Half-Life 2 Screenshots w/ Motion Blur

[LittleB]

Okay, it took alot of trial and error, but finally with the use of Source's movie capturer and Photoshop opacity thingy, I've managed to conjure some motion blurred screenshots.

I recorded a demo and then rendered it at 300 fps, then using Photoshop I took 10 images for each screen and alpha'd them together, to make 30 fps with 10x motion blur.

Screen 1, Normal
Screen 1, Motion Blurred

Screen 2, Normal
Screen 2, Motion Blurred

Screen 3, Normal
Screen 3, Motion Blurred

As it is hard to tell by looking at screens seperately, I made side by side comparison shots of #2 and #3.

Screen 2, Side by Side
Screen 3, Side by Side

The effect is subtle, because we are talking about 1/30th of a second here.

But as you can see, this is real motion blur, unlike those faked out trails seen in GTA3 or MGS2.

If seen in a movie, this would produce motion as smooth as (actually a little smoother) then the best DVD quality.

To make a 4.5 minute movie, my computer would have to render 81,000 frames (as opposed to 8,100), and it would take me 3-4 hours total to mix every shot and make a movie.

Does anyone have a faster way of mixing screens evenly? Cuz I would like to make such a movie...

Also does anybody have a fast paced demo with lots of fast moving objects running on a normal HL2 map?

Anyway, I'd like some feedback on this


p.s. BTW I'm going to bed now so don't expect any answers from me for about 9-10 hours.

 

[v1p3r]

How do you get the Source demo GUI up? I've seen people using it but I can't figure out how to get it up

 

[frances_farmer]

To make a 4.5 minute movie, my computer would have to render 81,000 frames (as opposed to 8,100), and it would take me 3-4 hours total to mix every shot and make a movie..

I think it would take you substantially longer, many months in my estimate. Call me stupid but could you explain why you can't just record the source movie at 30 fps?

 

[Maxi]

Wow, that looks awesome! Nice!

 

[SLH]

I think it would take you substantially longer, many months in my estimate. Call me stupid but could you explain why you can't just record the source movie at 30 fps?

Because the blurring effect wouldn't look as nice - you'd be able to see each position of fast-moving objects, instead of a smooth trail.

That said, i think 300fps is a little excessive, especially for the screenshots produced.

Also, to get a really nice effect it's probably better to weight the blurring, so that the trail is more solid near where the object actually is, and fainter the earlier the screenshot to fade is.

otherwise given one screenshot, it's hard to see which direction an object is moving in (plus it doesn't quite look right).

 

[SLH]

BTW, i could probably write a program that takes screenshots, and produced an AVI file, that i could give you if you want.


What would be the file names of the produced screenshots? Are they numbered in a simple way?

 

[flupke]

pretty cool!

 

[urban]

very nice work man, dont answer these muppets they dont know what their saying

i'm proud of ya

 

[Dasparov]

what about like 1 little movie of you shootin a guy!!!!??? take like 6 secs

 

[The Dark Elf]

not bad, bit overkill though but pretty cool.

 

[SLH]

very nice work man, dont answer these muppets they dont know what their saying

??????

 

[Baal]

So....You were able to make the demo motion blurred? Or the actual game? Or just the screenshots?

I am kind of confused.

 

[Dasparov]

NFSU has blurring and 2

 

[SLH]

So....You were able to make the demo motion blurred? Or the actual game? Or just the screenshots?

I am kind of confused.

The screenshots.

He used the demo player thing to make 300 screenshots, used photoshop to blur them together, making one final screenshot.

 

[v1p3r]

NFSU has blurring and 2

Thats fake.

Only FarCry (as of the last patch) has real blurring.

 

[Para]

Thank god compositing programs automate this procedure but at least I'm happy that someone noticed this before me getting some free time to mess around with this.

 

[SLH]

How do i produce screenshots from a demo file?

 

[v1p3r]

How do you get the Source demo GUI up? I've seen people using it but I can't figure out how to get it up

Anyone know? ;(

 

[Alix Mcdean]

I can't figure out how to get it up

Might wanna go get that checked out, man.

-Alix

 

[Para]

Okay, I just had to test making a video with motion blur:
video! (5.2 megabytes, divx5.2.1).

If you don't wanna get the vid but see the result anyway here's three screenies:
screen 1
screen 2
screen 3

PS. Sorry for hijacking the thread

 

[Gorgon]

thanks,

but sometimes it looks great, hmmm

I REALY don't like it, look at the car scene looks kinda week feature for high speed moving objects

 

[Cypher19]

Also, to get a really nice effect it's probably better to weight the blurring, so that the trail is more solid near where the object actually is, and fainter the earlier the screenshot to fade is.

Actually, if he evenly weights the transparencies of each image, the middle will automatically become solid.


Anyways, since when does Far Cry do realistic motion-blur? I was aware it used floating point textures (read: HDR rendering), tone mapping, blooms, and glares, but motion-blur? Uh uh. THIS is motion blur: http://www.daionet.gr.jp/~masa/rthdribl/ It's real, and it's SPECTACULAR.


Edit: OH MY GOD that is a FAN-FARKING-TASTIC VIDEO!!! (could you post the non-blurred version for comparison?)

 

[SLH]

Actually, if he evenly weights the transparencies of each image, the middle will automatically become solid.

Yes, but i think that looks worse than if the most solid part of the trail was where the object actually is.

 

[Cypher19]

So...you think photos of real life are subpar when it comes to motion blur?

 

[SLH]

So...you think photos of real life are subpar when it comes to motion blur?

In an animation i don't like it as much as the effect i described.

I'm aware of how it works in real life.

 

[Para]

Comparison pics, remove b to see motion blurred version.
http://koti.mbnet.fi/~stupid/HL2stuff/mblur_drivin-1b.jpg
http://koti.mbnet.fi/~stupid/HL2stuff/mblur_drivin-2b.jpg
http://koti.mbnet.fi/~stupid/HL2stuff/mblur_drivin-3b.jpg

 

[Cypher19]

Hmm...perhaps you could show me an example of what you're talking about then (i.e. bell curved opacity)

 

[Asuka]

Wow very interesting.


oh and btw:

How do you get the Source demo GUI up? I've seen people using it but I can't figure out how to get it up

demoui

in console.

 

[Burning Fish]

How do you get the Source demo GUI up? I've seen people using it but I can't figure out how to get it up

Type "DemoUI" in the console.

 

[SLH]

You can see the effect on TVs and some (cheap) flatscreen monitors. You may be able to see the effect if you the directdraw test in dxdiag, depending on how good your monitor is.

I'll let you know if i find a good example.

EDIT: this has a good example of what i don't want:

http://www.rhythm.com/~ivan/mb.html

Which way is the ball moving, in the first picture?

http://freespace.virgin.net/hugo.elias/graphics/cubeblur2.gif

This is an example of the blurring i like, even though this picture is being used to demonstrate how bad the effect looks when done wrong.

If the box was sampled at a much higher rate i think it'd look a lot better, although now i research it more, it seams that there is very little difference in image quality between realistic bluring and the other method.

EDIT2: A comparason program:
http://freespace.virgin.net/hugo.elias/graphics/motion.zip

M to change method, S for slow-motion.

 

[Para]

So you prefer tracer blur over motion blur

 

[Cypher19]

THAT'S what you're talking about?! Pardon my language, but that method (which I'm going to refer to as motion fade) sucks! The IQ difference is actually quite enormous, especially in motion. The big difference is that motion fade retains the previous frames and writes them to the screen with lower and lower opacity values, and is hardly realistic (and nowhere close to as visually appealing) in comparison to realistic motion blur.

Edit: Umm...that program simulates motion blur, not motion fade...

 

[Dagobert]

But as you can see, this is real motion blur, unlike those faked out trails seen in GTA3 or MGS2.

They just use the frame buffer to alpha together a bunch of consecutive frames, just like you did.

 

[Cypher19]

They just use the frame buffer to alpha together a bunch of consecutive frames, just like you did.

What he did was alpha together many frames between each one, which GTA3/MGS2/every other game out there don't do.

 

[SLH]

Edit: Umm...that program simulates motion blur, not motion fade...

Pressing M toggles between the two.
http://freespace.virgin.net/hugo.elias/graphics/x_motion.htm
That's the source page.

 

[Cypher19]

Odd...I tried all the controls, and only S and Esc work for me...

 

[clarky003]

neat, i think it would be great if programmers can incorporate realistic motion blurr into games, it's one of those touch's that can really heighten the realisim.

 

[UKchaos2]

If motion blur was used in games you could run them at very low framerates and it would still look really smooth. Thats how TV gets away with 30fps.

 

[The Terminator]

wow, that video looked sick. It just looks, right, you know? Someone make some more.

 

[SLH]

Don't suppose anyone knows what method Need For Speed Underground uses, because that motion blurring i really like.