White Outlines on 360

[PARANOiA]

I've noticed that most Xbox 360 games I've played seemed to give the player models a "white outline", or a white "glow". It stands out quite a bit IMO looks awful.

What effect is this supposed to be, and why is it used?

Examples I can think of are:

• Kameo
• Dead or Alive
• Gears of War

Cheers

 

[London Geezer]

I've noticed that most Xbox 360 games I've played seemed to give the player models a "white outline", or a white "glow". It stands out quite a bit IMO looks awful.

What effect is this supposed to be, and why is it used?

Examples I can think of are:

• Kameo
• Dead or Alive
• Gears of War

Cheers

Mmm can you find pictures to show that? Can't think of the effect, or how it looks like...

 

[rabidrabbit]

you sure it isn't just the sharpness setting on your telly that's set a bit too high?

 

["Nerve-Damage"]

I know what you’re talking about (I think). You may have a bad Xbox 360 that maybe exhibiting overheating issue. All the games you mention look good on my system, however my friend system was showing character and car issues. Like, they were pasted on screen with this nasty white outline cut surrounding them. At first we thought it was his TV, but it wasn’t it was his system. Anyhow, he replaced the system and the games look great.

 

[Farid]

What effect is this supposed to be, and why is it used?

Depending on the game and the machine it runs on, it's either anisotropic lighting or a simple vertex lighting effect. This effect is a quite common lighting effect, even in real photography, it's simply known as backlighting.

Edit:

All the games you mention look good on my system, however my friend system was showing character and car issues. Like, they were pasted on screen with this nasty white outline cut surrounding them. At first we thought it was his TV, but it wasn’t it was his system. Anyhow, he replaced the system and the games look great.

Well, if the effect is a clear cut plain white outline, it might indeed be a problem a not a lighting effect at all.

 

[N3xtG3nGam3r]

The only thing that comes to mind is when there is a depth of field effect behind the character. Ive noticed that the DoF effect makes the anti-alias almost seem like its glowing or something in a few games. NBA2k7 does this i think. I never noticed it in GoW though. I never thought this looked horrible though? I didnt even think anything negetive about it TBH. But this might not be what you are talking about.

 

[Dizzy]

Take a picture of the screenand post it. This is the case of a picture being worth more than a 1,000 words.

 

[PARANOiA]

I'll take some happy snaps when I get home. I'm a bit scared if you're suggesting it may be a hardware "issue"

 

[PARANOiA]

Here's a snapshot of DOA4. It's hard to make out the intensity in a still image - in a video the white outline is more of a shimmer.



The glow is most evident around the outside of his helmet, and his legs (both inside and out). I can take additional pics if required, but I'm pretty sure taking a still-shot of my screen won't improve the photos any.

Cheers

 

[London Geezer]

Here's a snapshot of DOA4. It's hard to make out the intensity in a still image - in a video the white outline is more of a shimmer.



The glow is most evident around the outside of his helmet, and his legs (both inside and out). I can take additional pics if required, but I'm pretty sure taking a still-shot of my screen won't improve the photos any.

Cheers

That looks like an effect, not a bug or anything. I think it's just the lighting.

 

[Johnny_Physics]

Here's a snapshot of DOA4. It's hard to make out the intensity in a still image - in a video the white outline is more of a shimmer.



The glow is most evident around the outside of his helmet, and his legs (both inside and out). I can take additional pics if required, but I'm pretty sure taking a still-shot of my screen won't improve the photos any.

Cheers

That's just rim lighting/back lighting, a popular but really tacky effect. It was really overused by EA last gen so I hope it won't be as popular this time around.

 

[Dizzy]

OK at first I thought that there was something wrong with your display or xbox because I never seen that on my setup. I then played DOA with the same character you had in Biocore level and I got it to display even more than in your picture. It is a lighting effect not a pretty one at that but at least it is not a hardware issue.

Just to be clear this is not visible all of the time, correct?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I particular, rim lighting without self-shadowing can highlight odd pixels on model boundaries. The pixekls on this side of the head, away from the light source, are not being occluded and so get lit a strong amount in a small area, creating misplaced white lines and pixels.

 

[Bobbler]

The most obvious example of that happens in GoW... it was the only technical issue I had with the game, and it was merely a little ugly occasionally at worst -- didn't seem to happen much beyond the first quarter of the game though either (sometimes it got pretty bad, depending on where you stood, because the lighting in GoW is pretty exaggerated and the contrast of the bright light on the character outline was really jarring compared to the rest of the body).

I was going to take a shot of it, back when GoW came out and I noticed it (since nobody seemed to know what I was talking about), but, as usual, I forgot to.

 

[ERP]

I'd say it's a fresnel term in the material, coupled with a light behind the character.

The pixelated bit is the result of polygon aliasing (polygons smaller than a pixel popping in and out of visibility) in a high contrast area.

 

[PARANOiA]

Good to see it's not a hardware issue, and not in my head

Also good to know I'm not the only one who thinks this is butt ugly too.