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[liliththepale]

Oh dude, yes. This is a great one, I don't know how I didn't come up with it.

I looooooove for pixel games to have that crisp, pixel perfect representation on screen.

I actually did a big post to the shovel knight steam forums explaining my hope for a integer scaling option.

The blur is just layed on so heavy.

How would this be accomplished? Black border around the screen?

The only thing in Shovel Knight's rendering that bothers me is that it draws a lot off the grid. SK's movement speed is non-integer, so a lot of times his coordinates are not either, and the drawing doesn't round his coordinates when it renders him. This also happens with the wavy text, looking a little too smooth.

 

[Alo81]

How would this be accomplished? Black border around the screen?

The only thing in Shovel Knight's rendering that bothers me is that it draws a lot off the grid. SK's movement speed is non-integer, so a lot of times his coordinates are not either, and the drawing doesn't round his coordinates when it renders him. This also happens with the wavy text, looking a little too smooth.

Yep, black border.

The ideal method would be to render at 400x240, scale it up with nearest neighbor scaling to 1600x960, then black border the rest. That would ensure perfect 1:1 pixel representation on the screen with no weird scaling artifacts, and it would ensure that the scrolling would move at in-game pixel increments, rather than screen pixel increments.

GeDoSaTo has the perfect method for making something like this work, but unfortunately Shovel Knight doesn't work with GeDo currently.

That's my Shovel Knight dream, to get that working with GeDo then apply Lottes CRT shader over the top.

 

[liliththepale]

Yep, black border.

The ideal method would be to render at 400x240, scale it up with nearest neighbor scaling to 1600x960, then black border the rest. That would ensure perfect 1:1 pixel representation on the screen with no weird scaling artifacts, and it would ensure that the scrolling would move at in-game pixel increments, rather than screen pixel increments.

GeDoSaTo has the perfect method for making something like this work, but unfortunately Shovel Knight doesn't work with GeDo currently.

That's my Shovel Knight dream, to get that working with GeDo then apply Lottes CRT shader over the top.

That seems like it would be easy to add as an option in the game for people who want it, but I can imagine this preference is in the vast minority.

 

[Dictator93]

Yep, black border.

The ideal method would be to render at 400x240, scale it up with nearest neighbor scaling to 1600x960, then black border the rest. That would ensure perfect 1:1 pixel representation on the screen with no weird scaling artifacts, and it would ensure that the scrolling would move at in-game pixel increments, rather than screen pixel increments.

GeDoSaTo has the perfect method for making something like this work, but unfortunately Shovel Knight doesn't work with GeDo currently.

That's my Shovel Knight dream, to get that working with GeDo then apply Lottes CRT shader over the top.

There are opengl to dx wrappers out there... someone posted images a while back of it working in RTCW. Likewise, there are 3dvision hacks for Open GL games to make them run in DX. I forget the name of that mod series though.

 

[Alo81]

There are opengl to dx wrappers out there... someone posted images a while back of it working in RTCW. Likewise, there are 3dvision hacks for Open GL games to make them run in DX. I forget the name of that mod series though.

Wait, is Shovel Knight OGL? It worked with SweetFx so I assumed it was DX9.

 

[Dictator93]

Wait, is Shovel Knight OGL? It worked with SweetFx so I assumed it was DX9.

Oh. I thought it was open GL!
nvm then.

 

[Condemned]

I really dislike motion blur.

 

[1.21Gigawatts]

The order?

I think The Order is an example for effects used properly.
The game just looks right.

 

[royox]

I don't know the name...but look at the trees....look at the background....hor horrifying.

 

[TedHub]

I don't know the name...but look at the trees....look at the background....hor horrifying.

That actually looks kind of cool... Not so sure about how well it fits with the character/enemy textures though...

 

[TheBear]

Does anyone have any good examples of chromatic aberration in a game? I understand the concept (kinda) but can't really pick it from screen shots.

Oh and film grain and motion blur are fucking dumb.

 

[HalfwayOrb]

Bloom. I always turn that shit off. It's fuckin horrible.

 

[mcfrank]

I don't know the name...but look at the trees....look at the background....hor horrifying.

What are you talking about? That looks great.

 

[liliththepale]

Does anyone have any good examples of chromatic aberration in a game? I understand the concept (kinda) but can't really pick it from screen shots.

Oh and film grain and motion blur are fucking dumb.

It's the sort of rainbow shimmer that appears near edges, lines and boundaries. There's a lot of it in this image. I won't blow it up because if you can't already see it then there's no reason to exacerbate the effect. Most people it doesn't bother, except of course the vocal majority in this thread.

 

[royox]

That actually looks kind of cool... Not so sure about how well it fits with the character/enemy textures though...

What are you talking about? That looks great.

I admit, It's almost ok in that pic because it's using Dolphin.

This is how you see that "effect" on a real Wii.

 

[MickeyKnox]

Does anyone have any good examples of chromatic aberration in a game? I understand the concept (kinda) but can't really pick it from screen shots.

Oh and film grain and motion blur are fucking dumb.

 

[op_ivy]

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.

i like it in destiny at least. i think it contributes to the retro sci-fi star wars feel the game has. its like i'm playing on a vhs. it works here IMO

 

[Dice//]

I feel like the main problem in Type-0 is the camera controls have a huge dead zone and then become super sensitive outside the dead zone. So whenever you adjust the camera it just whips around wildly. The motion blur wouldn't be so bad if the camera wasn't going berserk.

Yeah. The effect isn't so bad, it's just the camera whiplashes at such a high speed and there's no perpetual slow-down. Of all things TO patch it'd be that.

 

[liliththepale]

I feel like if you have to use 4x zoom or more to make your point, then maybe your point isn't very significant to begin with.

I mean, I get that CA is overused, but it's not that bad.

 

[BLunted]

Cannot stand CA, Film grain, motion blur and fog filters. Depth of field is nice for screenshots, but hate it while playing a game.

 

[Daingurse]

I don't think Chromatic Aberration bothers me unless it's really excessive. The images of Lords of The Fallen at launch looked really rough. Been watching my brother play Bloodborne, and I don't think I really minded it in that game. Hell, I might have even liked how the effect was used.

What I do dislike, is filmgrain and vignette. Just don't like those at all.

 

[MickeyKnox]

I feel like if you have to use 4x zoom or more to make your point, then maybe your point isn't very significant to begin with.

I mean, I get that CA is overused, but it's not that bad.

Not using zoom at all, that's a full resolution image. Those sections are just cropped.

And it should go without saying that your own visual acuity will determine how much you do or don't notice it.

 

[Alo81]

I don't know the name...but look at the trees....look at the background....hor horrifying.

I admit, It's almost ok in that pic because it's using Dolphin.

This is how you see that "effect" on a real Wii.

Neither of these are accurate. The top version is incorrectly rendering the Depth of Field because of the way Dolphin renders it at a higher resolution.

That bottom example is just the game again emulated but put on basically "lowest" settings, which also isn't representative of the game.

Here is an example on actual hardware

And here is how it looks if it's actually properly emulated with Dolphin. The image looks soft because while still being technically rendered at native res, it's also utilizing 9xSSAA. The result is much cleaner IQ with more detail than the original Wii outputs, but it does still have a soft look to it.

Compared to 1920x1080 + 9xSSAA

Which is nice and sharp, but the DoF effect is butchered.

If looking for a middle ground, rendering at 1.5x resolution then applying 9xSSAA provides a nice sharpness boost over native res 9xSSAA, while only slightly suffering from the scratchy DoF effect

I feel like if you have to use 4x zoom or more to make your point, then maybe your point isn't very significant to begin with.

I mean, I get that CA is overused, but it's not that bad.

It's being used more as giving a concrete explanation of what it is, rather than just a vague "it makes things look weird and blurry."

It's easy to say "I don't like x" but it helps to understand what x is doing to cause you to not like it.

 

[liliththepale]

Not using zoom at all, that a full resolution image. Those sections are just cropped.

And it should go without saying that your own visual acuity will determine how much you do or don't notice it.

You're totally right. My bad. I'm on a 1080p display and the forum scaled your fullscreen picture down so I didn't realize it was much larger.

 

[adamantypants]

7th gen was bloom. Bloom fucking everything. This gen it's chromatic aberration. Fuck it all to hell.

 

[Nanashrew]

Skyward Sword has a really nice effect to be honest. The art style it's going for is pointillism.

 

[spanks]

I hope piss filters are a thing of the past.

GTA IV
Fallout 3
Deus Ex: HR
Battlefield 3

Those games would have looked twice as good by simply turning off the filter.


Example:

 

[Eclectic Jabber Monkey]

Everything here that Dice does with Battlefield and my main problems with their Forstbite engine.




I don't like to play Battlefield because of this. The games have this bland, dirty look to them that makes them unappealing to me and I can't stand it when it's done to this degree. It's just too much. One of the reasons I'm nervous about Battlefront and I'll be very disappointed if it looks as bad as BF 3 and 4.

Battlefield 3 was so bad for overusing lighting effects and filters. Its like the hired a film art director to make the game "look like a movie" which looked terrible and hampered gameplay on many occasions.

Then there is the lovely blue filter in BF3. In one of the patches they were going to add a console command to disable that crap for the PC version but someone in management got wind of it and they didn't release it.

Oh well, at least they didn't repeat most of the coloring and lighting mistakes in BF4, its much better IMO.

 

[SURGEdude]

The 'oil painting' filter in Telltale's Game of Thrones is horrendous. Literally something you'd expect to find on a teenager's deviantart.

So fucking true. The Game of Thrones effect is painful in motion.

For those who haven't played here is the first scene you are punished with:

https://youtu.be/5_8-qAyB4Z8?t=2m42s

 

[Coonce]

Battlefield 3 was so bad for overusing lighting effects and filters. Its like the hired a film art director to make the game "look like a movie" which looked terrible and hampered gameplay on many occasions.

Then there is the lovely blue filter in BF3. In one of the patches they were going to add a console command to disable that crap for the PC version but someone in management got wind of it and they didn't release it.


Oh well, at least they didn't repeat most of the coloring and lighting mistakes in BF4, its much better IMO.

From what I remember, someone modded the blue out but they started banning people for changing the game's look because it gave them a distinct "advantage."

 

[Battlesmurf]

People have some really good suggestions- I can't argue with most of them save for the motion blur. When done right, I like it.

Bloom when overused is nuts. Reminds me of when lens flare was the go to thing.

One specific example I'd like is the option to turn off noise/grain/etc. Hotline Miami without that line filter thing would have looked better to me. It actually made me a smidge nauseous at times and I feel like it took away from the pixel art.

 

[EmptySpace]

that jj abrams lens flare like in mass effect.


total bollocks.

 

[RAMsnooter]

Grain filters, excessive depth of field (blurring) effects.

 

[VanWinkle]

CA is really about the only effect that I hate almost every single time. Bloom is one that I do often dislike, but I also think it's used well pretty frequently, too.

 

[adamsapple]

I don't know the name...but look at the trees....look at the background....hor horrifying.

Those are MS Paint blots lol

 

[Ywap]

I really dislike Motion blur and Chromatic aberration.

 

[Scuderia]

Thank fuck i can't notice Chromatic Aberration, because it really seems to piss a lot of people off.

 

[Bakemono64]

 

[CarbonFire]

Agreed on the last 3, but Foliage? What's wrong with foliage?

 

[Coriolanus]

Agreed on the last 3, but Foliage? What's wrong with foliage?

In the sense that you shouldn`t stop adding there.

 

[Jedipottsy]

This thread should just be titled "Graphical Effects that are overused"

Bloom, Chromatic Abberation, DoF, etc... Are all techniques that we can add to make things look better, however games tend to ram then in your face when they are first 'created' Subtlety is key, a little bit of well done bloom, or a little bit of "film grain" to give the motion some 'texture' is good.. These techniques are all used alot in film to great effect. Chromatic Abberation is a nice 'imperfection' you can add to something to help the audience believe what they are seeing is real. However usually only a 1 pixel shift is all you need, and usually only on distant objects etc. The 10-15pixel shift we see today is way to over the top.

Also there seems to be some confusion over whatPBR actually is. So let me briefly explain. Up till now shadowed have been 'based' on real world shading models with game sharers usually following cg trends, however they, along with the REYES crowd would sacrifice physical accuracy for speed and look. Shadowed didn't conserve energy or consider that as a factor, e.g. they would just multiply the result by roughly 0.7. This would account for light energy lost during reflectance from the surface. PBR should be conservievnerygyalong the path however I'm not sure that games do this as they don't ray trace. Either way the general rules apply, creating shaders that are physically based rather than approximating results. The main advantage to PBR is that you can generally desrcribe one 'uber' shader that contains all the parameters that most surface materials exhibit. For instance every surface has a Fresnel effect, with full (99.99%, nothing is 100%) Fresnel being a mirror-like surface and low fresnel surfaces like plaster or brick. So depending on the surface type you just adjust the Fresnel amount, etc. This is easier for artists and programmers as there is a single "shading" model that can be used for almost every surface. This physically based shader will also look correct in every lighting circumstance, so adjustments don't need to be made for extreme lighting variations.

Ambient occlusion, btw isn't a "real" world feature and is in fact a creation to counter bad lighting. A good G.I. lighting solution doesn't require AO. (AO is an additive pass to darken an area that shouldn't be lit anyway).
I Also dislike motion blur for games, but it helps with sub-optimal frame rates.

 

[heringer]

realism

+ chromatic aberration

+ muted colors

+ noise

+ lens flares

+ piss filter

+ black bars

+ motion blur

=

2015 video game

This is gold, lol.

 

[Hendrick's]

realism

+ chromatic aberration

+ muted colors

+ noise

+ lens flares

+ piss filter

+ black bars

+ motion blur

=

2015 video game

Amazing post, but sadly near reality.

 

[SystemBug]

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.

lol are you a piece of shit?

 

[StayDead]

I hope piss filters are a thing of the past.

GTA IV
Fallout 3
Deus Ex: HR
Battlefield 3

Those games would have looked twice as good by simply turning off the filter.


Example:

So much this. Oh my god the blue filter.

 

[Dictator93]

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.

 

[Peterthumpa]

realism

+ chromatic aberration

+ muted colors

+ noise

+ lens flares

+ piss filter

+ black bars

+ motion blur

=

2015 video game

Oh my back.

 

[EatChildren]

lol are you a piece of shit?

You'll be alright.

 

[Ahasverus]

realism

+ chromatic aberration

+ muted colors

+ noise

+ lens flares

+ piss filter

+ black bars

+ motion blur

=

2015 video game

Fuck me like a hurricane, 10/10

 

[I H8 Memes]

This shot looks a hell of a lot like The Evil Within. Man that game looked ugly. And those black bars. Remember that even with criticism loud enough that the dev team heard it, they still ignored our good advice and went with those horrible black bars.

I agree that a devs artistic direction sometimes shouldn't be tampered with. But those games are very few a far between. HL2 for example. Unfortunately most of these devs dont seem to have any idea how obnoxious and overdone their art direction is. Just look at the example a few pages back of Syndicate. There were hundreds of people on that team that looked at that lighting and all agreed "yeah, that's good".

Remember no matter how big gaming is now we are still getting the leftovers of the movie industry for the most part. Not everybody can be great at any job. And when you are talking about art there are very few people in any artistic field that are truly great. It's easy enough to find thousands of people to build a skyscraper, but how many people are there out there that can design an artistically beautiful skyscraper. Not too many.