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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)

#191

Post by dahart »

epolanski wrote: post #163
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…

It's not about being realistic but good looking.

Okay, the only image that looks “good” to me in terms of color handling is the RE7 image.

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

#192

Post by dahart »

carlosjobim wrote: post #177
dahart wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's a cloudy day here and I'm within my rather dimly lit office. If I look out the window, it is no problem to see clouds in all their details, and I don't loose any details within the darker environment in the room. A camera will either blow out the entire sky outside the window to capture the details in the room - or make the room entirely black to capture the details of the sky through the window. I mean, most pe…

The first three pictures in the article have direct sun visible in the sky and not clipping. I was referring to that. The sun itself does blow out when you look directly at it, but please don’t spend time staring at the sun as it will damage your eyes.

The dynamic range of human eyes is not vastly superior to cameras. Look it up, or measure. It’s easy to feel like eyes have more range because of adaptation, foveation, iris, etc.

Again, I didn’t argue that games should imitate cameras. But that would be better than what we have in games; movies look way better than the game screenshots in this article.

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

#195

Post by wkjagt »

pflenker wrote: post #127

I skipped the text and looked at the images and was unable to understand if they were supposed to be bad or good examples. I liked them. Then k read through the text and learned that they are supposed to be bad examples. But why though? I suspect that either I am not good at this kind of thing, or this is a purist thing, like „don’t put pineapples on pizza because they don’t do that in Italy“. I don’t want games to l…

From what I understood is that these are supposedly bad because they look like video games instead of photographs. Not sure what the problem with that is though. I'm fine with video games looking like video games.

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

#196

Post by astrange »

pflenker wrote: post #127

I skipped the text and looked at the images and was unable to understand if they were supposed to be bad or good examples. I liked them. Then k read through the text and learned that they are supposed to be bad examples. But why though? I suspect that either I am not good at this kind of thing, or this is a purist thing, like „don’t put pineapples on pizza because they don’t do that in Italy“. I don’t want games to l…

Real life has a lot of sensations that games don't. A rainy/foggy day might look boring, but it feels nice to be out in (ideally). Well, that and computer audio is/can be about as good as humans can perceive, but displays are nowhere near it.

So both of these mean you have to jack up the sensation so people can feel something.

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

#197

Post by astrange »

chihuahua wrote: post #161
pflenker wrote: post #127

I skipped the text and looked at the images and was unable to understand if they were supposed to be bad or good examples. I liked them. Then k read through the text and learned that they are supposed to be bad examples. But why though? I suspect that either I am not good at this kind of thing, or this is a purist thing, like „don’t put pineapples on pizza because they don’t do that in Italy“. I don’t want games to l…

I totally agree. The example pictures in the article look fine. I don't know what the author wants, but perhaps it's some kind of industry insider view similar to where "true artists' make movies that are so dark you can't see anything, and the dialog is quiet mumbling and the sound effects are ear-shattering. Perhaps there's an equivalent to that in games.

I can see why people wouldn't like them - they're all oversaturated and most of them go for the cheesy "everything is teal and orange" or "everything is piss yellow" gradings. There's a quote I heard in a photography tutorial once that goes something like "once you've moved all the sliders to what you want, move them back 50%", and games basically don't that.

But the biggest problem with the screenshots is they literally aren't HDR. So how can we judge their HDR?

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

#198

Post by astrange »

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…

> 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.

It looks like a cheap film camera or a home video screenshot. So it gives off a feeling of nostalgia to a sufficiently old person, but this is also the kind of photo you'd reject as a pro, because it's totally overexposed.

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

#199

Post by wodenokoto »

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.

His argument is that it looks like something someone would paint and I quite agree with that.

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

#200

Post by tobyhinloopen »

simoncion wrote: post #49
tobyhinloopen wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless it's a MINI LED or OLED display, it simply doesn't have the contrast to properly render a lot of what makes HDR... HDR. Calibrate the display with HDR enabled for a better SDR response.

VA screens have pretty damn good contrast, and OLED monitors tend to have low peak (and sometimes even spot!) brightness. A while back, I tried an OLED gaming monitor that was widely reviewed as being very good. While it was somewhat better than the VA monitor that I've been using for years, it was nowhere near 1,500 USD good. I could see someone coming from an IPS or TN screen being very impressed with it, though.

VA screens have terrible black smearing though. I also bought an OLED display and returned it because it was just very dim. I own a miniled display that peaks at 1000cd full screen (it has a fan to handle the heat) and I'm still looking for an OLED replacement.
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