[MUD-Dev2] [DESIGN] Is photorealism the goal? ( was Ray traced environments)

[Jeffrey Kesselman]

On 4/18/07, Tess Snider <malkyne at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/17/07, Jeffrey Kesselman <jeffpk at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Thing is, depth of field is an artifact of *photography*, not of human
> > vision.  Thus it actually makes the game look more cinematic but less
> > real.
>
> Human vision does, indeed, have depth-of-field!  You just generally
> aren't aware of it, because whatever you're interested in is always
> in-focus.  That is, unless you need glasses. :)

Well.  yes and no.

The human eye has a flexible lens that adapts on the fly to where your
focused on.  Your resolution of vision is so small in any place BUT
that focus area (the fovea)
that its already blurred well beyond anything depth of field will do.

Your right that when the mechanism starts failing though it becomes
more obvious.

Even in that case though the effect is *nothing* like a rendered DOF,
which is simulating a camera.


>
> Obviously, we don't want to wrest control of the focus from a player
> who is in the middle of playing a game.  So, cinematic focus should
> only be used for cut scenes.

Can't argue with that... *unless* your goal is a "movie look" as opposed to
a natural look.  For instance, movie sequences rendered in Lionhead's
"the movies."

Even in cut scenes thoough I'm not sure ist good unless again you
artistically *wan't*
cut scenes to look more movie-like and less live.

 >Some developers have experimented with a
> sort of procedural or situational depth-of-field.  This *can* work
> under some circumstances, but it should be used judiciously

Sounds annoying as heck under most situations 8)

.