Yeah, couldn’t agree more. I really dislike all these overdone effects like bloom, motion blur (the worst as it makes me sick), glare and glow. And looking at the latest games and their respective engine this is becoming more and more ridiculous with every new game.

Some of these effects may add to the atmosphere and immersion of a game. But in many cases they are simply overdone.

I knew at least someone would arrive and be the "I'm against you all, haters!" I actually suspected SimonG would post first but whatever.

Please point to a ridiculous excuse.

Anyway, I mostly dislike motion blur. It depends on the game and it depends on how noticeable it is, there are many instances where I don't mind it, and there are those where I can't stand it, like The Witcher 2. Other than that I'm fine with these 'modern' effects - I love Depth of Field when it's implemented well, like while aiming down sights or when getting really close to an object, I love HDR when it's, again, not overdone, and ... Well I suppose that applies to most of those, really. If you add them to your game with sense as opposed to just showing off, and keep artistic integrity of what you're trying to achieve, they'll most likely look good.

There's no actual depth of field in TES 4 and 5

I decide on a game to game basis. I'm not that much into graphics, but I fidle a bit around if I find something that annoys me. But I don't go looking for problems.

the main thing that pissed me off in Tes 4 oblivion was that they lied and didn't include the rib cage shadows you know what I'm talking about and made everything look so PLASTIC

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TktqwstRTSo

Well, that's why I don't follow games before release, so I can just enjoy them with no expectations.

I tend to turn of depth of field, I get a headache when I play a FP game with it on. The rest is not so important as long as the actual game runs smoothly.

Your eyes are focusing on the screen, and all the objects are at screen depth, so you won't see any depth based blur naturally. The problem with DoF is that it can't tell where you're looking so it does fixed blurring based on what it expects you to look at, and that has more problems than benefits.

And there I thought The Witcher 2 was widely considered one of the best looking games in existence when released. Hm, you learn something new every day.

Yes, but that's because it has bloom, DOF and whatnot enabled by default. It you switch those off then you get this:

I always turn these off. Having them on is like handicapping yourself, especially in a fast paced game.

The DoF was kind of interesting in Dark Souls though - sometimes you'll be seeing a giant blob moving in the distance and not knowing what it is, only that you're going to have to fight it eventually.

This sadly often extends into story too, developers present it just like a movie when games can do so much more. Game stories are often best when they are interactive, like Half Life 2.

Same here. I have (and always had) a strong dislike for these effects. I think they are mostly marketing gags - computer graphics have reached a level of sophistication where it's actually difficult (and very expensive) to stand out against the competition. So, hardware and software developers are looking for cheap opportunities to create new trends, new demands. Motion blur and DoF were such attempts, and apparently they were successful for a while, but the fact that most games have them switched off by default speaks volumes. "Film grain" is the next attempt to create such a trend - cheap, completely useless unless your game explicitly lends itself to such effects (like "Unstoppable Gorg"), but the marketing guys think that they just need to praise it enough to make everyone want it.

I like HDR lighting - I see it more as a way of making computer graphics more realistic (less like cameras). You know how hard it is to take a photograph when one subject is very dark and the other is very bright? You ultimately end up exposing one (or both) incorrectly and lose detail that the human eye sees. HDR is supposed to fix this (and I think it's the best used graphical option).

Bloom, I hate. Well, not hate - the principle is sound. The problem is that nobody seems to show restraint when using it. Bloom should be so minimal as to be practically invisible. A scene will look more realistic, but you won't know why. None of this nonsese of glowing trees and radioactive rain - that's turned up way too high.

DoF is another one that is a sound principle, but it's to early to use it in games (unless they're cut scenes). There is a definite benefit to providing depth to a scene and no, this depth is not provided naturally. If you look at a chair on a screen that is 50cm from your eyes, everything in the game is going to look like it is 50cm away (and in focus - DoF is not exactly peripheral vision). If we apply depth of field, we could make the chair look like it is 5 metres away, which is great for adding appropriate depth to a scene (almost 3D like). The problem is not that your eyes already do this naturally (they don't), the problem is that you might be looking at the wall behind the char that is another 5 metres away. When someone writes a clever piece of middleware to use a webcam to track eye movement, plot it on screen and update DoF in a natural way, it will be awesome (2.5D+ with naked eyes).