Depth of Field?

**xiphirx** · 12-30-2010, 09:33 PM

Does HPL2 Support this? I loved the effect in Penumbra... I didn't notice it in Amnesia...

**Sexbad** · 12-30-2010, 09:44 PM

When you go to the esc menu, the screen blurs, but I doubt it's actual depth of field blur. I didn't notice it at all when playing through. It may have gone away along with HPL1's great motion blur.

**Renegade_** · 12-31-2010, 02:47 AM

I think it's because DoF along with Bloom/HDR are easily the most absurd and abused effects. Outside of very light and sparing artistic use, it's insane if a game thinks it needs to emulate your own eye!

**Bek** · 12-31-2010, 03:02 AM

Well how exactly else are you meant to get DOF on a stationary screen in front of you? Tongue

Trouble is guessing where you're meant to be focusing, cause really all DOF can do is force your focus somewhere.

it was good in the later STALKER games where your 'focus' would be on your guns as you reload, making everything further than a few metres away blurred.

**xiphirx** · 12-31-2010, 03:04 AM

(12-31-2010, 02:47 AM)Renegade_ Wrote: I think it's because DoF along with Bloom/HDR are easily the most absurd and abused effects. Outside of very light and sparing artistic use, it's insane if a game thinks it needs to emulate your own eye!

???

Depth of field is excellent for a game like Amnesia. It just adds into the immersion. Just imagine, you're looking at something, and at the corner of your screen you see a blurred figure, you quickly look and see that it's just a coat hanger. It adds to the intensity, and I don't see why it was taken out (if it was) since they had the code for it.

**Renegade_** · 12-31-2010, 11:03 AM

Like I said: abused.
a) any non-novice small arms handler can reload without looking at the weapon

b) just imagine you're looking at something. and stop right there.
There's you DoF, au natural. Your eye doesn't focus differently just because you're looking at something on a screen. When you focus on an object in the gameworld, your eye already creates DoF, you don't need the game engine to interfere with a natural process. It would be as absurd as attempting to simulate head-related transform functions on a set of surround speakers.

**DIGI Byte** · 12-31-2010, 11:35 AM

(12-31-2010, 11:03 AM)Renegade_ Wrote: ...When you focus on an object in the gameworld, your eye already creates DoF...

ok, shhh right there...

Mr. smarty... a DoF is a natural process of when your 2 eyes meet at a focal point...
a screen is a flat 2d surface... there IS no depth so it has to be simulated to get an effect...

not unless your mr imagination... you naturally don't get a DoF when you play a game between foreground and background elements because its just color on a flat surface, when your eyes flick around the screen, yes... but that's cause your looking at one corner like, but your not seeing depth focus and that's what your eyes cant do on a flat screen

**Renegade_** · 12-31-2010, 03:57 PM

Actually no. This has nothing to do with flat or actual 3D depth; DoF deals entirely with the blurring of out-of-focus objects. Read this text, notice how the rest of the text around is not as clear this word you are reading right now? That's DoF, again it has nothing to do with 2D or 3D, again depth != DoF. Unless you are forcing the player to look somewhere (bad) and/or artistic merit (pfft), there's no need to emulate DoF, your eyes already do a much better job.

**Sexbad** · 12-31-2010, 06:40 PM

I disagree. I understand that while I'm typing this I am not focusing on the emoticons to the left of this textbox, but my eyes are not simulating depth and they are not blurred out of focus. What your eyes do to something in your peripheral vision on a two-dimensional screen and what they do in real life are massively different. If you don't like DoF then turn it off, but it's pretty and realistic.

**eliasfrost** · 01-01-2011, 11:37 AM

Depth of Field emulates a focus point on a point object within a distance in depth while blurring all other objects (amount of blur depending on the distance in depth from the point object), thus producing a sense of depth to the picture/movie/game. And just like everyone already said, your eyes can't produce this effect itself on a flat screen, because there is no point object on screen, but the whole monitor is the point object.

I'm not sure what the name is of the effect you're describing, but it's not depth of field.