Graphical effects that should be standard by now but aren't

[HTupolev]

Why is that so? I mean, what difference does make a screen for that effect having to be achieved simulating a squinting or damaged

If you squint just right, your eye does a directional convolution on any light striking the lens, causing bright areas to produce "rays". When you use a finger to block the source, the rays also disappear.

Crepuscular rays are produced by light scattering in the atmosphere, not on your lens, so the rays can be seen whether or not you can see the light source.

Games often use cheap screen-space effects which behave like the former, to simulate the latter. It looks okay in some highly stylized cases, sometimes I can't stand it.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Well, lens flare can be created in between your eyelashes, it's not just an artificial effect, that's why it would be a good idea to have it on FPSs, which btw, don't represent the human vision, people blink...

FPSes represent the world. The viewer is you sat in front of the screen, and you blink. That's why people have issue with DOF and camera effects, as it changes the game from you looking into the world to you looking at a TV screen.

 

[Billy Idol]

They're too overdone and abused, just like Bloom and God Rays coming from every single light source such as the enemy eyes.

But this is indeed an effect I like a lot...I also don't mind its exaggeration...just gives an action scene so more power!

 

[London Geezer]

What most games are lacking is a super advanced effect called Subtlety.

God Rays in real life don't pierce through our vision with pin point accuracy and as bright as they do, under all lighting conditions (no fog no god rays!) in games, just like most other effects we see.

Reality is much 'softer' than what we see in games.

 

[Cyan]

But this is indeed an effect I like a lot...I also don't mind its exaggeration...just gives an action scene so more power!

Needs more bloom and lens flare hahah

FPSes represent the world. The viewer is you sat in front of the screen, and you blink. That's why people have issue with DOF and camera effects, as it changes the game from you looking into the world to you looking at a TV screen.

Hmmm, that's an excellent explanation, I think. I often thought that FPSs were playing having you seeing from the eyes of your character, but there was no blink, no objects extremely close to your eyes, or your fingers...

Maybe the formula is just this; gameplay = / = realism, but it'd be nice to play a true first person game. Perhaps VR and Project Morpheus and Occulus Rift will help solve that. A Virtual Reality FPS is something worth looking into, I think.

Ultra realistic games with real life like effects.., just imagine..although as @HPTupolev has explained already, our RL perception and artificial effects have to be handled carefully.

 

[Cyan]

What most games are lacking is a super advanced effect called Subtlety.

God Rays in real life don't pierce through our vision with pin point accuracy and as bright as they do, under all lighting conditions (no fog no god rays!) in games, just like most other effects we see.

Reality is much 'softer' than what we see in games.

I often guessed how you can climb a ladder in a FPS while you hold your gun. Or going into the water and your gun is totally fine afterwards, completely unaffected, plus FPS games could give us a proper view, where you could see your character's eyelashes and nose profile.

Plus, in real life you can't reload anything midclip and get the leftover ammo instantly back into your gun.

 

[AlNom]

Mod Rays are best Rays.

What most games are lacking is a super advanced effect called Subtlety.

damn you, 343i

 

[Nesh]

Needs more bloom and lens flare hahah

Hmmm, that's an excellent explanation, I think. I often thought that FPSs were playing having you seeing from the eyes of your character, but there was no blink, no objects extremely close to your eyes, or your fingers...

Maybe the formula is just this; gameplay = / = realism, but it'd be nice to play a true first person game. Perhaps VR and Project Morpheus and Occulus Rift will help solve that. A Virtual Reality FPS is something worth looking into, I think.

Ultra realistic games with real life like effects.., just imagine..although as @HPTupolev has explained already, our RL perception and artificial effects have to be handled carefully.

was that game canceled?

 

[Deleted member 11852]

was that game canceled?

It came out for PC and was awful.

 

[Davros]

I know I bought it

 

[DavidGraham]

Interactive physics, most modern games abandoned rag dolls for downed enemies, secondary objects in the scenes are no longer affected by collision from the player or gun fires and explosions. The player now influences very few objects compared to the past massively interactive games like (Max Payne 2, Half Life 2, Far Cry, Crysis, Oblivion .. etc).

I also second muzzle flash shadows, I add to them explosion shadows.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I also second muzzle flash shadows, I add to them explosion shadows.

Which is similarly ironic because real explosions have very little by way of light. The power is focussed into the detonation and expanding gases, not pretty fireballs like Hollywood's gasoline-fuelled, remarkably non-destructive effects.

 

[Graham]

For what it's worth, I have a special level of hatred for screen space god rays. The alternative ... well ...

Also as for muzzle flashes, being large volume light sources, you won't see very harsh shadows. So in some ways a single shadow casting point looks worse to me. The alternatives are .... again... challenging

The fact you don't see them during daylight just shows the intense dynamic range in natural lighting (when in reality you are looking at between ten thousand and ~ one million times intensity difference between daylight and night time). It's why you can barely see your headlights during the day even on high beam, let alone a muzzle flash. Games have never represented this dynamic range to anywhere near the same extent simply because it introduces massive challenges across all aspects of content and design. Precision for one, and simple things like making a landmark visible becomes a huge challenge if you attempt it. Which is why most games max out at a few stops of range - even those that seem especially varied.

Also I think people don't appreciate how expensive AF actually is. It's easy to hide when it's not a bottleneck so it can often appear to be cheap.

 

[AlNom]

Please understand.

 

[shredenvain]

I'm not sure it is really considered an effect, but quality post AA like Smaa should be used more. Maybe not something you would call a standard, but we have way too many titles using no AA or a very low quality FXAA.

 

[jlippo]

Well, lens flare can be created in between your eyelashes, it's not just an artificial effect, that's why it would be a good idea to have it on FPSs, which btw, don't represent the human vision, people blink...

Here is nice paper on subject.
http://resources.mpi-inf.mpg.de/hdr/TemporalGlare/

Yeah, god rays are very much a real thing, although anything looking like screen-space god rays should only show up if you're squinting or have a damaged eye.

Agreed screenspace version of the effect is horrible and actually resembles a bad and strangely occluded glare in eye.
Properly done volumetrics with shadows are gorgeous and certainly should be part of any game which tries to have 'realistic' smoke/mist/atmosphere etc.

 

[Cyan]

Interactive physics, most modern games abandoned rag dolls for downed enemies, secondary objects in the scenes are no longer affected by collision from the player or gun fires and explosions. The player now influences very few objects compared to the past massively interactive games like (Max Payne 2, Half Life 2, Far Cry, Crysis, Oblivion .. etc).

I also second muzzle flash shadows, I add to them explosion shadows.

Having you mentioning Oblivion has certainly brought up some very nice memories. I remember back in 2006 I was playing Oblivion on the Xbox 360 and one of my brothers was watching me -he is not a gamer, just casual- play the game.

I was on a very steep mountain peak and a wolf tried to kill me but I won, and then the dead body of the wolf started to slowly roll downhill in a very realistic way, my brother was impressed :smile2:and it was one of my favourite memories from the previous generation. It made me feel good to have such a great game running on my newly acquired console at the time.

Here is nice paper on subject.
http://resources.mpi-inf.mpg.de/hdr/TemporalGlare/

Thanks for sharing, I just wish more games implemented that technology. How they try to accurately simulate the effect of the refracted light in our eyes, and by that I mean every part of the human eye, which makes it even more interesting. I was particularly awestruck at how they emulate the eyelashes and how they affect the light when you close your eyes.

Has this technology been implemented in actual games yet?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It's actually a rather clumsy system. If displays were HD, we'd have all visual artefacts apply naturally from our own eyes. The problem here is displays not working like real life.

 

[Cyan]

It's actually a rather clumsy system. If displays were HD, we'd have all visual artefacts apply naturally from our own eyes. The problem here is displays not working like real life.

The comment on displays is lurking in my mind, and I think we are back to square one. Do you mean TVs matching real life resolution? Still the effects derived from such TVs wouldn't be real all the time because of the fact that the light conditions around you most probably wouldn't match that of real life, so it would still look artificial even if programmers and the assets they used were good enough for our brain to process all those extra effects naturally.

Even so, you might just take into account you are playing the game from another character's perspective.

Thinking of myself being the actual protagonist is really, really... Weird. And nice at the same time. But then again, I don't actually feel anything the times I've tried to be that character. If there is a well written story in the game then I can kind of leech of the emotion that the story presents, but after it, well, it gets to a certain point I just disconnect. I guess it is more about the main character and the others interacting with them in the game than anything else, and since it's between those characters it would be weird if I was there? I mean, I am not part of the story.

The characters I live the most are usually those of RPG games, but if a game could make me feel I am actually there, when one blinks, or o see lights glaring, etc, as if it was your actual eyes, I'd love it.

Ah, gotta say that my point in bringing up Oblivion from DavidGraham's post was that I miss ragdoll physics in games, and it was a nice feature to have.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The comment on displays is lurking in my mind, and I think we are back to square one. Do you mean TVs matching real life resolution?

Looking like real. High enough resolution, sufficient contrast, decent dynamic range. So looking at a TV is akin to looking out the window. Obviously in 2D unless one has glasses, but that'd still provide presence.

Even so, you might just take into account you are playing the game from another character's perspective.

We're talking optical effects. There's no need ot simulate in game the optical effects of the protagonist's eyes (normally represented as a camera) if those effects are applied in real on the protagonist's (player's!) actual eyes.

The characters I live the most are usually those of RPG games, but if a game could make me feel I am actually there, when one blinks, or o see lights glaring, etc, as if it was your actual eyes, I'd love it.

If a game simulates eyes with blinking, it'll be like being in someone else's head. That's quite the abstraction! How's about making the protagonist colour blind too? The suggested glare is to simulate what those light sources should look like to you if they were bright enough. If they were bright enough to begin with, we wouldn't need to simulate them. Likewise, DOF simulates focussing, but breaks the game at times. Eye tracking could solve that. In short, a lot of the effects are hacks to work around limited display tech. It'd be nice if the display tech was improved and we could lose the hack and just focus on making the games render and display realistically, leaving the viewer to add whatever optical artefacts they will based on their own biology.