The "out of focus" fad

After playing FarCry 2 for a while and having an increasing urge to rub my eyes out, I've realized something weird that is going on, of late, with fancy first person shooters.

They are intent on having so many blur effects that the entire graphical experience is counteracted by a layer of mud, with maybe two inches of clearly visible picture in the middle. Thus hurting my eyes and wasting precious graphics processing power they could have spent maybe having decals stay for more than half a second.

It's like that handheld camera fad in movies, except this doesn't even conduct emotion.

Yeah, too much DoF is too much.
Crysis does it elegantly, by using DoF only very slightly in normal scenes, and more in sniper scope views.
Totally dismissing DoF is also not a solution, since distancefog alone can not make the 3D depth effect good enough.
If we had 3D VR headsets, DoF would not be needed.

I look forward to the day I can analyse games to this depth again, for the time being I'll settle for playing Spartan on my last gen xbox - but hey -its less than 2 months until santa brings XBox 360 and fable 2. Happy days.

Yeah they try and emulate how a camera lense sees, and kind of how we focus on things. DOF is great for LOD and can create a heightened sense of movie like realism.

I cant stand it either, whats so wrong with crisp and clear graphics??
The fist thing i do when i get a new game is disable any bloom, dof and post processing effects (plus i get a significant speed boost by doing so)

That 'fist' thing'll get you into trouble.

On the other hand, these fx can be effective in portraying how your character's feeling. I'm thinking back to Call of Cthulu where your character's extreme fear of heights (and old ones) was represented by screen blur and distortion. This meant that crossing over a sheer drop actually felt like a risk and staring at an old one could send you insane.

I thought it worked really well and it meant you weren't running about like a jack rabbit with no fear of falling (as you do in most games) - but of course there were the usual fanbois who posted about how much they thought it 'sux' and wanted to know how they could turn it off. Guys like that are actually holding games back from trying new things in a way.

(Incidentally, the part where you wake up in the hotel room and the locals are coming to get you and it's a mad rush from room to room trying to stop them breaking down the doors is still one of the scariest sequences I've ever played in a game!)

The game should've had a backup notification that does not rely on funky (or otherwise 'hurts me eyes') effects!

You mean a flashing icon in the corner?
If so, I completely disagree sir!

Not necessarily, but as grable makes quite clear, some users just prefer to have speedy & fun over flashy and super-realistic.

Sure.

Maybe for a game like Farcry2 that's all good, but I'm not so sure the same holds true for CoC - which was a horror game. It seemed to me that those complaining about the fx in that game were missing the point.

Oh sure, I love the full screen blur / tremor effect to achieve a 'fear' kind of metaphor. In those cases, I think the idea does really well to give the player a solid reason to overcome the problem leading to the effect, and gets them to stumble without it just being an arbitrary, unavoidable forced thing.
As well as that, I'm cool with motion blur. With Crysis, it made my 15 frames per second feel silky smooth.

However, FarCry 2 seems to have this headache-inducing blur shader going constantly for every little thing! Stamina? Blur! Health? More BLUR! Focusing on something? Turning quickly? Swimming? Trying to see something? BLUUUURRR!
Okay, most of those things cause people's eyesight to go dim in real life, but one of the reasons I am playing a game instead of hopping through ditches wielding a machete is because I don't want to bother with accidentally stabbing myself in the eye. When the blur stops being a game mechanic and starts being a painful attempt at realism (in a game that is really not meant to be taken completely seriously) it is going too far.
My theory at this point is that the mercenary I'm playing as needs his vision corrected but doesn't realize because he's used to everything being out of focus. I'm fighting to reach an optometrist and afford glasses, which will be a major climax.

Basically, it plays like Photography Simulator: Africa Edition with a manual focus webcam.

Heh - hope it can be turned off.

I particularly dislike headturn blur - completely frivolous fx.

I quite enjoy the depth of field effects. I don't know about Far Cry 2 but Crysis was immersive.

Clive Barker's Jericho used DOF fx - seemed to take the centre of the screen as the focal point and DOF blur objects further off than that.

Interesting effect, but not entirely sucessful - sometimes made it appear as though you were walking through a miniature model.

One useful DOF fx is when you're talking to an NPC (cutscene or conversation option) and the scenery behind the character is blurred.

I think it is strange when rain droplets appear on screen - I thought the view was meant to be from our eyes not from some virtual movie camera.

More annoying to me is lense flare, which fortunately isn't a fad any more (in favor of HDR glows and ray effects). A few raindrops on the screen though is a fairly effective though IMO in conveying a "wet" environment, although it does make you feel like there's a sheet of glass between you and the virtual world.

Regarding blur, I don't think Far Cry 2 overdoes it - at least it doesn't give me any headaches (but then I don't sit 2 inches in front of my monitor :) ).

Besides, it only blurs when you're tired/hurt/etc. which seems not too unrealistic, and most of the time it's not even blurring at all (although maybe on lower graphics settings the blur filter is more harsh than what I'm getting?)

P.S. I do agree that Crysis has much better DOF and motion blur than Far Cry 2 though. I don't even remember if Far Cry 2 has motion blur and DOF - it seems like it just uses a simple blur filter most of the time.

" I thought the view was meant to be from our eyes not from some virtual movie camera. "

The fact is that people who produce films, and now games, think we won't believe it unless it looks like it coming through a hand-held camera.
In other words, most people's experience of the world is second-hand, through the media.

Warning to media producers - as soon as I see a shakey-camera effect I switch off; yo're kidding no-one, and irritating lots of people.

I couldn't agree more. We shouldn't even notice these effects if they achieve what they're supposed to. Pure distraction for the most part.

Cataracts are the new black. I won't so much as look at a game that doesn't make me feel like I'm going blind.

In Crysis the raindrops on the screen make sense, because the player is always wearing those glasses.
The headmotionblur makes sense also, try it yourself: turn around quickly a full circle, and you will see a quick motionblur.

Yeah it's like when all the bloom HDR lighting became 'popular' and snow started to glow like radioactive fallout XD

I suppose devs could make it a powerup or item.

"For only 1000 gold, you can get Lasik eye surgery and be blur-free forever!!"

Hmm - that would be too permanent. Maybe:

"For only 1000 gold, buy these removable Glasses and be blur-free whenever you want!"

Of course, that wouldn't work if the main charactor doesn't wear glasses, or if they haven't been invented yet in the game's time.

For problem #1... Is there such a thing as temporary Lasik? :-)

Or, you could take 5 minutes and put a button in the options screen!!!

>For problem #1... Is there such a thing as temporary Lasik? :-)

Maybe its just me, but somehow frying your eyes with lasers screams "permanent" to me.

Using lasers to burn information onto a subjects' retina is an outmoded form of subterfuge and espionage tactics. It's not permanent, but lasts a good while.