Realtime Light Blooms

(lemmy) #1

I was trying to “recreate” light blooms(glow) in the game engine, and on the way I decided to try to imitate a certain place in splinter cell.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v28/lemsoft3d/RealtimeBloom.jpg

Anyway, I know it doesn’t look as good as SC, but I would like C&C all the same! :slight_smile:

BTW, I can also upload a “video” file, if anyone is interested. (I can’t render from the game engine very well, so it would be an exe file.)

EDIT: Okay, here’s the “video” exe:
http://www.lemsoft3d.com/downloads/RealtimeBloom.exe

Note: this requires the python22.dll, python23.dll, and SDL.dll all in the same folder as it is, even though it doesn’t use python or sound. %|

(dreamkatana) #2

That’s very great, nice art.

Upload the video, I wanna see it.

See ya.

(facemania) #3

Kinda like SC but is still pretty cool.

Keep blending :wink:

(JD-multi) #4

That really looks like true light. I know that the Blender Game Engine has a lot of cool things, it’s just it’s speed and unfinished pieces of code that makes it really slow on some parts or look like it’s out dated.

Thanks Lemmy for showing some new cool stuff what you can archive using the game engine. :smiley:

(Falconis) #5

Thats a really cool effect just wandering how much fps this cuts of while running it. Is this something you configured blender to do or is it made with python or textures?

(lemmy) #6

Thanks, everyone! :smiley:

I might work on this some more later. :slight_smile:

Falconis: Thanks! It runs at 60fps on my machine, which is relatively old. :slight_smile: It was made with add textures, nothing too complex. But if I ever figure out how, I’m going to try to add a realtime bloom(glow) function to blender. :slight_smile:

BTW, does anyone know how to render from the game-engine?

(PlantPerson) #7

This doesn’t seem very interesting to me, I must admit. It’s a sunbeam, and you can see it for only a few seconds. Sunbeams have been done before.

(Farshee) #8

I know that in this demo, though nice, there dosn’t seem to be anything great about a sunbeam, but this demo only touched upon the full potential of lighting bloom. PlantPerson, do you own a copy of either Deus Ex: Invisible War, Thief III or Prince of Persia (either Sands of Time or the New one), if so try turning off the bloom. The game looses some of its atmosphere. In the case of Deus Ex this is quite a big loss since the textures are not that great. This may be a beginning to some great looking content for the blender game engine.
However I may just not be reading the posts correctly, is this exe an actual blend file? If so how did you do this!? :smiley:

BTW if someone could explain to me how to post pictures on this board then I will post some images of lighting Bloom comparisons so we can all see what the big deal is.

(lemmy) #9

Plantperson: Um, thanks? :wink: And, uh, where, exactly, did you see these sunbeams done in the GE before? :slight_smile: BTW, the point of the demo was more along the lines of trying to create realistic lighting in the Game Engine, not necessarily the beams of light. :smiley:

Farshee: Thank you for explaining it so clearly. :slight_smile: The exe is a “Runtime” generated by blender. The purpose of “Runtimes” is mainly to make games made in blender easy to distribute, (i.e. the end-user doesn’t have to download blender to play the game) :slight_smile:

(PlantPerson) #10

Well, to be honest, they’re in one of my games, one that I made a couple of years ago. I can find you a screenshot if you like.

Sorry if I insulted you.

(lemmy) #11

No, I can take criticism. :slight_smile:
And yeah, I’d really like to see that screen.

(dreamkatana) #12

Well, to be honest, they’re in one of my games, one that I made a couple of years ago. I can find you a screenshot if you like.

Sorry if I insulted you.[/quote]

Ive seen some sunbeams in blender games, this is not new for anyone.
Your work is great, but it is not something new.

See ya.

(lemmy) #13

dreamkatana: Of course… :slight_smile: I know they’ve been done MANY times before, I was just trying to make a good-looking scene. (Which is a clone of splinter cell) %|

(Farshee) #14

I know about EXEs, Ha! :smiley:

I am a great fan of the bloom effect so I have been trying to aquire it for every 3D engine I have worked with. Blender is the first that seems to have cracked it. (BTW how did you do this Lemmy?)

Hmm, in most of the Blender games I have seen, all they are using for sunbeams are “additive” faces… Lemmy’s technique goes one step further. As you move further away from the beam it becomes less and less defined and blurry. For example. If you approach a stained glass window with lots of light coming through it you will see light shafts comeing through it. However at a distance you will see a blur of light and no shaft definition. Ok, so not a great explanation but here are some links to Bloom images which will show you what I mean:

These images are taken from Unreal Tournament 2003. The first image shows without bloom and the second shows with: (If I understand correctly then this is a similar technique to lemmy’s)

http://wiki.beyondunreal.com/wiki/Bloom/Screenshots

This image is from Deus Ex II with Bloom on:

http://www.dailygame.net/Articles/media/screens/deusex/deusex2.jpg

This image is from Prince of Persia

http://www.dailygame.net/Articles/media/screens/princeofper/princeofper4.jpg
http://www.xbox.com/media/games/princeofpersia/sim-princeofpersia-006.jpg

See what bloom can do to a simple explosion or sunbeam?
Believe me, this is more than simple Lightshafting, This can bring a unique aethereal atmosphere to games.

(lemmy) #15

Farshee: Thanks, again! :smiley: I didn’t really do anything special for the light blooms, though. Just a few textures, the add effect, and some careful planning. :slight_smile: I think the “bluriness” is caused by mipmapping, which is a built-in function of blender. (It makes textures more low-res, the further away you get. It’s mainly for the prevention of aliasing. :slight_smile: )

Those screenshots look really nice, but I don’t think the GameEngine could handle that. What I’m doing is simulating bloom throught the use of textures. The bloom effect in those screenshots is actual post-processing done at the rendering stage.

I’m planning on implementing glow into the gameengine, though, so maybe blender will be able to do stuff like that soon. :slight_smile:

I’ve also uploaded the blend, if you want to pick it apart: :wink:
http://www.lemsoft3d.com/downloads/BloomDemo.blend

(JD-multi) #16

Hey thanks to share the knowledge. Indeed a quiet simple but really nice and effective technic. :slight_smile:

(Farshee) #17

Interestingly, not every game uses true post production bloom rendering. For example the Truevision3D engine uses a faked version involving render surfaces. Lemmy has shown us that with a little ingenuity and some planning a simple feature can go a long way. BTW lemmy, your link dosent seem to work. I feel that with some work we can make the next generation of blender games look special. Just because an engine isn’t next gen dosent mean that I cannot make good games. Remember that the original Half Life wasa built on the already dated Quake II engine. Don’t let a lack of a specific feature put you off. Keep Blending!

BTW, Here are some games that are at the same technology level as blender and are still being commercially consumed.

Ballance - WWW.Ballance.org
Orbz
Duke Nukem - Manhatten Project
Vagrant Story - Sound artwork makes up for standard engine.

Have Fun

(Grimreaper) #18

hey lemme, this is lookin quite nice :o
u mind if i use it in my game???

(lemmy) #19

Wow! I feel so special… :smiley:
Thanks for all of the nice comments, everyone! :smiley:

Farshee: My site has a hotlink blocker, but I’ve set an exception for elysiun. Make sure you aren’t using frames or anything. If all else fails, though, I could send you the file via email, just give me your email address.

Grimreaper: For which game? As long as you give me credit… :wink:

(invid) #20

This is an excellent example!

Do you have any suggestions as to what techniques to use for spherical light blooms? Or custom ones (for example, I am making lanterns, with square ‘windows’ in them out of which a light glow eminates)?

THANKS!!

  • invid