Motion blur and other health effects

[Raveness]

Wondering if there are any sensory-based graphical or audio effects that represent changes in the player’s physical health and well-being.


Is there anything such as fast motion-blur, in cases where you spin around?

Is there any screen color loss upon extreme injury or blood loss? Any blot spots appearing blotched on the screen?

Do droplets of water cloud points of the screen, and slowly streak the vision going downwards? More intensely when coming out of being underwater?

Any heartbeat sounds that become louder upon more intense moments of despair or imminent death?

[Glottis]

Good q's, and I too am interested in this,as many of these ideas were supposed to have been implemented into Call Of Chtulu and wee not...

[Hatesink]

I liked those effects in Dark Corners, or at least most of them— there were times when it got a little too extreme, but on the whole I really enjoyed that aspect of the game.

As for drops of water on the screen— I'm not sure about that, since it kind of implies a camera or visor (although it was really cool in Metroid Prime (it would have been nicer to have more variations however. The steam etc. seemed to leave the same pattern every time)).

[Raveness]

Glottis, all that I mentioned were in Call of Cthulhu, that's kinda where I drew them from.

HatesinkThe drops are on the eyes of the player character, which either can cause streaking or the eyes to blur, and blink rapidly to clear it out.

None of these suggestions should be overdone, as there is a fine line between too much and too little of the gimmicks.

[Hatesink]

HatesinkThe drops are on the eyes of the player character, which either can cause streaking or the eyes to blur, and blink rapidly to clear it out.I know you hate my insistence on realism Raveness, but the surface tension of water should dictate the size of the drops (in relation to the eyeball).

Maybe this would be a good place to suggest that the cans used to build the rocked-launcher style weapon probably aren't strong enough to contain the forces necessary to launch the projectile.

[Raveness]

There's no point in worrying over the size of the drops if the effect isn't even in the game. Please don't respond unless you are a developer.

For once I would like to have this section used for it's purpose rather than an endless parade of discourse by just us few regulars here :(

[Hatesink]

There's no point in worrying over the size of the drops if the effect isn't even in the game. Please don't respond unless you are a developer.You know that's not how things are done around here Raveness. Anybody can respond to anything they like.

[Hatesink]

Yeah, I guess it's too much to ask anyone to politely refrain. That would require gentlemanly conduct.If being a 'gentleman' is letting you order me around I think I'd need rethink my definition of what it is to be 'a lady'.

...and there's a difference between asking someone to 'politely refrain', and 'politely asking' someone to refrain

[jackinthebox]

don't quarrel again you too ;) let's keep it on topic... i guess everybody can discuss the questions, it's the point of a forum.

[Raveness]

I guess it's just getting a bit frustrating having that section so-named, and not really getting anything more than like 2 or 3 small responses a week from them, where TTLG (which gets less valid acitivity) gets more.

They should rename this forum "Questions which the team may peruse over, but otherwise members discuss to endless depths" :p

@ Hatesink: Chill out, it was a simple request.

[vrap]

Is there anything such as fast motion-blur, in cases where you spin around?
If you check out the Gamestar DVD video, at around the time where the player switches through his weapons (and you get a glimpse of the crossbow) to stop at the rocket launcher, there is a moment of blurriness which I can't directly attribute to anything actually happening in the scene - but it seems like an intentional effect, maybe they've replaced the ultra-saturation effect (when you get hit) with that?

[v.dog]

Proper motion blur is very graphics card intensive. You have to render about 30 frames for each one the player sees. To see it at 60fps you need to render at 1800- not many cards are there. There are ways to fake it, to various degrees of success.

The big issue is one of obscuring your vision in the middle of firefight. That's not fun (is it now, Ritual?). If something in a game is not fun, regardless of how realistic or 'cool', it has to go. If they pull it off in a low key manner, sweet. Otherwise I don't want to know.

The other aspect of things like this that gets to me is when then do the effects as though you're looking though a camera, and not with your naked eye. Put your hands up if you've ever played an FPS with lens flare.

[D'Sparil]

As with blurring the screen along with damage incurred... not sure if I really agree with it. For example, in Rainbow Six:Vegas, when you take damage from enemies your screen gets REALLY messed up... BUT this game uses the Halo-school-of-regenerating-health technique, having your health return if you do not take damage for a period of time. SO having the vision blur is kinda a good thing, otherwise having an almost endless supply of health (if you can escape fire fights when damaged) would make it to easy.

Having your health be a set amount in BioShock, refillable with healthpacks or whatever the "unit" is, really shouldn't make your screen mess up because now in a firefight, as your health is decreasing, you need your shots to be even MORE accurate... just my two cents of course... however having the "damage indicator" that you are taking damage or the direction is occasional helpful, though you mentioned minimizing the HUD, audio and brief visual cues are welcome.

And I believe the devs might read more here than they respond too, taking ideas and opinions into some consideration. I really don't mind because some of the discussions by the members are nice and have interesting thoughts, while I believe that alot of the tweaking in the game, along with the fact they don't want to reveal too much, has to do with the tight lip service.

[Raveness]

I actually activated the motion blur for STALKER that was not part of the approved released product. It has a variable that ranges from 0.1-1.0, and effectively blurs every motion the player makes (forward, spin, strafe, iron-sights) with the same value applied to each movement.

The blur upon spinning settled well at 0.2, but the same value made the walking motion forward haze over the entire landscape and the gun your carrying. This I did not like. Iron-sights motion blur was the worst; when taking tiny steps left or right whilst zooming in with the sights, the screen would blur like a poorly focussed camera. They probably used a fake motion blur like vdog mentions, as there was no reduction in framerate.

There needs to be a balanced reached if using it, as mentioned during firefights it is an annoyance, during standard running or zooming as well. I'd prefer a light dash of it for sprinting, spinning around fast, or if the player is heavily damaged.

[Jeff]

I like the idea of a peripheral motion blur, leaving the center of the screen almost completely intact while all sides (or what would be the players peripheral vision) blur for effect. I think it would reach a decent balance in terms of leaving important pieces visible and adding the realism of a motion blur.

To be fair I haven't really seen any game incorporate an acceptable motion blur, what I've seen used much more effectively lately is a distance blur which is adding a new level of realism in a very underscored manner.

[lotkrotan]

not to jump back to the beginning, but I think that Far Cry did the whole "come out of water, eyes adjust to air again" effect really well, it actually suprised me the first time I saw it. I think that it would be cool if they did something like that, only you actually blinked. I think seeing droplets would be unrealistic, unless they add glasses to our main character.

[^ilovebioshock!]

not to jump back to the beginning, but I think that Far Cry did the whole "come out of water, eyes adjust to air again" effect really well, it actually suprised me the first time I saw it. I think that it would be cool if they did something like that, only you actually blinked. I think seeing droplets would be unrealistic, unless they add glasses to our main character.

but that would make it so if you got hit in the face with a pipe your glasses would break

[lotkrotan]

which is unlikely, so that's why I think there wont be a droplet effect, maybe on the mirrors/windows in the game, but not on the character's eyes.

[Pinky_Powers]

I think the motion blur in Rainbow Six Vegas was perfect. It never bothered me, not even in gun-fights.

It really added to the realism of the game. It was the first time I felt I was playing a truly next-gen game.

[Raveness]

not to jump back to the beginning, but I think that Far Cry did the whole "come out of water, eyes adjust to air again" effect really well, it actually suprised me the first time I saw it. I think that it would be cool if they did something like that, only you actually blinked. I think seeing droplets would be unrealistic, unless they add glasses to our main character.
Is that effect in one of the Far Cry console spinoffs? It's not in the antiquated PC version (only one I've played), and I was hard pressed to find any youtube video showing it?

[D'Sparil]

Its in Far Cry Instincts: Predator for the x360.

[vrap]

The water in the 360 version was niiiiice.

[lotkrotan]

Its in Far Cry Instincts: Predator for the x360.

what he said. I picked the remakes up for 40$ and it was great.

[BioShockWins]

I like the last one the most of all, but that would probably be the hardest to make

(unless they dicide to make it simple like a normal person would do, just when you're health is low and there is enemies around... but hey, that would just be too easy =P)

[witch]

Farcry for the 360 was pretty nice, good water effects and I liked the story better then the PC one.

On topic: Motion blur would be great considering a lot of 360 games have it (at least the majority that I own, lol). Gears of War has some great blur and makes it feel like a better experience.

[K3NNy]

I guess it's just getting a bit frustrating having that section so-named, and not really getting anything more than like 2 or 3 small responses a week from them, where TTLG (which gets less valid acitivity) gets more.

They should rename this forum "Questions which the team may peruse over, but otherwise members discuss to endless depths" :p

@ Hatesink: Chill out, it was a simple request.

Yea there are very few responses from the team. Hopefully when the game comes out we can get more definite answer I guess they are trying to keep things under wraps. But, some of the question they have been posed could have easily been answered without giving anything away, some of the technical questions could have easily been answered, but for the most part seemed to have gone unnoticed by the devs :mad:!!

[K3NNy]

not to jump back to the beginning, but I think that Far Cry did the whole "come out of water, eyes adjust to air again" effect really well, it actually suprised me the first time I saw it. I think that it would be cool if they did something like that, only you actually blinked. I think seeing droplets would be unrealistic, unless they add glasses to our main character.

Yea not only that but GRAW had an effect where the camera would adjust when moving from a dark area to a brightly lit area. And even Gears of War had slight motion blur, so it shouldn't be terribly hard considering it is using the same engine.