So here’s a discussion I’ve been having on Twitter and elsewhere: do you turn off depth of field and motion blur effects in games? I recently realised, when looking at some Borderlands screenshots, that I now do that by default, and didn’t wait more than a couple of minutes to kill the depth of field in that game. It was most scream-worthy, in my opinion, in Stalker: Clear Sky, where reloading the gun put everything except the gun out of focus – precisely when I wanted to be looking into the distance and judging my next barrage. So I’ve asked about, and opinion is clearly divided on the issue. For some people it’s a clear cut decision, while others see depth of field and motion blur effects as welcome prettiness, and beneficial to their experience. If that’s the case, can any of you point to situations in which these effects are useful, rather than just pretty? And if these things are merely visual spangle, then are they an effect too far? Have we reached a point in graphics where there’s too much extra processing? Or am I just getting too old to deal with these new-fangled visuals with my decrepit visual cortex? Speak your eyes!
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You know what would be awesome? A 2-D sidescroller with depth of field. Either with both sides of the screen falling into blurry obscurity, or just the whole thing being blurry.
That’s precisely what I’m working on at the moment. Take a look at the link in my name. Side-scroller with blur effects, double vision, etc. Still in early development, though.
I far prefer to have visual effects blocking out what I see in single-player games if they are used to indicate some effect taking hold on the player character, not because of the prettiness (although that doesn’t hurt), but due to the immersion. It makes the character more real, and their hardship (from a nearby grenade explosion, for example) a bit more real.
However, I always thought it was hilarious back in the day when playing multi-player games that the folks with better graphics cards fared worse at the game because they had extra voluminous fog/smoke/fire in their way, and more recently depth of field and hdr. The cheaper cards (or the smart people who turned off all the effects) had an edge over the others.
Although it’s not quite the same thing, I remember a bunch of us getting smacked down bad in Counterstrike (not the source version) because the guy had a really slow computer/gfx card so everything ran in slow mo on his system, and made it easier to shoot us all (I’d put it down to poor network code save that CS was made for networks, but this was one of the few instances their code failed to cater for).
I like the DOF in borderlands as it shifts when your “iron sighing” down a gun, and as in real life when your concetrating everything on one object you dont pay as much attention to the other things.
i think the DOF is too narrow (the distance vales from camera which register in focus are too close together) a subtler use would make the effect sit better. as with all sfx if you notice it, its done badly
Can’t wait for eyetracking to control dof THE FUTURE THE FUTURE
I love depth of field effects. Absolutely love ‘em, and I lack the patience for the argument that it’s an unnecessary effect. Unlike, say, bloom, which served no practical mechanic unless the game has a “Oh dear the sun’s in my eyes – who’s that waving at me, is that you Simon?” feature, depth of field is a great way to draw attention to elements in the foreground and the background. It also helps to subvert the uncanny feeling that you’re playing a godjaAmmed videogame because your eyes are apparently so perfect that you can focus on everything at once simoultaneously.
Assassin’s Creed did this well, for missions where you’re tailing people. The rest of the world just blurs away and it helps you stay utterly focussed on your objective.
Your eyes arent good enough to focus everywhere at once in a videogame either. Its just that your eyes move, giving the impression of focus everywhere.
DOF is not realistic.
Instead of being an illustration of cheapness, motion blur is a very valid effect when used adequately. Eyes will perceive fluid motion at 23 frames per second however our eyes can perceive motion quite a little faster than 23 frames per second. Running a movie at 23 frames does just fine as our camera´s do not record perfectly sharp images of motion and have just enough motion blur for us to interpret the image as sharp but still see fluid motion. Computer generated images are by definition perfectly sharp, in order to achieve a more ´natural´ look, motion blur compensates for the far too surperior sharpness.
In essence it is the same with depth of field, our eyes focus automatically, but they are not too fast at this. You could experiment with this by putting an object in front of your window and focus on it, then look outside in the distance. So DoF intends to simulate this, however most gamedesigners and filmmakers resort to improper use and the effect becomes an annoyance. DoF is a bigger problem to do well than motion blur (the latter needs only to be slight and relative to the speed of the object, but this means running the filter for every entity separately and will eat your computer´s guts and chew on it and then burp loudly and you will not like the game because you might´ve compensated for the lack of cinematique but you are now watching a slideshow) because DoF is in fact related to the user watching a still image and the eyes´ scanning pattern which cannot properly be interpreted.
I think DOF is good. It provides extra realism to a game. The example you gave when you reload the gun but you wanted to look for the next barrage is exactly what I mean: you see what your character sees, so if he’s focusing on reloading the gun, so should you, the player. You have time to look around and when you feel it’s ok to reload, you do it.
DOF also attenuates the problems of game engines that can’t render details that are far away in the scene. Making them blurry is the best thing to do. Look at GTA IV.
So yes, DOF is definitely good.
Have you ever reloaded a gun?
It does not take 100% concentration all the time. Sure you need to spend some time looking at it but you definitely do not need to stare at it the entire duration.
You only really need to look down to ensure that you are lining up the mag to the mag well.
@mrmud
I reloaded a gun once. Took me about ten minutes, what with dropping things and trying to put them in the wrong way up. And that was a breech-loading shotgun. It perhaps depends on how used you are at handling a weapon. Thus reloading times: Trained mercenaries = relatively slow. MIT-trained lab physicists fighting off alien invasions = relatively fast.
Point being that if you are capable of shooting hundreds of people in the face as is standard in the games we are talking about you are probably comfortable with reloading your weapon.
I agree with mmud. The SAS are trained to strip-down guns and re-build them blindfolded. So I don’t imagine it woud take their entire concentration to reload them (especially at the exspence of keeping track of where the incoming bullets are coming from).
I keep it on, why not… I like the look.
I don’t really know – I certainly tend to turn down motion blue because it can be annoying and isn’t that realistic (if you look around you don’t take in as much, but things don’t actually blur do they?).
As for Depth of Field, can’t say it has bothered me that much.
DOF, ambient occlusion both make single player campaigns more immersive.
Borderlands was nuts, there was an awesome juxtaposition between crazy cartoon outlines and super realistic DOF & AO that helped create a real sense of atmosphere in the game. Plus the crazytime delayed AO effect is mega trippy and totally epic
Post processing rules (especially in Shattered Horizon)
ker-what? I think you have misunderstood what ambient occlusion is TBH
DoF is a lovely thing when done well, the trick the lies in tweaking it so that it’s not too obtrusive IMO. If it’s overdone then it goes straight off, but a nice subtle bit of DoF is great and can actually help you out.
Personally I usually cant stand either feature. Both feel completely unrealistic and uneccesary. Depth of field makes more sense from a first person perspective, seeing it used in a strategy game however…. /facepalm
The only motion blur ive liked has been in the source engine. Looks rather nice in TF2 because its quite subtle. although this i turned off also because it made all my screenshots blurry =(
In my mind, it’s of course a divide between players who play to win/game the game system, or players who play for a specific experience – not primarily to make a maximization of all dynamics and mechanics. (Traditional Table Top) Role play – for example, is a gaming activity where players cannot play to win, it doesn’t work out, but instead, players play to experience something. The same goes, surprisingly for some hardcore war games, where you play a specific battle with a specific set of forces. Some of those scenarios you simply cannot win, but lose to different degrees. The enjoyment for grognards in these games are sometimes cited to be allowed to put oneself in the specific commander’s situation.
The thing I find odd about a lot of these effects is that despite the fact that in a lot of games we are supposedly there or seeing through a characters eyes, we get effects you don’t see with eyes. I’ve never seen lens flare. I do see the starburst effect sometimes though. I’ve seen depth of field effects of course, but that normally needs a much more extreme difference in distances than you get triggering DoF effects in games. Motion blur, again I’ve seen, but only in really low light conditions or when moving much faster than it is normally triggered in games. And film grain is just plain weird in most situations.
That said, sometimes these things can be effective – motion blur can give an additional sense of speed or impact. DoF sometimes makes things pretty, as does Lens Flare. And a lot of the HDR/glow effects you see really do replicate being in a dark room looking out or vice versa.
At least in STALKER it turned into something important and part of a game mechanic. Other games just seem to have it for ‘no reason’.
I never turn it off though, as that’s not how the games are supposed to be played. The fact that you can switch it off is purely a performance related choice.
Some games turn motion blur into a serious design flaw, but in many racing games it seems to work great to enhance the experience.
Whether it’s realistic or ‘in the way’ of a good gaming experience is different for each game, most games however don’t abuse the FX.
Motion blur is good, and realistically portrayed with current technology.
HDR is not realistic but still helpful from a practical point of view.
Depth of field is bad, because how the fuck does the game know where I am looking? What if I’m looking at that hill in the distance? It shouldn’t be blurred.
Until there is some complicated gizmo that tracks your eye to know at what part of the screen you are looking, then calculate the depth of that part and apply the DOF accordingly, EVERY single frame – until we get there, DOF will be a shite gimmick, just like “bloom” and overly shiny human skins.
“Motion blur is good, and realistically portrayed with current technology.
HDR is not realistic but still helpful from a practical point of view.”
why is HDR not realistic? If you make a photo of a couple that has the sun behind, all you will see with your eye, and the camera eye, will be 2 black shadows. Lets say that stuff that aproximate this on a videogame make the games more realistic. Also, making a dark area less dark, is helpfull to the player.
a trained soldier doesnt even look at his waepon while reloading
I guess it’s pretty simple for me: Good if used to make things look more natural, bad if used as a “special effect”.
Motion blur is just how the world works. Depth of field is usually an effect, used to focus on a particular part of a scene (and thus mostly only useful for controlled, cut-scene style sequences).
Borderlands is actually the first game where I really noticed the Depth of Field effects and left them on. I especially like it when I zoom in for a nice crit shot and everything else around the npc goes out of focus. Good implementation of the effect imo.
I always turn off motion blur (wait – there is motion blur in Borderlands?). Most annoying effect ever for me.
Motion Blur option is available in willowengine.ini – the same place as you turn on lovley Vsync. It’s off by default however.
DOF I’ll sometimes turn off when the option is available if I notice it distracting, although in Borderlands I did so mostly to try and reduce the eye strain I was experiencing in Borderlands when I started playing. Between it and FOV I was struggling – whether that’s related to how the game works on widescreen monitors I’ve no idea.
Motion Blur I’ll almost always turn off. I find most games over do it, I guess thinking that it’s cool and not wanting you to overlook how awesome they are for including it. Personally, it usually causes more eye strain for me than the prettiness factor is worth. I don’t enjoy walking away from a gaming session tired eyes unless I’m tired from staying up and playing far too late.
To my mind if you play a game and specifically notice individual effects, then they’re being overdone. No individual effects should stand out when playing, they should meld together to form a realistic, believable or engaging scene in which you think “wow” without being able to put your finger on any single effect.
I DESPISE motion blur. I can’t find a way to turn it off in ArmaII, so I’m just not playing it.
Depth of Field is kind of crap, but it depends on the game/situation it’s used in.
Depth of Field is not something humans have in their eyesight. It is a feature of lens based visuals. It might make it ‘cinematic’ but it is unituitive in a first person shooter – if you were reloading, you would be able to focus on distant things.
Depth of ield is ONLY acceptable in FPS games when there is a toggle for scope sights. This is less depth of field per se, but that, in reality, you wouldn;t be able to see anything but through the scope.
Motion blur is ok if two parameters are met:
1: it doesn’t lead to frame skipping and jumpy framerates during fast movement in busy areas (this is the pitfall of most motion blur – it’s not obvious until you get 1/3 of a second pause of blur because it’s stuffing up your framerate)
2: It is so marginal as not to be obvious to concious recognition – it should be something like health bars, which, if done well, never need to be consciously recognised – it’s just there.
I’ve never had a game which matches both those requirements.
I agree with that for a scope but not for a red dot or holo sight.
I think we need to straighten a few things out here.
Depth of Field isn’t a very good name for this effect anyway as it’s a measurement of something variable. Something like ’shifting focus’ or ’shallow focus’ would make more sense.
Secondly, some people seem to be under the impression that it’s an unrealistic effect because their eyes see everything thing in focus. Which, if that’s what they’re saying, is madness. Hold your hand up in front of your face, focus on it and now tell me everything else in view is sharp
Of course your eyes doesnt see everything in focus, thats a strawman.
What your eyes does is move the focus and your mind creates a larger area that appears to be in focus.
Also if you are playing a game you already have depth of field by default from the fact that the eye cant focus everywhere at once. You dont need to add additional blur.
However the major problem with Depth of field in games is that they cannot know what you yourself is looking at as opposed to what the camera is pointing towards. That means that if your eyes is focusing on something in the corner of the monitor then that part of the screen should always be in focus.
It’s not a straw man, it’s a fact. And some people certainly appear to be saying shallow focus is not a fact of their vision, so that’s not a straw man either.
If you are looking at a screen the screen is in focus. The fact of your retinas having higher acuity in the middle of your view than in the periphery is neither here not there. If what is displayed on that screen is designed to represent 3d space where your eyes wouldn’t be in deep focus, a shallow focus effect can help reinforce the illusion. That’s why they do it (in FPSs anyway). And yes a shortcoming is that ‘eyes’ in an FPS are fixed where your own eyes are not and people look around the screen while playing. I’m not sure what we’re talking about.
Depth of field, motion blur, grain filters all get thrown out immediately.
Motion blur being the top of my hatelist.
I love motion blur! In particular the fantastic blur I experienced when I played “Manic Miner” on ZX Spectrum on my old CRT b/w television I had….
I thought it worked really well in Burnout (I’ve only played the earlier ones on PS2 and GameCube), especially when you hit overdrive, (or boost or what ever it was called) and everything around you seemed to go backwards. I’ve once or twice been driven in a really fast car and occasionally it is just like that.
Of course, it’s less terrifying sat on your sofa…
Depth of Field I’m on the fence about, but Motion Blur is absolutely fine. Motion Blur is essentially just anti-aliasing over time instead of space, and it ranks up there with anti-aliasing on “features I’d really like to have if my computer can handle them at a reasonable framerate.”
The DoF in Borderlands is pretty finicky and occasionally hard to focus on exactly what you want it to, and I think the focal range is a lot smaller than it could be. I’m sure I’ve seen it used more subtly elsewhere, though I can’t really produce a name of a game that I’ve noticed it in, but I guess that’s sort of the point.
Depth of Field I’m on the fence about, but Motion Blur is absolutely fine. Motion Blur is essentially just anti-aliasing over time instead of space, and it ranks up there with anti-aliasing on “features I’d really like to have if my computer can handle them at a reasonable framerate.”
The DoF in Borderlands is pretty finicky and occasionally hard to focus on exactly what you want it to, and I think the focal range is a lot smaller than it could be. I’m sure I’ve seen it used more subtly elsewhere, though I can’t really produce a name of a game that I’ve noticed it in, but I guess that’s sort of the point.
(Why is it telling me this is a dupe comment?)
Halp I suck at computers. =(
In FPSs no, because it makes spotting enemies uselessly harder (and yes, 50 ms does make a difference, if it didn’t I’d be playing Mario Party). In other games, it’s a nice effect if it’s not overused. Like someone pointed out, in Assassin’s Creed.
I’d say putting the background out of focus while reloading brings the experience into a realm that is more realistic in that, if you were really shooting people, there’d be an amount of time in which you’d have to focus on reloading and not on something far away. After all, reloading actually takes focus, not just pressing “R”, IRL. That being said, whether or not that is the intent of the designers, or if it is implemented well, or if that effect is desired by the player, is a whole other story.
Depth of field/focus is a feature of any lens – whether it’s our eyes or a camera lens.
In photography (and therefore cinema), it’s a matter of technique whether you want to emphasise or reduce the effect, but it’s pretty popular among a lot of photographers (me included).
Look at this photo – http://www.flickr.com/photos/josephfarthing/3537603418/
Here the shallow depth of field is used to make the background less noticeable, and stop it distracting from the subject. (Not perfect, but the fastest example I could find.)
In real life, our eyes also have a depth of focus – it’s much more impressive than almost any glass lens, and is mostly unnoticeable to us, but it *is* there.
What game designers have is a choice – they can use DoF cinematically, like a photographer, or subtly like the eye.
Either way, I think it’s a valid technique and often quite a pretty one.
DoF is not as realistic as it could be. It has problems, but I re-enabled it in Mass Effect (I might waffle on this) after playing a bit without. It is better, in my estimation, than no DoF, because it serves to mute unnecessary background info, which is damn fine graphic design: highlight focal point by making it sharp. Subdue background (or foreground) by making it less detailed. That’s the rule.
What you hate, and I admit is a problem, is when it is bluring things that you ARE trying to focus on. But this is not a problem with motion blur. This is the single most prevalent problem in gaming today: judging player intention, and reacting to that. Usually, either user testing or user input is required. Critique the details of DoF that you don’t like. Otherwise, the best the developers know to do is to give you control of DoF. On/Off is the obvious way to do this, but wouldn’t it be cool if ctrl-mousewheel adjusted the depth of focus? THAT would be cool, if a bit over-designed to compensate for player taste. Better yet, the developers ought to try to judge what they think the player wants to look at. Then, get a few players to come try it, and see what they think.
The question of Motion Blur and Depth of Field are seperate cases. Motion blur is inherently an exageration. Though the Scout from TF springs to mind as a good subtle usage. Where as DoF is intended as a realism effect yet ironicaly gets exagerated more so than motion blur. The most outstanding examples I suppose would be the ones we notice the least? That being said two immediatly come to mind. For DoF Halo 2s Cutscenes and Lost Planet. The latter also having the best motion blur I have ever scene.
It is unfortunate that when new effects become available they come off so clumsy. Largely I would expect they are included in games without a gameplay purpose and simply become part of a checklist or atleast are included because its easy to do so.
I was quite annoyed at what Starbreeze did to the Riddick remake. It was technicaly superior to original, clearly. But the new effects and/or the implementation of them completely changed the look and feel of the game for the worse.
Disclosure: I have only read the first and the last two posts ;P
I think I’m the only person that liked Clear Sky’s DoF implementation. As a game that makes a point to beat you down, it only makes sense that reloading makes you lose track of what you’ve been doing.
[quote]a trained soldier doesnt even look at his waepon while reloading[/quote]
As an infantryman for four years, this. You’re trying to determine the originating location of incoming fire and, if possible, taking cover behind something. At no point should you be looking at your weapon unless it jams.
“Have we reached a point in graphics where there’s too much extra processing?”"
Hell yes. That point was reached years ago when they started using too much bloom in every darn game. And yes, I turn DoF always off because it is not used correctly IMO. In Gothic 3 blur/dof looks nice if it’s applied only to objects that are kilometers away because it takes of some of the jagginess and makes things look a bit more like in fairy tales. Speaking of fairy tales, I believe Trine uses DoF too and that’s a fine-looking game.
Anyway, motion blur and depth of field in first person games is almost always waste of resources.
I love motion-blur, because it makes games look smooth on my old computer.
I hate depth-of-field when it does not follow my eyes’ focus point.
Depth of field is most annoying in CoD:MW when you’re sniping through grass and the depth shifts to the fuckin’ blades right in front of your eyes instead of the dipshit you’re aiming at a hundred yards off…