Special Effect

[eXodus]

I guess some of you played Deus Ex 2: Invisible War or Area 51. In both games, there's some kind of blurring effect applied to the whole scene. I was wondering what is it called and how does it work? Could it be a nicely done use of bloom?

Here's what I mean:

Deus Ex 2: Invisible War


Area 51

[Jan_]

hm,

There 2 ways,

1. With Shader (don't ask me how cause i try my self to find it out)

2. with 1 billboard , in front of the Camera, with a Extra Texture, that you renderd on it, or Grab from the Backbuffer. Here you can do with very easy Pixelshader some very very kewl stuff.

1 Year ago ii Wrote the 2. for a other engine, and i have to say, it is fast enough vor a little Game, vor Big Projekts, you have to do it with shader,

..

and say me howto!

[ThommyE]

how about rendering the actual image, cange it to half/quater/or even less resolution (or render a second one in lower resolution- guess the first way is faster.. expect you need a 16x16 image). lay the smaler image on top and resize it to fit the original and mix both images (or maybe additive mixing 4 bloom).
texturefiltering should result in a blur-effect, the smaler the resolution of the second image the blurier it should become...
it's just an idea but i would guess thats the way bloom works. maybe you have to change the mixing/blending metod and parameters to get the effect you need.
if i feel bored i'll give it a try in gimp an test if something like this could work out

i think this could be done with shaders aswell as with bilboards like Jan_ sayed. (i dont know about billboards so far^^ never needed them)

well good look on your way.
ps: if you're trying it out please post the results.

[Jan_]

@ThommyE, jep, your idea funktion, but, with 10 FPS...
its better to make 3 Billboard, or meshs to get it smother.
Because then you habe4 Pixels vor 1 Pixel,
the Bad thing is, Without shaders and more than 10 FPS you always have motion Blur.