ENBSeries: getting Bloom and other effects in DX?

[povuholo]

The ENBSeries application can enhance the graphics of older games with modern effects such as Bloom, Motion Blur, Depth of Field, etc. that wasn't invented yet when those older games were created.

It was originally made for GTA San Andreas but and while there is support for a few other games it works on other games as well. It was possible to use this application's bloom effect on Prince of Persia The Sands of Time and Warrior Within for example. For Morrowind Bloom, Depth of Field, Motion Blur and Occlusion all worked.

Now I was wondering if it would be possible to use this for Deus Ex as well. I tried it, but I couldn't get the application to start. I dropped the files in the system folder.

If it were possible to use this application for Deus Ex that would be amazing.

http://boris-vorontsov.narod.ru/download_en.htm

I used the 'GTA San Andreas beta v0.075s' version for Morrowind and Prince of Persia. Could anyone see if he can get this to work for Deus Ex? Or is it simply not possible because Deus Ex doesn't support Direct3d 9?

Example shots I made in Prince of Persia:

Before

After

[DDL]

I suspect it's solely for engines that are already orders of magnitude more powerful that Unreal build 1.

Sorry.

[povuholo]

I guessed it was too good to be true anyway

The oldest game I could find that uses this application is from 2001.

[DaveW]

Perfectly possible with Unreal Engine 1. There are mods that are doing it for UT, and Deus Ex runs off a modified UT build.

[DDL]

Using this particular application?

Or an entirely different one?

I'm well aware there ARE bloom mods and the like in progress (yay moar blooom ), but looking at the list of games this one is currently compatible with, I suspect those mods and this one are not the same thing at all.

(plus to be honest, a lot of those other mods seem to be essentially rebuilding the engine almost from the ground up, so..can you still really call it UE1?)

[DaveW]

Oh, I mean stuff like this. They're not really rebuilding the engine, they're adding graphical effects.

[povuholo]

It's not just bloom. I think the game could look better with Depth of Field and Motion Blur too, and that's what this thing does as well.

[DDL]

I think depth of field just irritates the hell out of me all the time, everywhere.

It's fine if, say, you're wearing a fixed set of VR goggles or something, so you CAN'T focus on the blurred bits at the sides of your viewpoint...but then: they're the sides of your viewpoint, and are thus blurred anyway, coz that's what your eyes DO.

Essentially, I think it's stupid making an engine render depth of field blurring effects when my eyes are already doing exactly that. If I want to make stuff I'm not focussing on blur slightly, I do so by the magic of not focussing on them.

What I don't like is having things I do want to focus on being blurred by the game whether I like it or not. If I run into a room full of enemies, I want to be able to gauge their locations and distances by looking at them, with my actual eyes. DoF usually ends up forcing you to waggle your mouse around to focus on them individually while staring fixedly at the centre of the screen. So instead of brain>>eyes>>brain, a nice speedy loop the human is actually optimised for, you get brain>>hand>>eyes>>brain, which we're certainly not optimised for. Imagine if you had to manually move your eyes with your hand? Yeah: annoying.

Motion blurring I could probably forgive, since it's kinda fun in any game that actually involves characters capable of superhuman speed, but DoF needs to be shot, to be honest.

And bloom effects (and HDR) need to be used with incredible caution to avoid vaseline effects, and OMG TEH WHITE WALL MADEZ ME BLIND effects.


In fact, I had to look this up just to check it wasn't just me.

Thankfully,

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1 ... 289,00.asp

it's not just me.

Still, procedural grass would be awesome.

[gamer0004]

Yeah, for instance: I don't like the bloom effects in the second picture. It's just too much which makes it unrealistic.

[Jonas]

I think DOF can look pretty hot. It's best used in combination with a sniper scope or binoculars, however, since - you know - those use actual lenses

Incidentally is anybody but me tired of the DX sniper scope being a tiny tiny circle on a bigass TFT monitor?

[fox]

Incidentally is anybody but me tired of the DX sniper scope being a tiny tiny circle on a bigass TFT monitor?

Yes, it sucks.

[justanotherfan]

Wow, that extremetech article is really correct on the graphical tricks. Those things don't happen in real life, and they're neat to represent, but we don't live in movies and see things only through lenses.

HDR is excellent and very realistic. It's being simulated on our current monitors in current games, so it doesn't turn out perfectly. Bloom is a great example of that kind of simulation, a lame illusion of not being able to see because of brightness when the monitor technology can't produce it. I should look up HDR monitors to see if they've made any progress, since I haven't heard of anything since Brightside.

Rag-doll physics is helpful, and more approximate to reality than the previous thing. ISTR dead bodies in Deus Ex managing to hover when balanced on a single stair, but that could be another game.

[Jonas]

To be honest I don't see the point of complaining about realism when talking about depth of field and HDR and the likes. It's an aesthetic choice (or at least it quickly becomes so after the initial "OMG NEW TECHNOLOGY WE MUST INCLUDE THIS IN OUR GAME OR NOBODY WILL BUY IT" gold rush blows over), and if the game developers want their game to look like a film, then let them.

You can complain that you don't LIKE games that employ filmic aesthetical effects, but claiming it's a bad design decision to mimic a lens instead of the human eye sort of misses the point: It's not about realism, it's about looking awesome.

And yes, dead bodies in DX do tend to hover, as DX has no ragdoll. And I sincerely doubt it ever will, since that would require remaking and reanimating all character models in the game - and that's AFTER programming a completely new model format into the engine.

[Mr_Cyberpunk]

I don't like the idea of Bloom in Deus Ex, it'd make everything blurry. DOF however is fine so long as its subtle (so not like GTA4/Fallout 3 style.. I hate it!) The only case where bloom would work in Deus Ex is if you could make it look similar to Mass Effects bloom (which IMO was very subtle) and avoid doing the soap opera "fuzzy" styled bloom that was in Oblivion/Invisible War.

HDR definitely is a must, Deus Ex suffers from poor colour depth IMO and I think HDR could bring that out.

[justanotherfan]

DXR could implement ragdoll, but I don't know the status of the project.

Bloom annoys me. It might as well have a little sign that says "This lamp is so bright that it is blinding you", because it clearly isn't. Suddenly every room with a lightbulb looks like an overexposed photograph.

HDR is awesome. Deus Ex is very dark, so lighting effects wouldn't be as noticeable without reworking levels, but HDR is dynamic range (is contrast). Real HDR is all about making the display use the same contrast that we see in the real world. I haven't played many simulated HDR games, but thinking of Lost Coast demo, everything had such heavy reflectivity (eg. pebbles on the beach). I think Unreal 3 does HDR, so that would be DXR v.2 (right before Deus Ex goes Live Action FMV).