Next-Gen Will Be All About Lens Flares, New Screenshots From The Latest CryEngine SDK

DSOGaming writes: "Two weeks ago, we informed you about the release of the SDK for the latest version of CRYENGINE. Naturally, modders/artists/indie devs decided to take a look at this SDK and came up with some pretty… well… bizarre results. And from the looks of it, it seems that next-gen will be all about lens flares and some ‘in-your-face’ particles effects. Yes yes, some modders overused those effects in the following shots, but it’s pretty clear that every damn engine now supports those anamorphic lens flares."

[user7402931]

not true. its all about multifuctionality, bigger games, gddr5, and ps4.

[malokevi]

Lens flares piss me off when they are overdone. I've been seeing it in a lot of the next-gen previews. Dying light... Forza...

TONE IT DOWN! I don't wan't to feel like I have to squint while I'm playing videogames.

[user7402931]

it bones the eyes.

[christian hour]

Absolutely hate lens flare when it's not meant to be there.

If you want to give the impression your game is being viewed through a camera, how about you get the optics correct first, and have it simulate lens flare correctly, not just as a shiny effect to throw on everything, but physically simulate the lens flare, otherwise don't bother.

Here is how you do camera optics right

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

[Hellsvacancy]

Lens flare was the only thing I didn't like about Max Payne 3

[thetruthx1]

Oh you don't like realistic sun rays then

[malokevi]

Go outside, stare at the sun, and tell me if it looks like you're looking at it through a piece of glass. It doesn't. I work with game developers, and they scoff at overdone lens flares as much as the next guy. Look at all the comments preceeding mine.

Tell me that you're the only one who knows what the sun looks like.

[PersonMan]

Christian Hour: Thank you for posting that video about Wall-E. That was a really cool documentary.

[Irishguy95]

I like the use of it in FFXV. It's an effect when his crystal weapons come around him when he's locking on to a teleportable object. Just suits the effect alot I think

[christian hour]

no problem PersonMan, Wall-E is always a spectacle to behold, goosebumps every time.

[stragomccloud]

I think GDDR5 does what you think it does. By the way, GDDR5 has been standard in GPUs since 2010, but haven't been used for motherboards. I wonder if you know why?

[christrules0041]

GDDR5 has latency. But the bigger issue there is if you have a PC, the CPU and GPU are both trying to take data from the BUS which loads the data from the RAM they can only access 1% of that data. The PS4 has unified memory so both can take data at the same time which effectively counters the latency(delay).

The PS4 has had Destiny freeze up a bit and AC4 Black Flag crashed. But Killzone: Shadowfall ran at 30fps with not 1 frame dropped during Sony's initial reveal. Plus we see live gameplay demos running on PS4 dev kits that work just fine. If they were having issues with the latency on the GDDR5 it would show in all there games. It literally wouldn't make sense for this game to work and this game not to because they are running on the same hardware. It would be a coding problem that caused some of those crashes.

That just goes to show how delicate the coding is and how important it is that it gets done right.

[stragomccloud]

It still doesn't change the fact that being X86 architecture, developers should be able to optimise the games right out of the gate. Killzone looks and runs great because of expert use of smoke and mirrors.

[darren_poolies]

I think it was a joke...

[PersonMan]

I don't remember Max Payne 3 having lens flair. Hmm.

[iamnsuperman]

I guess this could mean we start moving away from the brown smudge shooters but lens flares. I feel the gaming industry takes too many cues from the movie industry which the gaming industry then runs into the ground so no one can use it again.

[Foxgod]

I like the sun, but i dont like to stare directly at it.

[Campy da Camper]

Not a fan of the sun. Give me 65 degrees and mostly cloudy any day with nights in the 50s.

Winter is coming.

[DaGR8JIBRALTAR]

^ THIS!

[CocoWolfie]

i like this gen the most, it allows games to go the full limit, with games this gen saying they held back because they had to..

[JunioRS101]

Lens flares, IF they are properly rendered. I've seen ugly flares that are too over the top.

Just focus on making games pretty over all. Don't dilute the other effects by shoving one graphical asset down our throats.

[windblowsagain]

Lens flare ffs.

I hate the brightness of the sun in BF3, i hate the stupid torches in daylight that blind you and they still haven't fixed it apparently the BF4.

[CrimsonStar]

Omg I hate BF3's flash light . Every time someone shined that shit in my eyes it was like opening the arc of the covenant .

[CalamityCB]

JJ Abrams approves.

[dcj0524]

The order 1886 has a weird camera lens camera but it's realistic. Haven't seen it. Only heard about it in a interview.

[cyclindk]

Good lord, biggest abusers I think of right away are BF3 (amazing game though) and Crysis... I know there are others just cant think of em. Of course the original Crysis was amazing.

Think they are used to cover up other stuff, a cheap visual effect which can look good, but its like the only one they really use for whatever reason.

So lens flares, light, will look all bada$$ but open flames and stuff will look like low rez garbage. Or other lighting based effects.

[Luke_fon_Fabre]

Read it as "next-gen will be all about JJ Abrams's Star Trek..." The one game that I've seen that's dong lens flares right is MGSV.

[ion53]

I remember the terrible lens flares on Wii Sports resort.

[techuser]

All of you complaining about lens flares are a bunch of idiots. This stuff looks cool so get over yourselves you bunch of whiners. You guys are the 1% everyone else appreciates how it looks.

[Eldyraen]

The difference is when it is used properly and then when its not.

Unless the character is wearing glasses constantly (which I do) most games use Flares way too liberally. Even then most of them are stylized with far too much added flair than what would be deemed natural or even necessary.

Overabundance of Flare and sometimes Bloom is what annoys me the most in a lot of games. Both definitely add to the experience but can also distract from it.

As most have said though the worst contender in many eyes is BF3--its like they went out of their way to one up Killzone (as one of the early KZ walkthroughs actually stopped and talked about it just so you would be sure to see them). Its the lack of subtlety that's the problem with most of these kinds of effects. For the record though, I think KZ had better Lens Flares than BF3 by far. It fit the more CGI style design and wasn't as blatant or abundant as BF3. BF though is touted as a more realistic game so need to tone it down just a bit imo.

[JackOfAllBlades]

Mmm blindingly beautiful lense flares

[ghostrider32]

Next gen you will need a flak jacket. Sony and MS fanboys might start throwing grenades.