We’ve actually already updated the engine to use a DX10 render path. It has allowed us to add some cool new effects while also leveraging new techniques to make old effects run more efficiently.
So far as bloom goes, it is more of a stylistic choice than a matter of it being too expensive. I think in most cases it is more of a subjective matter of personal preference whether bloom enhances or detracts from a scene. The level of bloom generally used in games is far in excess of that which occurs with the human eye in reality. Bloom in games is modeled more after the effect through a camera lens, although even then it is usually exaggerated.
By its nature bloom softens a scene and often creates a glow effect. This works well if you’re trying to create a soft, magical, fairytale setting as in Fable 2. In Grim Dawn I’m not sure it is quite as fitting.
I’ve been playing around with it a bit though after reading people’s suggestions and I’ve found some configurations of lighting / bloom that aren’t bad. Maybe it is worth reconsidering for some areas.
One problem though is that to incorporate bloom into an environment, we have to tweak other light / fog settings to accommodate it. Basically to avoid things getting totally blown out. This may leave the game with bloom turned off not looking quite as good as we could have made it if we didn’t have to accommodate bloom. In most cases it would only be a minor difference though.
HDR on the other hand, I think is almost a must if you’re making a game were you can see the sky. Of course, you can’t see the sky in GD, so that right there eliminates the #1 reason for having it.
The other major situation where HDR would have a significant effect is if you were in a dark room looking at a bright window or doorway or exiting from the dark interior to a bright exterior. However, this doesn’t work very well with a top-down perspective and pulled out camera. The further away from the character you are and the wider your field of view, the more awkward I think it would seem when your character exits a building and suddenly the screen gets blown out bright for a couple seconds. In GD you’d already be viewing part of the outdoors before your character even emerged from the interior of wherever they were. Since you can see both environments at once, it doesn’t really make sense that when your character crossed the threshold, suddenly everything would get brighter for a couple seconds. And again, there are currently no situations where your view would be entirely of an interior but where you could see windows or doorways leading to a bright outside environment.
When we were developing Black Legion at Iron Lore, we changed the game to use an over the shoulder free-look camera perspective. One of the first things we did was add HDR lighting because, in that situation, it made a lot of sense and had a dramatic effect. With this camera perspective, I just don’t think it makes sense.
Here is a with / without bloom comparison just to see what it would look like. The bloom side has a nice warm glow and is kind of inviting… although, I’m not really sure that’s what we’re after. The non-bloom side looks a lot sharper and more dramatic to me. The distance fog also can be set higher since there is no concern about the bloom interacting with it and blowing out the background. Again though, either way I think it is more of a stylistic choice than a matter of graphical fidelity and ultimately comes down to personal preference. Well, that and you’re probably dropping about 10-20fps with the addition of bloom.
