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I feel like this post does nothing in terms of educating readers. It all sounds very interesting, but I didn't learn anything. It alters between putting the bla

by ndh2 9y ago

I feel like this post does nothing in terms of educating readers. It all sounds very interesting, but I didn't learn anything. It alters between putting the blame on technical limitations and ignorance, so I would have liked to see a suggestion on how to address either of these.

aaron-lebo 9y ago
It's a well-written and informative post, it deserves a little more praise than "does nothing in terms of educating readers". What he is discussing is about aesthetics. There are two things at play here: the big studio business model relies on making blockbusters, so you pack together a few hundred devs and artists and try to pop out the biggest game you can. The other is that many devs are technically trained but not especially artistically educated. They have a limited understanding of lighting, color, framing a scene, etc. Someone who has made some great criticisms of this as well as provided real solutions is Eskil Steenberg.
- Aperson4321 9y ago
  Link please to Eskil Steenbergs writings!
  - aaron-lebo 9y ago
    I'd suggest this vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f90R2taD1WQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f90R2taD1WQ
    - Aperson4321 9y ago
      Thank you! Eskil is such a wizard.
    - corysama 9y ago
      That entire presentation is amazing. I recommend it every chance I get.
- xigency 9y ago
  The article isn't very concise and is actually quite repetitive, it uses a bunch of jargon (without any description), and shifts blame around. The topics are interesting and the opinions are there, but it certainly could be written better. As a programmer who has done a small amount of work in graphics but hasn't worked in HDR rendering I have no idea what any of these are.... film LUT color grading post process LUT color grade ...but I could write the linked-to shader. So who is he helping? > It alters between putting the blame on technical limitations and ignorance, so I would have liked to see a suggestion on how to address either of these. I second this.
  - mattnewport 9y ago
    I think the audience is other games graphics programmers and technical artists who can be expected to understand all this terminology. As a game graphics programmer the article was written appropriately assuming I'm representative of his intended audience (which is implied by his use of 'we').
  - jacobolus 9y ago
    CLUT = color look-up table color grading = adjusting the color in an image, as you might do in Photoshop or whatever post process = any image adjustment that happens after the image is originally captured This author is assuming a basic background in lighting / human vision / film technology.
    - xigency 9y ago
      Yes, I understand the acronyms, but they are being used as jargon, not in a instructive way. If I were to talk about a web framework and say, "we've got our JSON files wrong and our package configs are cluttered, and don't get me started on the XML files," it's clear that it is metonymy [1]. Knowing that JSON is JavaScript Object Notation, the package.json is used for Node Package Manager, and that XML is a file format doesn't capture the feeling that a developer might have reading that sentence, and it doesn't instruct. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metonymy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metonymy From the article: >>> It was Reinhard in years past, then it was Hable, now it’s ACES RRT. And it’s stop #1 on the train of Why does every game this year look exactly the goddamn same? If the problem the author is facing is a gap between art skills and technical skills, then the post could be less angry and more informative about color theory or rendering technology, maybe bridging the needed skills.
banachtarski 9y ago
I thought it was a great post, but you're likely not the intended audience. At the very least, you probably need to understand HDR as a technique and the fundamentals of tone-mapping.
slavik81 9y ago
I thought there were a few very clear suggestions: 1. Pick your tone mapping early in the development process. 2. Look into the models are used by the camera / film industry, because they're clearly getting better results. It's not a complete discussion, but as a student in computer graphics, I found it very informative. The title says Part 1, so presumably there will be more. The links were also all very good, too.
tripzilch 9y ago
There's a few links to other articles that go into greater detail about that, and from there a whole rabbit-hole of more things :)

by ndh2 9y ago

aaron-lebo 9y ago

It's a well-written and informative post, it deserves a little more praise than "does nothing in terms of educating readers". What he is discussing is about aesthetics. There are two things at play here: the big studio business model relies on making blockbusters, so you pack together a few hundred devs and artists and try to pop out the biggest game you can. The other is that many devs are technically trained but not especially artistically educated. They have a limited understanding of lighting, color, framing a scene, etc. Someone who has made some great criticisms of this as well as provided real solutions is Eskil Steenberg.

Aperson4321 9y ago
Link please to Eskil Steenbergs writings!
- aaron-lebo 9y ago
  I'd suggest this vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f90R2taD1WQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f90R2taD1WQ
  - Aperson4321 9y ago
    Thank you! Eskil is such a wizard.
  - corysama 9y ago
    That entire presentation is amazing. I recommend it every chance I get.
xigency 9y ago
The article isn't very concise and is actually quite repetitive, it uses a bunch of jargon (without any description), and shifts blame around. The topics are interesting and the opinions are there, but it certainly could be written better. As a programmer who has done a small amount of work in graphics but hasn't worked in HDR rendering I have no idea what any of these are.... film LUT color grading post process LUT color grade ...but I could write the linked-to shader. So who is he helping? > It alters between putting the blame on technical limitations and ignorance, so I would have liked to see a suggestion on how to address either of these. I second this.
- mattnewport 9y ago
  I think the audience is other games graphics programmers and technical artists who can be expected to understand all this terminology. As a game graphics programmer the article was written appropriately assuming I'm representative of his intended audience (which is implied by his use of 'we').
- jacobolus 9y ago
  CLUT = color look-up table color grading = adjusting the color in an image, as you might do in Photoshop or whatever post process = any image adjustment that happens after the image is originally captured This author is assuming a basic background in lighting / human vision / film technology.
  - xigency 9y ago
    Yes, I understand the acronyms, but they are being used as jargon, not in a instructive way. If I were to talk about a web framework and say, "we've got our JSON files wrong and our package configs are cluttered, and don't get me started on the XML files," it's clear that it is metonymy [1]. Knowing that JSON is JavaScript Object Notation, the package.json is used for Node Package Manager, and that XML is a file format doesn't capture the feeling that a developer might have reading that sentence, and it doesn't instruct. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metonymy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metonymy From the article: >>> It was Reinhard in years past, then it was Hable, now it’s ACES RRT. And it’s stop #1 on the train of Why does every game this year look exactly the goddamn same? If the problem the author is facing is a gap between art skills and technical skills, then the post could be less angry and more informative about color theory or rendering technology, maybe bridging the needed skills.

banachtarski 9y ago

I thought it was a great post, but you're likely not the intended audience. At the very least, you probably need to understand HDR as a technique and the fundamentals of tone-mapping.

slavik81 9y ago

I thought there were a few very clear suggestions: 1. Pick your tone mapping early in the development process. 2. Look into the models are used by the camera / film industry, because they're clearly getting better results. It's not a complete discussion, but as a student in computer graphics, I found it very informative. The title says Part 1, so presumably there will be more. The links were also all very good, too.

tripzilch 9y ago

There's a few links to other articles that go into greater detail about that, and from there a whole rabbit-hole of more things :)