Lense Flare and Other Effects In Third-Person Games

[sanquin]

For me the reddening is annoying, but tolerable when it's used in a non-competitive game. I always turn off motion blur and DoF though. They don't add anything for me. Rather, they detract from the experience. It just looks unnatural. Lens flare...I guess I sometimes like it. It's supposed to kind of simulate the blinding effect bright light usually gives you I think. Though it could be done a lot better. Like...actual brightening and darkening of the image. Mod and water splashes on the screen are usually annoying to me. I'm constantly distracted by it in the Witcher 3 while sailing for instance.

I wonder where the hell developers got the idea from that these things were the be all end all of graphical effects. Since pretty much all triple-A games and even quite a few indie games use them.

 

[GrumbleGrump]

I subscribe to the Pat from Two Best Friends Play theory of LENS flare, meaning that it's a camera mistake which is now taken out, so games that try to put them back in are infuriating.
Motion blur is also another thing that is never done well, because doing it well would require a incredibly powerful CPU, which is overkill for something that is mostly dead last in the graphic priority list.
EDIT: Oh yeah, and depth of field. Fuck depth of field. Thats the first one I search for and turn off in the graphic settings. Useless and annoying.

 

[B-Cell_v1legacy]

I agree with my above friend. that witcher 3 water on screen is very bad.

 

[MysticSlayer]

I don't really care either way so long as it doesn't negatively affect gameplay, which is rarely the case. If anything, I find that it adds a little to the ambiance.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Ya that shit is an eyesore, I can put up with it for a little while but when it starts getting lengthy and cutting into my ability to play I'm getting pissed. That is why you always always, absolutely always need to demand developers put this crap into their options.
For me that includes key prompts and neon outlines, I'm not fucking 5, I can bloody remember a couple of goram buttons and figure out what a door looks like.

 

[Michel Henzel]

Lens flare, Bloom, Motion blur and Depth of field.

Those are things that get turned off real quick. If I can't see things properly or things start looking blurry, or with bloom, where everything looks like it's emanating hazy looking light, then it can fuck right off.

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

Lens flare, Bloom, Motion blur and Depth of field.

Those are things that get turned off real quick. If I can't see things properly or things start looking blurry, or with bloom, where everything looks like it's emanating hazy looking light, then it can fuck right off.

Agree with this. I always go through the menus before playing anything, and motion blur definitely goes quick. Lens flare makes me feel more like I'm looking through a camera rather than playing a game, so that goes off. Motion blur iiiis just redundant - so you have a monitor/game supporting 60fps, but because that's surreal because people are just used to 30fps, you offset that with a BLUR EFFECT?? People just don't see like that!! It's totally unintuitive and does not make any sense. I couldn't believe this was on by default in Crysis 2.

I can agree with some effects when people are going for immersion. Even more so if that immersion is customizable to one's preference. In driving games where you can set the seat position, FOV, etc, you probably want to hear in cabin noise, splashes on the windscreen, shakes and damage etc. If you're playing in 3rd person, chances are those aren't that important, and you're just in it for the entertainment factor more than anything. Dirt Rally is excellent with this.

I've also had a problem with HDR in the past, making some things unbearably bright and some downright impossibly dark. I've turned off HDR and vignette in many games.

The only place where I appreciate Depth of Field is aim down sights, because that's actually how you're supposed to shoot (front sight focus I think?) or if in Photo Mode of some kind. Otherwise, again, it's a way the camera sees, not the way a human does. So it's ok in cutscenes, not in first/third person.

 

[Squilookle]

Also you do realize that human eyes dont actually see lens flares, they are entirely camera-specific thing

As, I believe, is motion blur. Perhaps adding it to games (specifically when turning and such) is an attempt to make it literally "more cinematic" by adding camera stuff in.

When you use a car, look out of the window at something close to you and see it fly by you at high speed. It will look blurred. This is what motion blur is supposed to simulate. however, games constantly fail at doing this because actual angular motion calculation of every object would be extremely intensive calculation and they couldnt cut corners like they do for most things.

Though the motion blur most people know is just cameras being set to too long exposure so they end up catching motion and blurring the frame filmed.

Yeah, my problem is mainly with everything blurring when you turn around. That's not how eyes work. If you turn around quickly, you don't see a blur but snapshots of the the view changing as your eyes literally stop working for milliseconds at a time. In order to avoid motion blur.

Tell me about it. I also cannot stand when a game changes the FOV when you sprint or boost. It's especially maddening in flight games like Rogue Squadron when you're trying to get near cover fast. You think you're a proper distance away, then you brake and the asteroid/ship suddenly balloons up and fills the whole screen now that you're slower... makes no sense. Get rid of it already, Minecraft..

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

They might look God awful at times, but they do serve a purpose. On low end machines, it can be an effective and low cost way, to hide the reduced quality of the graphics.

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

In some games I can appreciate the screen effects are part of what makes the game challenging. Vision-obscuring slime for example, I think in Resident Evil Revelations 2 there's an enemy which throws AoE projectiles, if they explode near you your screen gets covered in puss and you take some damage. Bit like the Boomer Bile in Left 4 Dead.

I know in Rainbow 6: Vegas games the screen goes dark as you take more damage, instead of covered in red jelly like a particular household name shooter. But it's obviously at a very inopportune time as that's when you are surrounded and *need* to be shooting back in order to survive. I was so adept at this game (literally probably over 1000 hours) that when this happened I would flick on the heat-sensing vision with my pinky finger and just keep on shooting at the orange/red blobs until they (or I) went down XD