Halo 2 Forum
This topic has moved here: Poll [26 votes]: Should lens flares be used in first person games?
  • Poll [26 votes]: Should lens flares be used in first person games?
Subject: Lens flares. The most annoying gimmick ever?
  • gamertag:
  • user homepage:
  • last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT

Poll: Should lens flares be used in first person games?  [closed]
Yes, they're pretty.:  46%
(12 Votes)
No, my eyes see no stinking lens flares.:  19%
(5 Votes)
I don't care, and I'm wasting my time voting.:  27%
(7 Votes)
Are you from Gallup?:  8%
(2 Votes)
Total Votes: 26

Why is it that first person games include lens flares in their graphics engines? Lens flares are caused by light getting into the lens of a camera and reflecting back off the lens causing a distortion in the image, but eyes do not have the same problem. Instead, when you look at a bright light, the surrounding image you see becomes faded and the whole image oversaturated with light from the light source.
Now, I know lens flares are pretty, but really, if first person shooters would use correct lighting effects such as the over saturation I mentioned (which I have seen in at least one air combat game), players would be able to use bright light to their advantage. Imagine coming over a hill at dawn with the sun behind you and raining death on your enemies while they scramble to get to a position where they can see you without the sun in their eyes, or having controllable spotlights on bases that have the tactical purpose of blinding an opponent as well as highlighting them.
Leave lens flares where they belong... cinematics, and third person vantage point games.

  • 07.01.2004 8:32 AM PDT
  • gamertag: Vash10
  • user homepage:

there anoying but they add relism

  • 07.01.2004 8:37 AM PDT
  • gamertag:
  • user homepage:
  • last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT

Posted by: Riddick10
there anoying but they add relism


They only add realism if you are looking through a camera! Your eyes are not cameras. When was the last time you looked at a bright light and saw a lens flare?

  • 07.01.2004 8:39 AM PDT
  • gamertag: Vash10
  • user homepage:

sun counts as lens flre right.

  • 07.01.2004 8:40 AM PDT
  • gamertag:
  • user homepage:
  • last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT

They are realistic, and add stratagy. In halo 2 you can stand on a structure in front of the sun, and enemys can't see you from many angles, cool or what, what? Hey I likes it.

  • 07.01.2004 8:45 AM PDT
  • gamertag:
  • user homepage:
  • last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT

Guess what, the Master Chief doesn't use his eyes to peer out. His visor is armoured and he watches through an electronic interface tied into multiple sensors and optics.

If he actually used his eyes then a single shot to his visor would instantly kill him. What fool would design a power armour that way?

If someone uses a flashbang to try and blind him his screen darkens only for the duration of the flare, reducing the exposure to minimal levels and snapping them back afterwards to prevent blindness.

  • 07.01.2004 8:47 AM PDT
  • gamertag:
  • user homepage:
  • last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT

Posted by: Riddick10
sun counts as lens flre right.


Rid, go look at the sun right now.... I'll wait......



... ok, did you see a lens flare? No you didn't. The image you see in your brain gets oversaturated with light from the sun, and everything surrounded the sun is faded and hard to see.
Lens flares *only* occur in mechanincal lenses, not eyes!

  • 07.01.2004 8:49 AM PDT
  • gamertag:
  • user homepage:
  • last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT

Posted by: Draerden
If someone uses a flashbang to try and blind him his screen darkens only for the duration of the flare, reducing the exposure to minimal levels and snapping them back afterwards to prevent blindness.


If there is no camera lens, there should be no lens flare. I have never heard Bungie or the books describe the Mjolnir armor's visor as using cameras to send the picture to the Spartans.

  • 07.01.2004 8:53 AM PDT
  • gamertag:
  • user homepage:
  • last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT

Posted by: mbaryol1
Posted by: Riddick10
there anoying but they add relism


They only add realism if you are looking through a camera! Your eyes are not cameras. When was the last time you looked at a bright light and saw a lens flare?

MC wears a visor dont forget so it is perfectly fine for halo.

  • 07.01.2004 9:04 AM PDT
  • gamertag:
  • user homepage:
  • last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT

A visor is not a camera and does not cause lens flares.

Seriously, where are you all getting this stuff? Do you *ever* remember seeing a lens flare yourself in anything but a video game, or somthing created by a camera (i.e a photograph, movie, etc.)? Lens flares don't even happen in cameras as often as they do in most games. That is because to create the type of lens flare you see in a game like Halo, you have to use a huge compound lens.

From http://www.clavius.org/lensflare.html:
When light strikes a glass surface, most of the light passes through the glass (refracts) but a little bit of it reflects off of it. In compound lenses, light can bounce between the lens components and create spots of light on the final photograph.

Notice that there is no mention of a visor causing lens flares ;-)

Game makers started including lens flares to make their games more cinematic, but now lens flares are overused, and rarely used correctly... and that includes Halo.

[Edited on 7/1/2004 9:23:40 AM]

  • 07.01.2004 9:20 AM PDT
  • gamertag:
  • user homepage:
  • last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT

I did read about it in one of the books, but I honestly can't pinpoint the specific instance. Nylund was describing how the suit's imaging system reacting to the white light of a streaking blast of plasma.

Then again, Nylund also has numerous typological errors, has no concept of physics and I even caught him confusing the names of his Spartans a couple of times.

So, given that I wouldn't be surprised if the Visor system moved back and forth from being a computer fed imaging system to a transluscent panel during the course of the story.

  • 07.01.2004 9:25 AM PDT
  • gamertag:
  • user homepage:
  • last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT

Posted by: Draerden
So, given that I wouldn't be surprised if the Visor system moved back and forth from being a computer fed imaging system to a transluscent panel during the course of the story.


Yeah, who knows. I don't see any camera apertures on the Mjolnir armor, so I've always thought the visor was a form of translucent armor (otherwise why would it be shinier then the rest of the armor? If there are cameras and displays on the inside, it would make more tactical sense to have the visor be a matte finish).
At any rate, that doesn't make up for every other first person game that has lens flares. First person shooters need to stop using this cinematic crutch to make their games pretty.

[Edited on 7/1/2004 9:39:41 AM]

  • 07.01.2004 9:38 AM PDT
  • gamertag:
  • user homepage:
  • last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT

I merely thought the glossy plate held their optical systems, thermographics and the like.

My simple thought was, why not use a half dozen pinhole style high resolution cameras to feed in the image to a monitor inside the helmet. That way you could hide behind a nice armoured plate. That's how I would design my own armour. I could then eject or slide off the armour plate in case of a total sensor shutdown.
***
I'd agree with you on the idea that in World War and Vietnam style shooters the idea of a lens flare is silly but then you have a specialized level of knowledge. Very few people today have any experience with reflex cameras. It's becoming something of a lost art. I work in a photolab and trying to explain such things to today's jaded "Professional Quality without professional training" customer proves difficult.

Unfortunately this affects your "Suspension of Disbelief". You lose your ability to believe that the story is real, you're jolted back to reality and that hurts because you want to believe.

People now dream in technicolor and lens flares have been used in classical war movies and survival movies for decades. They have become a cinematic symbol for "Damn that light is bright" or say if you were out in the desert, "Damn that's arid"

Unfortunately because of this cinematic trick, the presence of the lens flare aids the common watcher in suspending his disbelief, in fact it heightens the immersion for them as much as it ruins it for you.

  • 07.01.2004 10:34 AM PDT
  • gamertag:
  • user homepage:
  • last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT

the chiefs visor is polarized, which will make lens flares. at the same time it will reduce light saturation, so lens flares are realistic for this situation

  • 07.01.2004 10:59 AM PDT
  • gamertag:
  • user homepage:
  • last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT

Posted by: jim5
the chiefs visor is polarized, which will make lens flares. at the same time it will reduce light saturation, so lens flares are realistic for this situation


Man, you have got to be kidding me! I have polarized sunglasses, and let me check... nope, no lens flare.
Look, for all of you that think that lens flares are realistic, you are fooling yourselves. Lens flares *ONLY* occur in compound glass lenses (i.e. cameras, video recorders, etc.) A compund lens means that there are multiple glass lenses.
Polarizing cuts down on the angles that light that passes through the lens, and would actually minimize lens flaring... but that's a moot point because a visor is not a lens, it's a visor. It doesn't work like a lens, nor does it effect light like a lens.
You have never seen a lens flare out of your own unaided eye. You have never seen one through sunglasses or visors of any type. You should not see them in first person video games unless you are playing a robot with cameras for eyes.

  • 07.01.2004 12:02 PM PDT

-S

Lens flares are an artifact of an light bouncing from lenses. You do not see them with the naked eye.

The Chief does not see things via cameras, he looks through his visor. His visor is designed to sense changes in light and adjust its tint accordingly so as to protect his eyes. Kind of like those glasses you see people wear that auto-tint when they step outside. However, from first person, he should not be able to see a lens flare, mbaryol1's point is perfectly valid.

  • 07.01.2004 12:47 PM PDT