HDR Appreciation Club

[clarky003]

It's really nice when used right.

Getaway PS3
Getaway PS3
Video

<3

:O if thats ingame, it owns my cat.

 

[Dr. Freeman]

:O if thats ingame, it owns my cat.

and dog

 

[jondy]

The only thing I don't understand are brain dead little children like yourself.

Was that really necessary?

The concept of high dynamic range lighting isn't complicated. Exactly what aspect of this technology don't I understand?

What you don't seem to understand is it's fundamental importance in photorealistic rendering; which games like HL2 are aiming at. I don't understand why people have such a problem with it. Oh, and something about

Even if HDR was a perfect mimick of real life, even though nothing could be further from the truth

Which suggests that you don't know how bloom, tonemapping etc. work.

The Lost Coast's implementation of HDR was dramatic to highlight the technology used. It wasn't especially realistic. Have a look at DoD:S and you'll find HDR far more palatable

 

[G-Dub]

Everyone who joined the club gets a cookie sent to them.

 

[Gargantou]

Loke, the graphics might be nice, but the Getaway games so far has been crap.
Getaway 2 was one of few PS2 games that had real ragdoll tho.

 

[Fishlore]

Was that really necessary?

What you don't seem to understand is it's fundamental importance in photorealistic rendering; which games like HL2 are aiming at. I don't understand why people have such a problem with it. Oh, and something about

Which suggests that you don't know how bloom, tonemapping etc. work.

The Lost Coast's implementation of HDR was dramatic to highlight the technology used. It wasn't especially realistic. Have a look at DoD:S and you'll find HDR far more palatable

I couldn't care less what you find neccessary. Don't talk down to someone you don't know if you are so sensitive.

What exactly are you trying to argue.
1. Are you trying to say that HDR does not try to mimick real world lighting?
2. Or are you trying to say that today's implementation of HDR is a perfect mimick of real world lighting?

Regardless of which way you're arguing, you're wrong.

HDR does make images more realistic looking. The Lost Coast and other HDR enabled games like DOD:S and certain CS:S maps don't look photorealistic to me at this point in time though. HDR will continue to be an increasingly important technique as game developers strive for photorealism and hardware is more powerful and able to handle the extra work.

Now back to my initial post. The two points I was trying to make.
1. Graphics mean absolutely nothing to me and I couldn't care less if the game I'm playing has HDR or not.
2. The games I've seen using HDR do not look like real life. They do not enhance the gameplay or my enjoyment of the game in any way. It may look slightly better, but that has nothing to do with the gameplay.

What's actually kind of funny is that you probably don't even have a monitor that displays "true" HDR. Last I checked there were very few monitors that have over a 10,000:1 contrast ratio while supporting floating-point pixel schemes which is why tonemapping and bloom are used. Those are techniques used because of the limitations of today's monitors and are used for the illusion of HDR.

 

[jondy]

I couldn't care less what you find neccessary. Don't talk down to someone you don't know if you are so sensitive.

I'll bear that in mind, feel free to argue at a tangent rather than address the issues we're actually discussing here. Oh wait, you tried:

What exactly are you trying to argue.
1. Are you trying to say that HDR does not try to mimick real world lighting?

No. I'm saying it mimics our perception of real world lighting;

Even if HDR was a perfect mimick of real life, even though nothing could be further from the truth

But you don't agree with that, hence the debate.

2. Or are you trying to say that today's implementation of HDR is a perfect mimick of real world lighting?

which games like HL2 are aiming at

Apparently not.

Regardless of which way you're arguing, you're wrong.

Well, seeing as I'm arguing neither of those points...

HDR does make images more realistic looking. The Lost Coast and other HDR enabled games like DOD:S and certain CS:S maps don't look photorealistic to me at this point in time though. HDR will continue to be an increasingly important technique as game developers strive for photorealism and hardware is more powerful and able to handle the extra work.

That's fine. In fact, the second point is pretty much what I said in my second post. As for photorealistic games, what do you expect? It's an objective to work toward, not a reality.

Now back to my initial post. The two points I was trying to make.
1. Graphics mean absolutely nothing to me and I couldn't care less if the game I'm playing has HDR or not.

Then don't worry about it. There's an option to turn it off. Presumably your argument runs along the lines that developers should be working on other things than such superficial gimmickery as how a game is presented, but that's another debate and has been done to death already.

2. The games I've seen using HDR do not look like real life. They do not enhance the gameplay or my enjoyment of the game in any way. It may look slightly better, but that has nothing to do with the gameplay.

See above. In fact, those two points say pretty much the same thing, apart from your saying that games using HDR didn't look like real life. Welcome to 2005, where computer games don't look like Finding Nemo.

What's actually kind of funny is that you probably don't even have a monitor that displays "true" HDR.

You're absolutely right. Which is why I use a simulation of the effect.

 

[Loke]

:O if thats ingame, it owns my cat.

Yep, ingame running on the Playstation 3.

Loke, the graphics might be nice, but the Getaway games so far has been crap.

I disagree, but each to his own.
The GTA games are better though.

 

[Fishlore]

Then don't worry about it. There's an option to turn it off. Presumably your argument runs along the lines that developers should be working on other things than such superficial gimmickery as how a game is presented, but that's another debate and has been done to death already.

I have to say Sherlock, your powers of presumption are pathetic. I said this feature isn't important to me. That's all. I didn't denounce it's development. I didn't say devs shouldn't be working on these techniques. I couldn't care less if the devs add it to every game from here on. I have the hardware to run games like the Lost Coast. HDR simply adds nothing to the gameplay. It's another gimmick that will be nice once we hit the photoreal level. As you've said repeatedly, we're not there yet.

See above. In fact, those two points say pretty much the same thing, apart from your saying that games using HDR didn't look like real life. Welcome to 2005, where computer games don't look like Finding Nemo.

LOL! This is the exact point you stripped from my intial post when you told me I didn't understand this simple concept. I said HDR isn't to the level where it mimics real life, with this statement:

"Even if HDR was a perfect mimick of real life, even though nothing could be further from the truth"

In case you can't understand I'll sum it up with eight simple words.

"HDR doesn't look like real life right now." You said it yourself with the incredibly witty "Finding Nemo" remark.

 

[ríomhaire]

HDR is the same as upgrading graphics. If a game has crap graphics then it gets flamed. In the future people might be saying "OMG, this game doesn't even have HDR!"

 

[Gargantou]

Loke, who gave you the right to an opinion!?*Me abducts Loke and forces him to withdraw all his claims, KGB-style!*

 

[Evo]

So who is making the site?

 

[JNightshade]

I lessthanthree HDR with all my <3.

 

[Sparta]

I'm fed up with PC devs hyping HDR, if you guys didn't know, there was a XB1 game that did HDR, Forza Motorsports, and yes, I'm 100% sure it was HDR.
So it's not THAT high-tech!
I'm more impressed with say motion-blur.

Actually the Xbox cannot support real HDR like graphic engines Source/UE3/Crytek can because the Xbox's hardware is physically(?) incapable of it.

So it may look like HDR but its not.

I dont know why that is but whatever they're doing on Forza Motorsports and other Xbox 1 games looks almost the same to me when compared to actual HDR.

But what really impressed me was that feature they used in the King Kong game, that light-dragging feature. That was mad.

 

[Gargantou]

Yeah, they did a damn good job of "emulating" it atleast.
But as I stated, I think motionblur does a better job of adding realism to games, especially say, PGR3.
Also, the motionblur in the just released Fight Night Round 3(Boxing) demo, adds so much realism to the game.

 

[jondy]

I have to say Sherlock, your powers of presumption are pathetic.

I could post something sarcastic about the above being 'incredibly witty', but I think you can draw your own conclusions as to where I'm going here.

"HDR doesn't look like real life right now." You said it yourself with the incredibly witty "Finding Nemo" remark.

But that's my problem; HDR is an accurate method of overbright simulation right now in real time. What isn't an accurate representation of real life is the low-poly low-detail enviroments in todays games.

It's not a question of HDR not being implemented at a level which could be described as photorealistic, as it already is; it's the scene portrayed through HDR which isn't photoreal.

Without being petulant, if you don't believe me, just fire up rthdribl.

So again, why not have HDR? And incidentally, why the **** do you have a rig powerful enough to play Lost Coast if you don't care about the graphics?

 

[Shadow-warrior]

HDR does not look like real life through HUMAN EYES

HDR does look like real life as if filmed through a old video camera.

Even in those ps3 shots its overdone.

 

[DEATH eVADER]

HDR does not look like real life through HUMAN EYES

HDR does look like real life as if filmed through a old video camera.

Is that a contradictory statement?

 

[jondy]

HDR does not look like real life through HUMAN EYES

HDR does look like real life as if filmed through a old video camera.

Even in those ps3 shots its overdone.

It depends on how the effect is used.

Rest assured, the world does give us a higher dynamic range than we can take in with static exposure, and so we do experience HDR.

 

[DEATH eVADER]

Is that a contradictory statement?

Forget what I said there, I didn't read your post properly.

In real life the Human eyes can't really adjust, if you kept staring at the sun, you would eventually burn out your retinas. They are making it like a camera so as to give it that cinematic feeling (which I feel is more suited to a 3rd person shooter, or during cutscenes)

 

[Loke]

Loke, who gave you the right to an opinion!?*Me abducts Loke and forces him to withdraw all his claims, KGB-style!*

;( ;( ..

 

[Fishlore]

So again, why not have HDR? And incidentally, why the **** do you have a rig powerful enough to play Lost Coast if you don't care about the graphics?

As I said in my last post, I would have no problem if every game from here on out has HDR. All I'm saying is that it's not perfect right now and it's not important to me. I understand it's merits and it should continue to be developed. I simply don't get anything extra out of a game with HDR as opposed to one without it. Others, like yourself, feel differently and that's great. I'm sure I'm in the minority here.

To address your second question: I'm a professional programmer and I have more than enough disposable income to comfortably afford whatever I want. Currently I'm playing around with programming techniques that I hope to use for some homemade digital video editing software someday in the future. Hence the relatively new video card and relatively decent rig. As recent as the beginning of 2005 I was strictly a PC gamer. Since that time I've been completely turned off of PC games and pretty much only use my DS.

 

[jondy]

As I said in my last post, I would have no problem if every game from here on out has HDR. All I'm saying is that it's not perfect right now and it's not important to me. I understand it's merits and it should continue to be developed. I simply don't get anything extra out of a game with HDR as opposed to one without it. Others, like yourself, feel differently and that's great. I'm sure I'm in the minority here.

Fair enough, I just appreciate the eye-candy. But then I've been a graphics junkie ever since Unreal came out.