Chromatic abberation, the most disgusting, overused visual effect in today's games

[Ezekiel]

For some reason, the new fad is making your game look like it's being shot through a bad camera lens. What games do you know that have it? I want to make a comprehensive list.

Alien: Isolation
Bloodborne
Dying Light
Hellblade
Lords of the Fallen
The Witcher 3
Little Nightmares
Observer
Batman: Arkham Knight
Resident Evil 7
Soma (At least here it kind of makes sense.)
Payday 2
Life Is Strange
The Order 1886
Destiny

The worst thing is that increasingly developers are not giving users the option to turn it off.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

The worst thing is that increasingly developers are not giving users the option to turn it off.

 

[Sodafish]

It is indeed retarded. Also a misnomer, as in most cases what is being aped is not actually optical CA but some kind of weird bastardised dispersion effect.

 

[Mynon]

Meh. It depends on whether or not it fits the game. Alien Isolation looks good with it, for it accents the feel of late-70s, early-80s SF flick they were going for. In games with futuristic setting, it can make sense and add to the look, in general.

In Lords of the Fallen tho, I agree that it was wholly unfit for the game's theme and art style.

 

[Ezekiel]

Meh. It depends on whether or not it fits the game. Alien Isolation looks good with it, for it accents the feel of late-70s, early-80s SF flick they were going for. In games with futuristic setting, it can make sense and add to the look, in general.

In Lords of the Fallen tho, I agree that it was wholly unfit for the game's theme and art style.

Meh. If Ridley Scott and his cinematographer could have removed the effect from Alien, they would have. Most of the time, it's not even there or you can barely tell.

 

[Immortal]

It's the new Bloom effect.
I remember when games would default Bloom to the point you felt like you were cross-eyed drunk.

Every time Nvidia releases some new rendering technique - it feels like marketers jump on it so they can slap it on the box.

- Features STATE OF THE ART GRIME-O-RENDER (30FPS)

Gotta give the consoles their bullet points.. makes them feel speshal.

 

[Mynon]

Meh. It depends on whether or not it fits the game. Alien Isolation looks good with it, for it accents the feel of late-70s, early-80s SF flick they were going for. In games with futuristic setting, it can make sense and add to the look, in general.

In Lords of the Fallen tho, I agree that it was wholly unfit for the game's theme and art style.

Meh. If Ridley Scott and his cinematographer could have removed the effect from Alien, they would have. Most of the time, it's not even there or you can barely tell.

Well, much of iconic set designs from Alien and Aliens would have looked completely different if they were filmed today for the first time.
That is besides the point: game was trying to replicate the look of the movies, as faithfully as was humanly possible.

 

[Lazing Dirk]

Every time I've encountered that I immediately look for the option to disable it, intended or otherwise. If I can't, that shit is going in the bin. Sometimes it's quite subtle, and it takes me a while to realise why everything just looks wrong and it's giving me a headache. Then I figure it out and immediately want to punch whoever decided to add that bullshit on purpose. I don't even know what game that screenshot in the OP is from and I'm enraged already.

 

[passerby]

Sometimes it's quite subtle, and it takes me a while to realise why everything just looks wrong and it's giving me a headache.

This, like on the Outcast remake screenshots, if this shit won't have a toggle, there will be no purchase here and there is often no toggle when they make the effect subtle.

 

[Murk]

I agree with OP, it's godawful garbage and should be removed/turned off a tall times.

 

[Tigranes]

As you can see with the OP screenshot, it serves an important function: to disguise just how unimaginative, dull, uncanny and barely-put-together the models and textures would look without some postprocessing magic.

It's like cranking up reverb to the max in karaoke so nobody can hear you sing

 

[Lyric Suite]

As you can see with the OP screenshot, it serves an important function: to disguise just how unimaginative, dull, uncanny and barely-put-together the models and textures would look without some postprocessing magic.

That may be true for most games, but i think devs just slap that shit because retards actually find it appealing. I recently gave Dirt Rally a spin, and out of the box the game looked like total shit, despite the fact the textures are actually pretty detailed and crisp. I had to remove a bunch of postprocessing crap, relying on mods for some of them since there wasn't an option to get rid of all of them from the game itself, and now things look pretty decent. The game didn't really need any of the crap since the graphics are pretty good in and of themselves, but they had to put them in there probably because morons actually think that shit is knewl.

 

[TripJack]

depth of field is worse

 

[octavius]

I must laugh when I see games with camera glare. Like you're seeing the world through a camera lense instead of your character's eyes.

 

[Ezekiel]

So, I made this same thread shortly later on The Escapist. A few people tell me they can't see it, even with clear examples. I'm ready to facepalm so hard.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/for...usting-overused-visual-effect-in-todays-games

Meh. It depends on whether or not it fits the game. Alien Isolation looks good with it, for it accents the feel of late-70s, early-80s SF flick they were going for. In games with futuristic setting, it can make sense and add to the look, in general.

In Lords of the Fallen tho, I agree that it was wholly unfit for the game's theme and art style.

Meh. If Ridley Scott and his cinematographer could have removed the effect from Alien, they would have. Most of the time, it's not even there or you can barely tell.

Well, much of iconic set designs from Alien and Aliens would have looked completely different if they were filmed today for the first time.
That is besides the point: game was trying to replicate the look of the movies, as faithfully as was humanly possible.

It's not as excessive in the movie. I can tell even with all that grain. It's crap either way. The game looks better without it.

http://steamcommunity.com/id/BN43/s...rt=newestfirst&browsefilter=myfiles&view=grid

 

[Cyberarmy]

This, motion blur, hdr bloom and some other I forgot. All of them are here to either mask their shitty design or to hide optimization issues.

 

[passerby]

So, I made this same thread shortly later on The Escapist. A few people tell me they can't see it, even with clear examples.

The world is scary, outside of our little safe space.

 

[Sodafish]

It's not as excessive in the movie

That's because it isn't in the film, outside of the small amount in certain lighting situations that was unavoidable from optics of that period. In other words its (rare) presence isn't by design.

 

[ore clover]

I must laugh when I see games with camera glare. Like you're seeing the world through a camera lense instead of your character's eyes.

Muh cinuhmatic experience, yo.

 

[DraQ]

The worst thing is that increasingly developers are not giving users the option to turn it off.

While every fad effect should in principle offer the option to turn it the fuck off unless for some reason it is central to presentation (for example you have shit like invisibility that relies on some shader), chromatic aberration is by far the least intrusive and annoying fad effect ever or at least since and including the time when everyone masturbated over planar shockwaves.
It isn't eye searing bloom or DoF abomination that could only have been cooked up by some vat-dwelling homunculus that has never been outside (Skyrim is the only exception I know of), it isn't nearly as overt or tacky as gratuitous camera-mimicking effects like lens flares, like film grain it can serve legitimate purpose of subtly distorting the image to force player into putting more brainpower into noticing hidden objects and detail (hiding stuff in games is generally the history of increasingly powerful image transformations allowing better and better avoidance of repeating the sought pattern verbatim on screen), it can be used much better than anything else to subtly underline situations where player actually operates some sort of optical device, and even when completely pointless at least it's non-disruptive.

Disclosure: I wear glasses so I am used to mild chromatic aberration IRL.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

I like it. I also like film grain.

 

[Stavrophore]

It is indeed retarded. Also a misnomer, as in most cases what is being aped is not actually optical CA but some kind of weird bastardised dispersion effect.

It's all good and dandy when coupled with 80s aesthetics, neons, vaporwave etc. But in a fucking medieval game, its teh lulz.