills and trees outside of the Imperial City.

 

[Kangu]

So you want a dof that shifts focus depending on where your eye is at any given moment? Given the game can't actually do that, it makes the most sense that the foreground should be in focus regardless of where you're eye is actually looking.

Most landmarks in Oblivion disappear at a distance anyway, so there's not a whole lot to focus on besides nondescript hills and trees outside of the Imperial City.

Actually, it would make the most sense for whatever's in the center of the screen to be in focus, i.e. what you're looking at. Overall it can still present too many problems which is why depth of field in a first person title is retarded. It can work very well for third person titles though.

 

[thatbox]

Traditional graphics would render the interior of the tunnel as bright as the daylight outside...

Unless the guy in charge of the tunnel was like, hey, let's make our tunnel dark. I don't see how HDR has any bearing on what I see on my screen, beyond being enthusiastic about overexposing things habitually or occasionally. Before this becomes a divisive issue I want to come out on the side of being able to see what I am doing in games, in general.

[quote="Confidence Man']
So you want a dof that shifts focus depending on where your eye is at any given moment? Given the game can't actually do that, it makes the most sense that the foreground should be in focus regardless of where you're eye is actually looking.[/quote]
Just so, and this is why DoF sucks in a lot of games. If the game doesn't know what I'm looking at I don't want it making judgments that result in my cleaning my glasses in futility.

 

[Sean]

The best use of DoF i've seen so far are the reloading animations of BLACK, they make sense because the player is focusing on reloading.

I HATED that. I want to see the enemies and who is shooting at me, I don't want the screen to be blurred while reloading.

 

[Nuclear Muffin]

Tales of Symphonia officially features the worst use of Depth of Field ever, the camera is permanatly far sighted so everything closo up to you is blurry and things in the distance are always sharp. It looks horrible!

Not the most telling screenshot but anyone who's played the game can attest to what I'm saying!

 

[Bildi]

I HATED that. I want to see the enemies and who is shooting at me, I don't want the screen to be blurred while reloading.

YES. Very annoying in Black. Lots of the rest of the game had great ideas though.

Tales of Symphonia officially features the worst use of Depth of Field ever, the camera is permanatly far sighted so everything closo up to you is blurry and things in the distance are always sharp. It looks horrible!

Not the most telling screenshot but anyone who's played the game can attest to what I'm saying!

I actually read the end of your post first as I arrived in the thread and saw the pic and thought "don't tell me someone liked the DOF in Symphonia". :lol

Then I read the start of your post. You're damn right. It was a nice idea I guess but it was WAY to narrow (often the one character on the screen was out of focus) and the bokeh effect was was also quite choppy and not smooth like the screenshot shows. And in any case, if ever a game did not need ANY depth of field stuff at all this was it. Ugh.

At least Sharon the washer woman in the back with blur hair is in focus. After all, she was the mastermind behind the whole thing...

 

[Frenck]

It looks great in games like Blue Dragon or 1701 AD. It gives the landscape a bit of a claymation look.

 

[Lobster]

I reckon it was a horrible idea to add it into Gears of War.

It just doesnt look right. Especially since you're covering to see whats ahead of you.

Proving my point further.

(Gears of Wars is so good to look at.

Spoiler

I think thats why I posted it

)

 

[Alfarif]

The more I see that game, the more I go "Last gen graphics really ARE good enough."

 

[TransTrender]

Tales of Symphonia officially features the worst use of Depth of Field ever, the camera is permanatly far sighted so everything closo up to you is blurry and things in the distance are always sharp. It looks horrible!

Not the most telling screenshot but anyone who's played the game can attest to what I'm saying!

...and all this time I thought my Gamecube was freaking out ONLY when I played ToS....

 

[TheGreatDave]

The more I see that game, the more I go "Last gen graphics really ARE good enough."

That's funny, I bought it recently and felt like I was playing a PS1 game. Everything apart from the colossi (which look awesome) looks like complete shit.