I just don’t get it - let’s spend so much money, development and hardware to render the most clean game possible, avoid aliasing and increase detail… And then let’s enable color distortion as if we were vieweing the game through a 1930’s cinema projector. Add in some film grain too! This saves me the effort of covering my monitor with dirt!
Make sure to make those options enabled by default on every game you release too!
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All the effects are highly game dependent for me. Except for motion blur. Fuck motion blur. Worst fucking idea ever. Shit already blurs when you move it fast why make it worse…
Per object motion blur is actually great. Motion blur gets a bad reputation from the poorly implemented camera-driven motion blur that most games insist on using.
This. Fans spinning in a game? Motion blur good. Turning head slowly? Motion blur bad.
I will add though that I wish the settings allowed me to disable camera blur but leave object blur on. Maybe one day…
Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands had two toggles, one for camera blur and one for object. Only game i’ve seen that in and really wish more did it.
I thought that wasn’t great particularly in the over world where it made it look like your character was Sonic with it looking blurry when they weren’t even moving fast.
Holy fuck thank you! I hadn’t realized that was my specific issue with motion blur and why sometimes it didn’t seem so bad, but that hits the nail in the head.
I despise motion blur and am always baffled by the fact that it’s usually on by default.
Why do they want to make the game look like I bought a cheap monitor? I specifically did NOT buy a cheap monitor, because I don’t want everything to be blurry
It makes sense for 30 fps capped games, since even consoles with the best frame timing and locked 30 fps feel and look terrible without motion blur to smooth things out. That’s pretty much the few instances motion blur is needed, but once a minimum of 40 fps is hit that isn’t needed.
Honestly I usually run mods or patches to unlock FPS when I can, but I also grew up in the days of regular drops to single digit FPS on consoles and got used to it. So even playing on my Switch I turn motion blur off, I’d rather see a bit of frame stutter than motion blur but I can understand that’s a personal preference. (Actually my daughter has the switch now and I play my switch games on PC in the resolutions they deserve, with no blur lol)
I will admit since I finally upgraded to a 165Hz 1440p monitor and got used to playing at beautifully smooth >100fps, 30fps seems worse than it used to.
Sure, a little bit of blur to cover up the frames and simulate the old slow response rate of TVs is acceptable, but when you turn the camera and the whole screen smears it’s just unplayable.
Strongly disagree. Well implemented per-object motion blur is useful at all framerates.
Most people when they talk about motion blur mean one that applies it to everything. Most games don’t even have per object motion blur that it’s not even ubiquitous enough to assume that is what is being talked about. Especially if you are talking of console games from last gen when 30 fps was the standard.
I’m a weirdo who thinks 45 fps is good and imo just a touch of motion blur can smooth it out a little
If I’m running a game at 60+ plus tho yeah no
After I got my Steam deck I’ve run lot of games at 40 fpz even if they can run at 60 fps since it’s been a good balance of smoothness and battery life. But, 30 I refuse to do.
I refuse 30 unless the game is very slow in camera movements
Guess what else was on by default? Oblivion bloom.
I have enough chromatic aberration from my glasses, I definitely don’t need another layer of it
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Motion Blur
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Depth of Field
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Chromatic Aberration
These three always gets turned off immediately
And film grain
Very rarely I find this adds to visuals. But it’s incredibly rare, it really only makes sense if used in specific situations only, specifically when showing something that happened in the past. In those situations, film grain + sepia colors can be used to avoid having to explicitly mention that this is a flashback.
As a general look, all the time? 🤮
There’s at least one puzzle game using film grain with no option to turn it off that initially made me think it’s game engine is broken
That, and vignettes
I’ll sometimes leave motiom blur enabled… If its well implemented. Usually it’s not
Depth of field stays on for me, even in competitive FPS. That’s non-negotiable.
In competitive it’s a bit far for me. Single-player? Stays on.
I like it when I aim down sights and the games blurs the rest of the weapon except sights like in CoD and Apex. Helps reduce high frequency details.
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I’m surprised that nobody mentioned (or I missed) lens dirt. Why in the hell does my fps character have dirt on his eyeballs?
And water drops streaking down the screen during rain! If you have to depict rain on the eyes, make it blur the entire screen and cause the player to “blink” once or twice. Except don’t because that also doesn’t belong in video games. I can maybe see that adding to the immersion in a Mirror’s Edge-like game though, as annoying as it would be.
Kind of makes sense for something like Halo where your character has a helmet/visor.
Absolutely. I do quite like it in Halo, Metroid Prime, etc. But some art directors must think John Battlefield has corneas the size of beach balls
BLOODY SCREEN!
So real!
Whoa, I haven’t seen anyone else reference that “game” in forever! I still play that sound clip in my head every time I see that effect.
“You can’t stop me, unless the game goes into slow motion for some reason and I become easier to shoot.” Beewwww “Oohhhh nooooo…”
Boring! Boring!
Bulletstorm is among my favourite games of all times and especially on my mind at the moment since a VR port is coming in December… can’t wait!
I’ve never played Bulletstorm, but they also have been developing a game called Witchfire that I’ve been so excited for ever since I saw the first teaser like… 5 years ago. Apparently it just released into early access last month but somehow I missed the announcement!
In the same vein, lens flares in FPS games are annoying.
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It’s meant to represent your character being wet/dirty. Adds to the sense of immersion by simulating the sensation of touch.
I’m sure that’s true in some cases, but it seems like devs tend to rely on it for easy realism, like all the other things mentioned here (CA, motion blur, etc.). Personally, it takes me out of the experience when I notice it, but I guess it’s not that hard to ignore if the game is otherwise engaging.
I put it in the same category as that effect where the screen gets bloody (or worse, vein-y) when you take damage, then it goes away when you heal. As if Ben Stein himself dowsed you with Clear Eyes.
That’s how I feel about lense flare too… My eyes aren’t the same as a camera lense… Yes we have a lense in our eyes but it doesn’t work like that lol
Well, a dazzling effect would still be appropriate. I know some games leave spots on the screen after a flash-bang.
Good for you. Some of us get lens flare naturally at night because our eyes DO work like that.
Depends on the game. I’m 50/50 on this I feel. Vignetting and film grain I always turn off. Lens flair is annoying most of the time too but of this list I find chromatic abortion to be the least offensive.
I think vignette and film grain can both look great in small doses and in the right situations, but they have to be really subtle. If you can actively see them, it’s already far too much. Unfortunately, most games go wayyyy overboard with them.
Film grain has a few psychological effects:
- it can evoke a sense of nostalgia, as if you’re watching old footage
- it can add texture, which can stop players from perceiving flat textures as being as, well, flat, stop jagged edges from standing out as much, and adding a sense of depth
- it can make something feel more “genuine” - rather than being clean, edited, almost clinical feeling, film grain can make things feel a little more raw and believable
- it can add a “documentary feel”, especially combined with camera shake (another thing a lot of games are far too liberal with, but that can be great in the right moment/dosage) which can make the player/viewer feel more like they’re in the action themselves
- a lot of cinematic masterpieces were filmed on analogue film. Film grain is something people subconsciously associate with something being cinematic, to the point where a lot of modern film/TV that’s shot on digital cameras (and therefore doesn’t have film grain) will have digital noise added to emulate the effect. Games do it for the same reason.
As for vignette, I think this is far more niche and definitely something that isn’t used well in a lot of games. The biggest reasons to use it are:
- to draw the player/viewer’s eye to the centre of the screen/frame
- to reduce the player’s peripheral vision - this can be good for horror games to add a feeling of claustrophobia, or in any genre when the player is wounded (although many games will add fairly distinctive bloody overlays rather than a simple vignette)
- during low-light situations - like above, but it can really sell the darkness a lot more (on top of actual low-lighting effects) if there’s a well-done vignette.
The thing is, both things need to be used in tasteful quantities, and ideally done dynamically. Just plastering them over the entire screen all the time looks terrible, whereas using them in specific situations and being more selective with how they’re applied - like in low-light situations, certain environments, or specific story moments - can work really well. And most developers simply don’t do that.
Thanks for all that. Great read.
+1 For “Chromatic Abortion.”
I like it. I can’t explain why but I do. IMO, as long as it’s a toggle, everyone can be happy (haven’t found a game that forced it yet, though I probably wouldn’t notice if it did)
Me too! Depending on the game and implementation, it can look awesome.
I like chromatic abberation too. And film grain, vignettes, scan-lines, dirty/wet camera effect, lens flares. The lot.
Not all at the same time and not on max settings. But when having a helmet equipped or using something like a Scanner or spectacles in a game, why not? If it suits the purpose and / or the aesthetic, I’m fine with it.
Personally I draw the line at motion blur, which simply makes me sick.
Personally never saw the appeal of vignettes and film grain, and sometimes the game doesn’t give us the option to turn that off, which is really dumb since its very simple to code. Not judging what you like ofc, I just want to have options
I generally classify “style effects” into two categories.
Strictly inferior technology
These are things that had absolutely no upside to showing up in their media, they were entirely a relic of older and less perfected technology not being able to produce the picture we wanted yet.- Chromatic abberations
- Film grain
There is no reason to have these unless you’re doing a flashback and want to intuitively imply how much older this scene is versus the other ones.
Stylistic technology
While 99% of the time as a photographer you’ll avoid these, there are situations where you intentionally utilize them to highlight something.- Depth of field
- Motion blur
So in specific situations - as in, not enabled all the fucking time - they could be good in my video game, highlighting a specific very fast motion or a specific focus on a slice of depth. But instead, video games just turn them on or off, CEOs being too cheap to pay artists to go over the scenes one by one and utilize these effects to their full artistic potential.
A good example for well-used motion blur would be if you can find a speed powerup, and motion blur specifically enables on your character’s animations only when that is in use, and is completely absent otherwise. The sudden appearance of motion blur then highlights just how fast your character becomes with this powerup.
Depth of field is an incredibly important tool for photographers? Not sure why you think they try to avoid it 99% of the time (apart from the fact that you literally can’t avoid it, but I’m assuming you mean shallow DoF).
Eh yeah, I should have been more specific with that. It’s a natural element of any picture, but I meant that they “passive”, the uncontrolled, the non-intentional DoF, that’s to be avoided. DoF is a component of a good image, but intentionally so. But just like with motion blur, it’s usually applied “overall” in video games, not to highlight specific areas or elements of a scene.
Like motion blur, I can imagine plenty scenes where an intentionally placed and sparsely used DoF can really augment the impact of a scene. But one key component to that is that it has to be intentional, and we just don’t see that happen in video games sadly.
I hate motion blur so much. The only time I have ever seen it used properly is in Everspace 2, when you fly into a zone
Burnout Paradise for me.
There is no reason to have these unless you’re doing a flashback and want to intuitively imply how much older this scene is versus the other ones.
There actually is a reason for both of those to be used in video game development
You really should do some research on practical applications of both of these features
But instead, video games just turn them on or off, CEOs being too cheap to pay artists to go over the scenes one by one and utilize these effects to their full artistic potential.
And apparently do some research into how these are implemented.
Noise/Grain is used to add texture after using some sharp aliasing, it can subtly help blend things. Similarly aberration can help soften edges that get really sharp when rendering.
Irregardless of what they can practically be used for, they are implemented as simple features that users have the ability to control. Both features are just screen space shaders that take very little dev time and processing power. They are added as an extra little feature that’s simple not because the CEO is too cheap. It sounds like you are unhappy with a game you’ve played and seemingly blamed it on them adding a noise filter, so now any use of it is lazy.
Noise/Grain is used to add texture after using some sharp aliasing, it can subtly help blend things. Similarly aberration can help soften edges that get really sharp when rendering.
Eh, grain doesn’t add a texture to anything. It’s a screen space effect that’s added to the image as a whole. And yeah sure it can mask sharp corners. And soft corners. And crisp textures. And soft textures. And small detail. That’s a given, considering it’s drawn right over them.
That’s like saying you could solve a wrong hue in a texture by enabling color blind mode by default. You could, but you’d probably - correctly - realize that you’re massively degrading the image quality for no good reason. Exactly what film grain and chromatic abberation do, mind you.
they are implemented as simple features that users have the ability to control
If that were always the case - and ideally they’d be off by default - then sure. Even better would be if they were used to highlight specific situations only, like when showing an old video ingame or looking through an old lens aparature or so.
It sounds like you are unhappy with a game you’ve played and seemingly blamed it on them adding a noise filter, so now any use of it is lazy.
No, I’m unhappy with any game that enables these all through. Doesn’t meant the games are overall bad. But they could be better, like if they didn’t have film grain or chromatic abberations. Simple.
Film grain is useful specifically in cases where you’re using lighting techniques that have to take a lot of expensive per-pixel samples. If you reduce the number of samples to save on performance, the value doesn’t converge and therefore you end up with random noise in your lighting output. Film grain is a compromise that adds random noise everywhere so that the noise in lighting is less noticeable, which looks even worse. Generally it’s combined with a sharpening filter that retains hard edges, but if overused it can definitely wash out texture detail.
Motion blur is useful in cases where you’re using temporal effects that gather screen-space data over several frames. These generally look great if the camera stays mostly still, but if the camera is moved a bunch you might end up with “ghosting” as the previous frames’ data is used for an incorrect camera position, and motion blur lets that data accumulate before the image is clear enough to spot issues.
Chromatic aberration is unlike those in that it’s not generally covering anything up, it is entirely an artistic effect. I think it can look pretty amazing if used subtly, but much like bloom it can very easily be overused and just get annoying instead. If you’re noticing the distinct RGB color banding at the edges it’s being used too much. But used right, it can give a lot of flair to bright lights, with a mild bit of hue shift at the edges.
I don’t like motion blur or film grain, I think they’re both crutches and look like piss, but to a dev team given limited resources to get a game out the door, they might be the crutch that makes the game shippable. Believe it or not, both of those effects look better than what they’re generally covering up. Games are all held together with duct tape and prayers under the hood.
They did a real good job on the NoS effect in the 2005 Need for Speed: Most Wanted, although it’s unrealistic but was cool as fuck.
I absolutely hate motion blur in games too. It’s usually way too strong and only gets in the way. Not to mention it tends to be a heavy-ish effect on lower-end hardware, and nobody optimizes shit for shit these days.
Then lock the framerate to 24 and enable motion blur to pretend it’s actually smooth. Voilà! A terrible, albeit cinematic, experience, just like god intended!
Depends on the game. A fast paced FPS, sure that would be bad. A story driven detective noir, that could look great.
Eh, sure I guess, as long as it’s optional. I personally seriously can’t stand playing games with less than 60 fps, even if slow paced, it just feels imprecise and annoying to me.
to render the most clean game possible
Why do you think the goal is to make something “clean” looking? You know what’s clean looking? Asteroids, Battlezone, etc. Many games are going for a more cinematic look, in which case CA, film grain, etc. can seem natural. As long as there’s an option to disable it, I don’t see why people take such objection to its presence.
many games are going for a more cinematic look, in which case CA, film grain, etc. cam seem natural
Ah yes, nothing is quite as natural as a first person view with chromatic aberration and film grain, you know, just like our natural human eyes that are based on analogue photography film.
Natural with respect to a film camera. Come on.
But my point is precisely that games are adding these effects where they do not belong, which includes first person games where there’s no “camera”.
The counterpoint given is artistic expression. If a designer wants the game to feel like an interactive film, then they’re going to use the tropes found in films.
If chromatic abberation enhances the mood or feel or themes of a title, I think it’s fine to use as long as there’s an optional toggle to remove it for folks that don’t like it.
You do know what “cinematic” means, yes? Most shots in cinema aren’t meant to seem like they’re seen from the perspective of an actual person.
Most shots in a first person shooter game are seen from the perspective of an actual person, though.
Ok sure, remove the film grain… then add in your eye’s natural blind spots, automatic content fill, and varying resolution.
You could say that’s already added by the eyes you’re viewing the game with
Ok sure, remove the film grain… then add in your eye’s natural blind spots, automatic content fill, and varying resolution.
Aka: the eyes you are using to play the game + Frame Generation + Dynamic Resolution.
Because le Reddit army hates it so they do too. Half of these nerds get all their opinions told to them
I always turn it off. In photography CA is a bad thing. All lenses have it but a poor lens design will have more if it. It’s a thing that everyone wants to elimate to have a good photograph.
What’s fascinating is that lenses for photolithography, the process used for projecting the patterns of the mask on the silicon substrate in the manufacturing of integrated circuits, have almost no aberrations, or at least their effect is negligible! That’s due to the awesome engineering behind modern lens manufacturing. These were brought about, for the most part, by growing automation and computerisation and subsequent gains in precision. This means that imperfect lenses were once used for photolithography to make ICs, those ICs were then used to make better lenses, the resulting better lenses could make better ICs again, etc. We owe so much to computers!
That’s a big problem if all was lost and we had to rebuild just from experience. You can’t just make a 5nm chip because you know how to do it. You need 7nm chips in the machine that makes 5nm chips. That machine needs 12nm chips, and so on.
If games apply it in context as an immersive effect I’m ok with it if it’s not over done.
Like when I’m looking down a scope or something, or through binoculars.
Games that apply it as a full screen effect I turn it off immediately.
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Even object based I found myself disabling in like third person game if they applied it to the character model too with movement coming across blurry. I prefer crisp visible animations overall.
Yeah if I wanted more motion blur I’d use a worse monitor. >.>
Honestly, turning down the overdrive settings gives me a better motion blur than most games.
Film grain, ostensibly, is meant to reduce color banding. Chromatic aberration is purely an aesthetic choice afaik.
But, yeah, “clean” usually isn’t the goal. Also, rendering something cleanly and rendering something detailed, while not mutually exclusive, tend to be antagonistic to one another.
If you don’t like it then fine, but that’s just your opinion.
but that’s just your opinion.
Of course. There’s nothing I can provide but my opinion, that’s how it works.
“clean” usually isn’t the goal. Also, rendering something cleanly and rendering something detailed, while not mutually exclusive
Film grain does not add detail, as it contains no information about the rendered object or texture. It adds grain, a content-agnostic noise to the image.
Instead of file grain they should use dithering if they want to remove banding.
The film grain doesn’t really hide the banding that well.
I think the film grain is just to make it look like a film not to hide color banding.
There is pretty much always some level of dithering involved, but its settings are rarely exposed to players
Ah yes one of those lovely movie type effects that make sense for movies but not for games. Worser offenders are those that enforce them or don’t even add menu options to disable said features. Looking at you, taa.
Word. One thing I wish Steam would do is let us choose defaults for settings like that, and games can choose to use those settings.
Especially for steam deck. Wish there was an option to have a community preset you choose replace the settings.
That would be a fantastic feature, and valve is worker directed - if you convince a valve dev to implement it, it could easily catch on
