[spartan_0214]

Ah, forgive me, I'm not well-versed in HDR. But true, there is perhaps a little too much bloom in those screenies...

[IceFire]

I find it quite tasteful....but it may need to be dialed back a bit.  But thats not really the point at all.  The fact that it can be done and looks like without too much trouble once all of the other pieces fall into place means this will be a really nice eye candy effect that we can all configure to our hearts content!

[spartan_0214]

Don't get me wrong, it's great that it can be done, and it is "quite tasteful," but too much of a good thing ...

[blackhole]

THE SHADER CAN BE ADJUSTED

Ok? ok.

[Solatar]

I really do like the amount of white bloom on the ship exiting subspace, however. It really gives an awesome feel of it coming out of subspace.

[Zacam]

K, is this on a 1207 exe with an external shader? Or a completely re-coded exe?

If it's just an external shader on a robinson XT, could I play with it? Please? :-)

How well does it react to high AA/AF values being applied (with or without Edge Gamma Transparency, etc.)?

[blackhole]

Its an external shader but its currently reliant on rendermonkey's IDE, as i haven't made it independent yet or loadable. Sorry

[BlackDove]

THE SHADER CAN BE ADJUSTED

Ok? ok.

Ok.

[IceyJones]

i also would appreciate this bloom-effect. it makes everything much smoother and i think, more realistic. it simulates also some kind of selective eye blending which can occur on every object you look at, if it is bright enough......

furthermore i added this effect also to my cutscene

[Black Wolf]

So cool. I have been waiting for the reintroduction of bloom for, christ, three, four years?

[wolf]

I'd like to see some HDR myself, but that would involve recoding the entire rendering pipeline to handle HDR. Not fun.

HDR in freespace wouldn't be too good. Take a look at this image: http://www.archives.gov/press/press-kits/picturing-the-century-photos/space-shuttle-challenger.jpg. The stars are so faint that almost none can be seen. In freespace with HDR we would probably have two situations:
1. Background stars and nebulas fully visible, then bright flash of light when something appears on the screen and before exposition will compensate.
2. Some ships on the screen, or even only sun and "where's all that beautiful background?"

IMO better just stick to the bloom.

[DaBrain]

I'd like to see some HDR myself, but that would involve recoding the entire rendering pipeline to handle HDR. Not fun.

HDR in freespace wouldn't be too good. Take a look at this image: http://www.archives.gov/press/press-kits/picturing-the-century-photos/space-shuttle-challenger.jpg. The stars are so faint that almost none can be seen. In freespace with HDR we would probably have two situations:
1. Background stars and nebulas fully visible, then bright flash of light when something appears on the screen and before exposition will compensate.
2. Some ships on the screen, or even only sun and "where's all that beautiful background?"

IMO better just stick to the bloom.

Very good point. I completely agree. Unless there is a good work-around.
HDR is mostly interesting for TCs that feature ground missions.

[IceFire]

Don't get me wrong, it's great that it can be done, and it is "quite tasteful," but too much of a good thing ...

See the part about it being "adjustable"

[spartan_0214]

\Sigh

Yes, guys, I understand that it is adjustable. I got that when I first read his post.

[blackhole]

On the point of HDR, i disagree. Who said HDR had to be perfectly realistic? Isn't it also perfectly reasonable for the stars to instead take advantage of HDR and give them a nice bump on the brightness scale? That way you'd be able to see then provided you weren't looking at the sun, which you already have a SCREENGOWHITE effect for anyway. In fact, HDR would make it easier to see the stars when you should be seeing the stars. A la, when your not staring into the engine glow of something. Tone mapping goes both directions.

[Flaser]

On the point of HDR, i disagree. Who said HDR had to be perfectly realistic? Isn't it also perfectly reasonable for the stars to instead take advantage of HDR and give them a nice bump on the brightness scale? That way you'd be able to see then provided you weren't looking at the sun, which you already have a SCREENGOWHITE effect for anyway. In fact, HDR would make it easier to see the stars when you should be seeing the stars. A la, when your not staring into the engine glow of something. Tone mapping goes both directions.

I have to whole-heartedly agree. It would be even better than now, since HDR makes it possible to have true changing light ambience - ergo when looking at smg. bright you won't see that well in dark areas, but that's alright....neither do you in life. When looking at something dark, you will see earlier "soft" ligthsources as a lot brighter. Which is alright too.

What the system tries to compensate is your monitor's inadequacy at rednering very dynamic images (with a very big difference between the brightest and darkest parts). Instead settling for a "muffled", grey middletone; you can achieve true dynamic range.

HDR isn't bloom, or enhanced or any of the other crap you see in most games!
Hell, I hadn't seen a HDR game in all these years, until I tried out Stalker on my friends rig.
It's different. Check out the Lost Coast on HL-2 to get the idea.

[Grizzly]

Could the bloom shader be made independent so it runs on all my OPENGL (or even Direct3d) games?

please?

Anyway, those pictures look better then the ATI Smarthader (HDR-Ish Lite). So, keep it up, and please get it working before summer .

[DaBrain]

It's a shader not an application.

It probably be used in some games (D3D9 as long as it's HLSL), but not without support for it in the used engine.

Anyway, those pictures look better then the ATI Smarthader (HDR-Ish Lite). So, keep it up, and please get it working before summer .

Yes, I agree. Much better than just blooming everything.