Damn. I don’t know why they don’t include it with a toggle if they are worried about performance. I mean, most of us are running PCs that will be able to kick the engines ass quite easily.
Personally, After seeing a game with Bloom/HDR (especially the latter) effects things look so flat and lifeless after (at least to me). Take a look at the Half Life 2 expansions compared to the regular game for a good example…or check out the Fields in TQ:IT with Bloom on and off.
Ah well, if they have already said no then I guess I’ll have to live with it.
I think those technologies bring a lot to the table as far as graphics goes. If there isn’t enough time/money/whatever to implement them I can understand that…but if it’s just based on hardware I too hope they just do a toggle.
Personally I hope that if GD is successful with the initial release, they even consider throwing some DX10/11 effects into the game with later expansions.
I think they’d want to do it, but in order to do so they need to sell ALOT of copies.
Personally, After seeing a game with Bloom/HDR (especially the latter) effects things look so flat and lifeless after (at least to me). Take a look at the Half Life 2 expansions compared to the regular game for a good example…or check out the Fields in TQ:IT with Bloom on and off.
So… I take it you haven’t seen the screenshots? And IIRC, bloom wasn’t a feature in the options to disable/enable. Bloom for me in most games has been a major annoyance rather than a “nifty, shiny feature”. Playing games where people’s faces are more reflective than a sheet of metal is pretty obnoxious, or where the sun glares out so hugely that it becomes difficult to walk in it’s general direction. Please don’t give me the whole “oh but that’s realistic” speech because it’s just stupid and annoying. I want to play a game, if I wanted realism I’d walk outside.
Very nice. Has a good, natural look to it. There is benefit (in one way of looking at) to having the background not supercolorful as it allows you to more easily distinguish your avatar and the enemies.
I just started playing Torchlight and while I like some aspects of it, the screen has so many colorful background items it’s hard to see what I’m swinging at when I’m surrounded. TQ was excellent in maintaining that distictiveness.
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.
From what we’ve heard about the setting and so forth of GD, I think the shot without bloom definitely suits more. It is in fact more dramatic and a bit darker/creepier. It’s just far too happy with bloom, really :p. I wouldn’t think I’m in a post-apocalyptic setting about to be attacked by a pseudo-sycther like creature.
Both shots look good, I think personal preference would have to play a big part, that and system horse power.
Keep the screen shots coming, but they don’t do justice to what video is able to show, so any luck in seeing some in the near future?
I’d love to say soon but really I’m not sure. It all depends on how long it takes the animator to get the animations working again and the armor re-rigged and oriented properly again. We’ve changed the way the player body and armor work in GD and, as a result of that change, we’ve had to redo all our rigging and animations. So things are kind of a mess right now. I’m hoping things will be put back together by the end of next week and then, time allowing, I can try to get some video action going on.
For anyone who might be curious, the change to the player body / armor was to chop up the player model into different armor parts so that we can swap out the corresponding part when the player changes armor instead of just having the armor go on top of it. This gives the artists a lot more flexibility to create cool looking armor without worrying about the player’s body clipping through when it animates. It also allows for more form-fitting outfits and armor that can change the clothing you appear to be wearing under it.
Wow this is great. Does this mean that a rogue could wear gear that look slim and fitted and a tank could wear huge armor with masculine body part? Now I have a proper look for assasin
But something cross my mind, does this mean we could end up with huge arm and slim leg because of the armor? :eek:
I like the one with the bloom better. :S! Its so inviting, but I’m afraid that’s not what the game is going for (Grim anyone?). The one without is more sharp and edgier, so I really think it is indeed more fitting.
The armor will be modeled to the character natural proportions. So, while heavy warrior armor might be bulkier looking, it would be assumed to be due to the materials, such as thick iron plating, not the character’s arm suddenly growing. Likewise, assassin gear would be more form-fitting but it wouldn’t make the character’s actual armor skinnier.
So… I take it you haven’t seen the screenshots? And IIRC, bloom wasn’t a feature in the options to disable/enable.
…wha? In TQ you could turn it on and off.
Bloom for me in most games has been a major annoyance rather than a “nifty, shiny feature”. Playing games where people’s faces are more reflective than a sheet of metal is pretty obnoxious, or where the sun glares out so hugely that it becomes difficult to walk in it’s general direction. Please don’t give me the whole “oh but that’s realistic” speech because it’s just stupid and annoying. I want to play a game, if I wanted realism I’d walk outside.
Yes - this is the other extreme and some games (mostly on consoles) tend to overuse bloom/HDR (Mirror’s Edge was the most recent one to me).
However, well used it adds a huge amount of realism and graphical depth - TQ:IT made some wonderful use of it in some places.
I buy it that its a small company who doesn’t have the rescources to make GD on the Crysis 2 engine. But I don’t see why a bit of bloom/HDR is out of the question (since the engine managed to do it pretty damn well in TQIT).
Damn, a pity as I said. I think that Bloom etc. can really add a nice contrast, even in a stark, gloomy game like this. Take a look at the Half Life 2: Ravensholme levels for example.
Bloom for me in most games has been a major annoyance rather than a “nifty, shiny feature”. Playing games where people’s faces are more reflective than a sheet of metal is pretty obnoxious, or where the sun glares out so hugely that it becomes difficult to walk in it’s general direction. Please don’t give me the whole “oh but that’s realistic” speech because it’s just stupid and annoying. I want to play a game, if I wanted realism I’d walk outside.
