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Games Look Bad: HDR and Tone Mapping (2017)

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Re: Games Look Bad: HDR and Tone Mapping (2017)

#151

Post by rasz »

os2warpman wrote: post #88

Why does everything (in big-budget video games) look shiny and wet? If it is an attempt at realism, reality is not constantly shiny and wet. If it a subjective artistic choice, it is objectively wrong and ugly. Is there an expectation that everything look shiny and wet to make it seem more "dynamic"? Is it an artists' meme, like the Wilhelm Scream in cinematic sound design?

Michael Mann starting with Thief (1981).

"Mann sprayed down the city’s nocturnal streets with tens of thousands of gallons of water, so that they took on an unreal, painterly glow." - New York Times

Re: Games Look Bad: HDR and Tone Mapping (2017)

#152

Post by theshackleford »

treyd wrote: post #76
glimshe wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't need photorealism in games, but it does help with immersion. Many people, like me, feel like they are inside the game world, rather than playing a game with a TV/monitor in front of them. Photorealism is essential for this feeling - at least for me . The most amazing gaming experience I've ever had was walking around the city at night in Cyberpunk 2077. For the first time in my life, I felt I was actually in…

I find this an interesting argument. I wonder if it's a generational thing. If we define immersion as "your vision focuses on what's inside the screen and you ignore the world around the screen, and you mostly ignore that your control of the player character is through a keyboard and mouse", then I've experienced immersion with every first person game ever, including Minecraft . I never considered that some people mi…

> VR to be, while very cool, not some revolutionary new technology

VR despite its limitations is the one thing I’ve ever achieved “presence” in, as in feeling if for a brief moment, I was actually there.

Elite dangerous, OLED Unit, HOTAS. For a brief moment in time my brain believed it was in the cockpit of a spaceship.

Re: Games Look Bad: HDR and Tone Mapping (2017)

#153

Post by theshackleford »

dartharva wrote: post #145
senko wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This, in a nutshell, is why Nintendo is doing so well. Their hardware is underpowered, games look like cheap cartoons, but the effort spent into gameplay more than compensates.

There are tens (if not hundreds) of indie and B-games that offer the same experience as most current Nintendo titles. Nintendo is doing well more because of nostalgia - it's the parents buying those consoles for their kids because they have very fond memories with Nintendo from their own childhoods.

I would disagree. And I know many adults in the PC gaming space like myself who would disagree.

I like my indie games, but not many are putting out what Nintendo is.

I mean it’s all subjective though.

Re: Games Look Bad: HDR and Tone Mapping (2017)

#154

Post by anthk »

Swizec wrote: post #89
tmtvl wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Photorealism is a bad idea if your movement engine isn't good enough to handle the character walking around on uneven terrain. For racing games or flight simulators or such it is less of a problem, but seeing a regular person being absolutely flummoxed by a knee-high wall is massively immersion breaking. It's something I really noticed when playing Disaster Report 4, where the people look amazingly realistic but some…

> For racing games or flight simulators or such it is less of a problem, Cars are also easier to make photorealistic. Less uncanny valley effect, lots of flat shiny surfaces. What absolutely breaks immersion for me in most AAA car games is the absolute lack of crash, scratch, and dirt mechanics. Cars racing around the track for 2 hours don’t look like showroom pieces! Make ‘em dirty darn it. And when I crash into a w…

Collin Mc Rae Rally 2 and 2005 did it fine for its era. What CMR2 did was incredible, the damages were very real.

Re: Games Look Bad: HDR and Tone Mapping (2017)

#155

Post by theshackleford »

windward wrote: post #104
badsectoracula wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but Control isn't sold "just so the end user can enjoy exercising their new GPU and monitor", it is sold for gamers to play a great game. And IMO it is Remedy's best game since Max Payne 2 (i haven't played Alan Wake 2 though) because of its gameplay and atmosphere, not because of its visuals (which, do not get me wrong, are great, but that is largely because of the art direction and visual design, not because of…

I don't really see your point. It was used by benchmarking youtubers for that benchmarking, so it at least sold to them for that reason. It's also the reason I bought it: any later enjoyment is unrelated.

I don’t really see your point because you appear to be moving the goalposts.

> Some games are sold just so the end user can enjoy exercising their new GPU and monitor.

Being used “for benchmarking” and “being sold just” for that purpose are two very different things.

Re: Games Look Bad: HDR and Tone Mapping (2017)

#156

Post by mystraline »

dahart wrote: post #142
carlosjobim wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're arguing that game engines should imitate photographic cameras, but they should imitate our eyes, which will never blow out whites outside in the sun.

Our eyes absolutely blow out whites in the sun. Doubly so when looking at the sun or even reflections immediately after being in the dark for a while, and when looking at bright that is very near dark in your visual field. I’m not necessarily arguing games should imitate cameras, I really only think over-compressing the dynamic range is bad, and I don’t understand why the author is arguing for that.

> Our eyes absolutely blow out whites in the sun.

Do you have a new technique to decode eye-brain perception in terms of how we perceive visual signals? Do you have a paper indicating how you make this claim for everyone?

Re: Games Look Bad: HDR and Tone Mapping (2017)

#157

Post by mmis1000 »

PaulHoule wrote: post #131
dahart wrote: post #98

I truly don’t understand the author’s opinions about contrast here. The RE7 image is the only one here that looks ‘realistic’, and at a glance could be mistaken for a photograph, and he says it’s got way too much contrast. No other image here comes anywhere even close, definitely not Zelda nor GTA5. Personally I think the whole problem with the first 5 images is that they don’t have enough contrast, and they have too…

For me games being too dark and not being able to see anything is a pet peeve. I can see the point in a horror game, but I will set the gamma or turn up the brightness if it makes the game hard to play.

Out of my mind, the destiny 2 is the biggest offender of this category. If I can't see shit at all, how does the feeling artist trying to convince even matter? I will just turn the brightness in graphic card setting all the way up. Because the cap in in game setting is insanely low.

Plus isn't not even a horror game. Come on, you are a shooter game. How does a shooter game that you can't see anything even make sense?

Re: Games Look Bad: HDR and Tone Mapping (2017)

#158

Post by glimshe »

Nicook wrote: post #75
glimshe wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't need photorealism in games, but it does help with immersion. Many people, like me, feel like they are inside the game world, rather than playing a game with a TV/monitor in front of them. Photorealism is essential for this feeling - at least for me . The most amazing gaming experience I've ever had was walking around the city at night in Cyberpunk 2077. For the first time in my life, I felt I was actually in…

Out of curiosity do you not get immersed in books?

I do, but not like cyberpunk. I like to both read and watch movies, but I feel a lot more immersed with images than I do with words. It's not a binary rating (immersed vs not immersed), it's a gradient that makes things resonate more strongly with photorealism.

This is one reason, I believe, why some people can't stand animated cartoons. I like them but I know many people who won't even consider watching animation.

Re: Games Look Bad: HDR and Tone Mapping (2017)

#159

Post by XCSme »

alt227 wrote: post #115
dahart wrote: post #98

I truly don’t understand the author’s opinions about contrast here. The RE7 image is the only one here that looks ‘realistic’, and at a glance could be mistaken for a photograph, and he says it’s got way too much contrast. No other image here comes anywhere even close, definitely not Zelda nor GTA5. Personally I think the whole problem with the first 5 images is that they don’t have enough contrast, and they have too…

> definitely not Zelda nor GTA5. The zelda screenshot he uses as an example of how good things look without HDR, looks terrible to me. It is all washed out with brightness and bloom, and all the shadows in the landscape that in reality would almolst be black, are very light grey.

I agree, it is washed out, and I was trying to find what exactly in the image the author really liked, but all I saw was a decolorated postcard.

Re: Games Look Bad: HDR and Tone Mapping (2017)

#160

Post by XCSme »

pradn wrote: post #140
markus_zhang wrote: post #30

One big issue I never understood is why do we need photorealism in games at all. They seem to benefit card manufacturers and graphic programmers, but other than that I feel it has nothing to do — and in fact may have negative impact on game quality.

A large section of the gaming public sees photo-realistic games as serious, and prefers them for high-budget games. It's a rat race for devs though - its just incredibly expensive to create high quality models, textures, maps. I've been playing Cyberpunk 2077, and while the graphics are great, it's clear they could do more in the visual realm. It doesn't use current gen hardware to the maximum, in every way, because…

Let's see how GTA VI will change this and the industry.

I personally like Cyberpunk's 2077 style, it looks great maxed out with HDR. Yes, the models aren't the best, but the overall look/vibe is spectacular at times.

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