The....Bloom Effect

tigris67

The Bloom effect that is used in MMORPG's in my opinion gives them such a mystical and beautiful looking feel. It sort of heightens the colors saturating them while bluring out the hard edges and if utilized well, can create a surreal effect while playing the game. But I just can't help noticing that the effect is being overused now and its becomming ridiculous in some games. Its like they are just throwing it in the game to hide their ugly graphics or what not... Here are some screens that I felt had taken it a bit too far.




http://images.mmorpg.com/images/screenshots/032006/6150.jpg

tigris67

http://images.mmorpg.com/images/screenshots/032006/6150.jpg
http://images.mmorpg.com/images/screenshots/022006/5951.jpg
http://images.mmorpg.com/images/screenshots/032006/6146.jpg
http://images.mmorpg.com/images/screenshots/032006/6161.jpg

here are the screens, sorry the forum is being wierd and I cannot edit...

ChrisMattern

<blockquote><hr><i>Originally posted by tigris67</i>
<br><b><br /><a target="_self" href="http://http//images.mmorpg.com/images/screenshots/032006/6150.jpg">http://images.mmorpg.com/images/screenshots/032006/6150.jpg</a><br /><a target="_self" href="http://http//images.mmorpg.com/images/screenshots/022006/5951.jpg">http://images.mmorpg.com/images/screenshots/022006/5951.jpg</a><br /><a target="_self" href="http://http//images.mmorpg.com/images/screenshots/032006/6146.jpg">http://images.mmorpg.com/images/screenshots/032006/6146.jpg</a><br /><a target="_self" href="http://http//images.mmorpg.com/images/screenshots/032006/6161.jpg">http://images.mmorpg.com/images/screenshots/032006/6161.jpg</a><br /><br />here are the screens, sorry the forum is being wierd and I cannot edit...<br />

</b><hr></blockquote>
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Phoenixs

The bloom effect is nice in some cases. But start to get old now. Hdr is the new thing now and games that use bloom now use it as a replacement for Hdr. Oblivion etc does it when the graphics card doesn't support Hdr (ps 3.0). To some extend the bloom effect looks nice. World of Warcraft implemented it nicely. While Guild Wars used it way to much. I was really dissapointed when I saw that Warhammer Online is going the "use bloom like a ps2 game way". To much bloom sucks bigtime. 

apocalance

It was interesting at first, but honestly I agree with the previous post, it usually gets a bit too much love in most implementations.

Thrakk

Im for any effect that makes the graphics look cooler. Take snes9x emulator for instance. YOu could soup up those graphics with super eagle engine and stuff.

What I really like is immensity of graphics. Throw in lots and lots of grass, not just patches here and there. Lots and lots of foliage. Lots of detail.

Cell shading is pretty cool depending on the game.

katriell

It's a graphics fad...like scan lines used to be...

As a website designer I notice fads in both 3D and 2D graphics...once an effect is popular, it quickly becomes old. Then later on when most are done with it and just a few use it in moderation, it can be cool again like it was when it first started being used.

Celestian

Bloom is just a cheap way to hide a crappy graphics engine.