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Depth of field is a human eyes thing too. Though I'm with you on lens flare and film grain added just as stylistic flourishes rather than to convey "this scene

Depth of field is a human eyes thing too. Though I'm with you on lens flare and film grain added just as stylistic flourishes rather than to convey "this scene is camera footage". It's like deliberately adding simulated compression artifacts.

Terr_ 3y ago
> Depth of field is a human eyes thing too. Not in in the dumb way games do it: You don't need to turn your entire head to make something come into focus, or aim it with with a gun.
- CrazyStat 3y ago
  Well, this is a limitation of computers traditionally not having eye tracking. If VR with eye tracking takes off maybe we'll get more realistic depth of field in games.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    Apparently one of the issues with VR and “3D movies” is that your eyes expect to be able to focus on anything: but you can’t; only on what the director set everything to focus on.
strogonoff 3y ago
Imagine you record audio with perfect fidelity and extreme dynamic range. Now, you have the tiniest and the loudest sounds captured; how do you go about conveying this work? The answer is compression, equalization, all those tricks. And yes, that lowers fidelity, and yes, you will have to make choices as to what’s more important to focus perceptive attention. Similarly with video: many fidelity-lowering tricks serve a purpose. Film grain, aside from conveying a mood, can mask excess detail in shadows and highlights, the detail that would detract from the story you’re telling. A headlight flare can bring attention to the coming car; if your hero or villain is in that car, that’s useful. Panning over a fleeting sun flare, you momentarily focus on the environment and can use it to bridge attention between subjects or scenes. It’s all a complicated dance, and it all exists in time, inseparably from both the immediately preceding material and the larger current cultural context.
- ryandrake 3y ago
  > Imagine you record audio with perfect fidelity and extreme dynamic range. Now, you have the tiniest and the loudest sounds captured; how do you go about conveying this work? If you're Christopher Nolan, you just release it that way, and let your audience smash the volume-up and volume-down keys over and over throughout the movie.
  - strogonoff 3y ago
    Yeah, quite tricky if things happen in quick succession, a pin drops and and explosion follows (if your home audio can even reproduce the requisite decibels).

Terr_ 3y ago

> Depth of field is a human eyes thing too. Not in in the dumb way games do it: You don't need to turn your entire head to make something come into focus, or aim it with with a gun.

CrazyStat 3y ago
Well, this is a limitation of computers traditionally not having eye tracking. If VR with eye tracking takes off maybe we'll get more realistic depth of field in games.
- bombcar 3y ago
  Apparently one of the issues with VR and “3D movies” is that your eyes expect to be able to focus on anything: but you can’t; only on what the director set everything to focus on.

strogonoff 3y ago

Imagine you record audio with perfect fidelity and extreme dynamic range. Now, you have the tiniest and the loudest sounds captured; how do you go about conveying this work? The answer is compression, equalization, all those tricks. And yes, that lowers fidelity, and yes, you will have to make choices as to what’s more important to focus perceptive attention. Similarly with video: many fidelity-lowering tricks serve a purpose. Film grain, aside from conveying a mood, can mask excess detail in shadows and highlights, the detail that would detract from the story you’re telling. A headlight flare can bring attention to the coming car; if your hero or villain is in that car, that’s useful. Panning over a fleeting sun flare, you momentarily focus on the environment and can use it to bridge attention between subjects or scenes. It’s all a complicated dance, and it all exists in time, inseparably from both the immediately preceding material and the larger current cultural context.

ryandrake 3y ago
> Imagine you record audio with perfect fidelity and extreme dynamic range. Now, you have the tiniest and the loudest sounds captured; how do you go about conveying this work? If you're Christopher Nolan, you just release it that way, and let your audience smash the volume-up and volume-down keys over and over throughout the movie.
- strogonoff 3y ago
  Yeah, quite tricky if things happen in quick succession, a pin drops and and explosion follows (if your home audio can even reproduce the requisite decibels).