heh, should have mentioned that the shot was produced by me messing with settings, and actually looks fucking amazing when you run around with that on. Obviously that would only be used for a dream sequence, or using the dagger of time.

I took the time to take pics of the bloom effect being used more moderately. Before and after pics at:

http://www.planetquake.com/starbuck/bloom/ 

those first 2 shots are my map :] 

DarkPlaces I'm guessing, yeah? 

For an engine mod visual gimmick, that doesn't look half bad. 

It kills the illusion of depth. Where the light effect shines on the textures, they only appear flat or painted on. 

in monomaterial geocomps pretty well though. For it to be effective here, you would have to account for the individual darkness/contrast of the pixels to sustain the depth, and there you go: per pixel shading! 

Yeah, what Kinn said--what engine?

I might have to use that for gimmicky shots of my maps on a future design of my site. 

That's the latest beta of Darkplaces. AFAIK, it's not avaible on DP site yet, so ask LordHavoc for the download URL. 

headthump: dude, huh?
the shots with bloom on are the 1st, 3rd, 5th...
It just gives a blurry glow around light stuff in the engine, like a lens flare (ish). Doesn't 'kill the illusion of depth' at all. 

how does it know why textures should be bloomed?
does it go by contrast or are there texture settings? 

why = which 

i think it works it out itself, don't ask me how. Just seems that a fair bit of light on a really light surface will cause it. 

Take a screenshot into photoshop. Duplicate it to make two layers. In the top layer, use levels to cut out the dark parts, blur it, and change the blend to "screen"[*].

That's roughly how bloom works in most engines... and your eyes.

[*] At least, that's what jherax assures me. 

A bloom alogrithm takes takes pixel information from around a light source, and saturatuates the light onto the pixel and so many pixel around it. At least thats what I'm guessing. For lighter colored textures, you'll see the light and texture bleed together. I think. I'm just guess it's through a pixel shader type thing, more specficly a opengl fragment program (or fragment shader or whatever they are called). 

I should have been more specific. The results on the Ikbase are pretty subdued, so no harm done and could be counted as a visual improvement, but the Slipgate Complex, well . . . maybe it is a judgement call but it appears to me the contrasting materials on the walls and the rivet supports bleed into one another. 

take a look at the wall furtherest to the left on the slipgate shots with the rivets close by you. There is not much illusion of depth built into that texture in the first place ;) 

think i see what you mean, on the ceiling, right?
pretty minor to be honest... not something i'd notice ingame. You can also change the amount it blurs and the opacity of the effect so you could adjust the effect till it suited you. 

the trade off is only a slight one. What I said before was overkill.

Does the new Dark Places beta support pixel shaders as ProdigyXL mentions above? 

another empty post in the Arcane Wizard thread... 

wrong thread 

Take a screenshot into photoshop. Duplicate it to make two layers. In the top layer, use levels to cut out the dark parts, blur it, and change the blend to "screen"[*].

Or duplicate a layer, gaussian blur it and set it's mode to Lighten, get a dreamy/glowy effect. 

It wouldn't support pixel shaders as it's an Opengl rendered. In Opengl they are called fragment programs, or pixel fragment programs or something. I can't remember the name off the top of the head, hope I didn't confuse anyone. 

I thought it sounded like it was either a bit of a departure for where Dark Places was headed, or they were integrating Opengl 2.0 compliant code that I have not as of yet read up on. 

I've been torn recently over what Q1SP I should be working on. I've got a few projects with a substantial amount of work poured into them, and I'm currently flirting with all three, rather than sticking to one. So... I'm asking you to choose for me which one should be completed first. Cheers for looking.

http://www.planetquake.com/starbuck/nextmap/

P.S. It feels weird, using this thread for its indended purpose. 

The last one; the evil doomy gothic thingy. Hands down.