"Lenticular halos" post-processing effect

[Reverend]

I just re-visited the UE3 page and noticed this.

Wtf is this?

 

[Killer-Kris]

Not that I can even pretend to understand the half of it but this seems to give a nice indepth description of the effect...

http://research.microsoft.com/~swinder/flare/flare.aspx

 

[Cryect]

So just a glow effect with a peak further out on the blur distribution from the center to create the halo.

 

[pat777]

Can somebody post a screenshot of a lenticular halo?

 

[SteveHill]

Not that I can even pretend to understand the half of it but this seems to give a nice indepth description of the effect...

http://research.microsoft.com/~swinder/flare/flare.aspx

To save a little searching, here's a link to the cited paper:
http://www.graphics.cornell.edu/pubs/1995/SSZG95.html

It's the one that immediately sprang to mind when I saw the topic title, but the first link may be all you need for an overview.

 

[LeGreg]

Wtf is this?

there are halos created by atmospheric conditions
and there are halos created by the device used to capture the frame.
Since most cameras (and eyes) are equipped with lenses that interacts with the penetrating lights, the end result often have artefacts when directly pointing to a light source (you have lens flares and some other cheap lenses or filters effects).

 

[nutball]

I do find it rather amusing that a fair few games simulate camera lens flare. It shows quite how persvasive TV/film has become in our lives I think.

In a game that's trying to persuade you they YOU are really THERE, why simulate the effects of a camera? When was the last time you spent a day living your life through a camera?

I think it must be because we're so used to seeing alien situations via a TV/film camera (or to turn that round, most alien situations we see are via a TV/film camera), that it doesn't raise an eyebrow when we see these effects are ported to computer games.

 

[London Geezer]

I do find it rather amusing that a fair few games simulate camera lens flare. It shows quite how persvasive TV/film has become in our lives I think.

In a game that's trying to persuade you they YOU are really THERE, why simulate the effects of a camera? When was the last time you spent a day living your life through a camera?

I think it must be because we're so used to seeing alien situations via a TV/film camera (or to turn that round, most alien situations we see are via a TV/film camera), that it doesn't raise an eyebrow when we see these effects are ported to computer games.

Well, lens flare was big in the 90's, kinda like big hair.
I remember a PC racer, called... and this will take a lot of my brain's processing power.... errrrrrrrr.... Moderacer... Mother... Mono... Mo... Ma...

DAMN I CAN'T REMEMBER!

Anyway, this game was a lens-flare fest, it was quite cute in the old days when Voodoo1 was still the big thing and shiny things were in their infancy. Basically any light in the game had a lens flare effect attached to it. Needless to say, the game being set at night with streetlights on, it was a mess in it's cuteness.

 

[Xmas]

nutball,

Since most cameras (and eyes) are equipped with lenses that interacts with the penetrating lights, the end result often have artefacts when directly pointing to a light source (you have lens flares and some other cheap lenses or filters effects).

Optical artifacts (flares, halos) aren't restricted to cameras. Every such artifact we can't perceive because of the monitor's limited brightness has to be simulated in the displayed image itself.

 

[nutball]

nutball,

Since most cameras (and eyes) are equipped with lenses that interacts with the penetrating lights, the end result often have artefacts when directly pointing to a light source (you have lens flares and some other cheap lenses or filters effects).

Optical artifacts (flares, halos) aren't restricted to cameras. Every such artifact we can't perceive because of the monitor's limited brightness has to be simulated in the displayed image itself.

Yeah, that's why I specifically spoke of *camera* lens flares Flares to simulate the effects of the atmosphere and of the eyes are quite cool in my mind.

 

[Bambers]

hmm, both those examples seem to have the rainbow light splitting effect of the halo far bigger than my own eyes make it :?

 

[Cryect]

I just have to say if you wear glasses, on a dark night in say a dark parking lot with some lamps you can really see the halo effect on them well. Now I've never seen really any splitting of the color spectrum over the halo like they show there.

You won't see these halos according to the first linked to article during the daytime (and quick plot of the functions w/ the different constants shows that).

 

[MasterBaiter]

Hehe, at first I though Reverend was talking crazy again...

Methinks (like big hair) that some of these effects are not warranted since some are replicating artificial (lens) distortions. :?

 

[BRiT]

Well, lens flare was big in the 90's, kinda like big hair.
I remember a PC racer, called... and this will take a lot of my brain's processing power.... errrrrrrrr.... Moderacer... Mother... Mono... Mo... Ma...

DAMN I CAN'T REMEMBER!

Anyway, this game was a lens-flare fest, it was quite cute in the old days when Voodoo1 was still the big thing and shiny things were in their infancy. Basically any light in the game had a lens flare effect attached to it. Needless to say, the game being set at night with streetlights on, it was a mess in it's cuteness.

POD. ?

 

[Guden Oden]

Well, lens flare was big in the 90's, kinda like big hair.

Oooh no, L-B! The big hair decade was the eighties, I should know, I grew up during it! A full third of the guys in my class had Samantha Fox posters up on their bedroom walls with this humongous French poodle strapped to her head, or so it seemed.

And Turok on the N64 (and PC I might add) was one of the first lensflare fests by the way, funny since big Indian guys running around in a loincloth with a bow and arrows in his hands should be the last to have a camera lens strapped to his eyes, but then again this guy also has a fold-up fusion cannon in his shoulder bag (very metrosexual of him I might add, almost a full decade before his time). So who knows? *shrug*

 

[Snyder]

Well, lens flare was big in the 90's, kinda like big hair.
I remember a PC racer, called... and this will take a lot of my brain's processing power.... errrrrrrrr.... Moderacer... Mother... Mono... Mo... Ma...

DAMN I CAN'T REMEMBER!

Anyway, this game was a lens-flare fest, it was quite cute in the old days when Voodoo1 was still the big thing and shiny things were in their infancy. Basically any light in the game had a lens flare effect attached to it. Needless to say, the game being set at night with streetlights on, it was a mess in it's cuteness.

POD. ?

Motorhead?

 

[KimB]

I do find it rather amusing that a fair few games simulate camera lens flare. It shows quite how persvasive TV/film has become in our lives I think.

Another reason is that we don't currently have any true high dynamic range displays, so you can only simulate very bright sources through the effects of bright sources we see in film and such.

 

[KimB]

Well, lens flare was big in the 90's, kinda like big hair.
I remember a PC racer, called... and this will take a lot of my brain's processing power.... errrrrrrrr.... Moderacer... Mother... Mono... Mo... Ma...

DAMN I CAN'T REMEMBER!

The original Unreal also had what it called coronas on nearly all light sources. The effect was also there in UT, but it didn't feel quite as dramatic.

 

[Cryect]

Hehe yeah GLQuake had that as the defaults the lightballs for all dynamic light sources. The first thing I always disabled in it. Glad Carmack wised up and didn't use the lightballs in Quake 2.

 

[Anteru]

"Incoming" also featured full-screen lensflares all the time, making you nearly blind. IIRC, Forsaken wasn't much better, putting halos on every projectile... ahh, I need my sunglasses