StTheo
Well-Known Member
Random advice related to game development: there's a neat trick I've used before for quicker post-processing effects. So, lots of games use a blur effect after a given frame has been initially rendered. I've seen this as far back as Halo (zoom blur for sun/sniper scope), and many other major games use various blur effects for making the game more visually appealing. Now, if you've ever tried using blurs (specifically, gaussian) in graphics programs, you'll notice that they can be rather slow - not exactly useful for a 60 fps title. However, I learned a trick when making screensavers/iTunes visualizers on my old MacBook.
The trick: take the rendered image you're going to blur, scale it down to a smaller image, and blur that image. Since the blur effect is already removing detail from an image, making it a smaller image will be a mostly unnoticeable change. The smaller the image, the less time it will take to render the blur - and you might even be able to afford a larger radius blur on the smaller image. The downside is a sort of smoothed pixellation - that is, the effect that practically every game (except Minecraft) does to smooth textures between pixels. However, this can be barely noticeable with the right balance of scaling and blur radius.
I've noticed this trick being used in a couple of places. For example, Fable 2 used a variation for the sun's zoom blur, which wasn't as sharp as a high quality zoom blur and had some of the smoothed pixellation (Fable 2's use of blurring and fog was absolutely gorgeous, btw). I'm also pretty sure iOS does it for their blur effects (kinda apparent by the way the blur updates when scrolling).
This link gives more detail on how it works, as well as pictures:
http://chemaguerra.com/downsampling-and-gaussian-filters/
The trick: take the rendered image you're going to blur, scale it down to a smaller image, and blur that image. Since the blur effect is already removing detail from an image, making it a smaller image will be a mostly unnoticeable change. The smaller the image, the less time it will take to render the blur - and you might even be able to afford a larger radius blur on the smaller image. The downside is a sort of smoothed pixellation - that is, the effect that practically every game (except Minecraft) does to smooth textures between pixels. However, this can be barely noticeable with the right balance of scaling and blur radius.
I've noticed this trick being used in a couple of places. For example, Fable 2 used a variation for the sun's zoom blur, which wasn't as sharp as a high quality zoom blur and had some of the smoothed pixellation (Fable 2's use of blurring and fog was absolutely gorgeous, btw). I'm also pretty sure iOS does it for their blur effects (kinda apparent by the way the blur updates when scrolling).
This link gives more detail on how it works, as well as pictures:
http://chemaguerra.com/downsampling-and-gaussian-filters/
Last edited: