Lens flare in computer games

[keller]

Have you noticed in modern PC games, you get lens flare by looking at the sun? Seems a bit odd to deliberately use an equipment problem to "simulate reality", but I guess it adds a more cinematic quality to it. Still, its a bit weird.

 

[panzershreck]

Have you noticed in modern PC games, you get lens flare by looking at the sun? Seems a bit odd to deliberately use an equipment problem to "simulate reality", but I guess it adds a more cinematic quality to it. Still, its a bit weird.

Kubrick did it in most of his movies as well

 

[JohnMF]

yeah, i think easy rider was the first to do it. ruffled a few feathers at the time

 

[markc]

I think we're talking about two different things. There's real lens flare, which is what you would get from a real camera, like those used for the movies mentioned, and then there's the virtual cameras of computer generated images which have no real glass to flare. It's all calculations. They add it in on purpose, because people have gotten used to seeing the real thing, and when they don't, it looks fake. That's the odd thing mentioned in the original post. An aberation is induced into a system that wouldn't normally produce it in order for it to be accepted.

 

[panzershreck]

yeah, conditioning, if they wanted to be realistic to mimick the eye, they would have to spend more time rendering sky as well (not to mention, even if you did look at the sun with a camera lens, you aren't always going to get a noticable lens flare, nor would you be able to look at it for very long)

they should add in the variable of "retina burning", or where if the game looks at certain colors long enough, the colors starts turning into their complimentary colors

 

[stingray]

hehe, there's an idea... and also, just like their users the computer should "grow cateracts", suffer from eye fatigue, dryness, watering and if the player takes a really long time to complete the game, include an option to purchase corrective eye surgery!

 

[*AJAX*]

Sunglare on computer/consoles games can be a cool feature, particularly on the vice city games when your racing down the road not able to see where you are going ... it all adds to a real looking enviroment.

 

[doenoe]

i had a couple of accidents with Collin McRea this week, due to the sunglare thingie. I kinda like it......makes it more exciting and somewhat real.

 

[JohnMF]

they should add in the variable of "retina burning", or where if the game looks at certain colors long enough, the colors starts turning into their complimentary colors

this has already been done. in halflife 2 - the lost coast, downloadable extra level. it's a first person shooter, if you come from the daylight outside and enter a dark room or tunnel etc, the colours and screen slowly adjust to mimic what you described above.

that game has the most amazing graphics i've ever seen in a game