3D Engine - Bloom Effect
We want to add a bloom effect to the game. The bloom brings a slight blur effect to the game display and as a result the shades are smoother. The effect will be made optional and you will be able to tune the strength of the effect through a slider.
Here are a few screenshots of different levels of the effect.
No effect |
Low bloom with SquareFilter |
Max. bloom with SquareFilter |
Max. bloom without SquareFilter |
Hmm...
My experience with bloom elsewhere (FarCry, EQII) is that it is an effect that makes bright lightsources "bleed" and glow over adjacent darker objects the way they do with eyes looking at a natural scene. Glare. A light source like a sun or streetlamp partially occluded by the dark edge of a building in shadow, where the bloom bleeds over the dark edge and isn't just chopped off.
The image presented with highest bloom settings just seems washed out (higher gamma overall) and yeah, a blur with loss of texture detail. I don't see this as desirable. At least the low setting (upper right, low with filter) seems to mainly accent the glowing weapons (bloom) and suggest haze and reflection to the palm and distant cliffs. Probably that's where I would set it.