What is distortion, ambient occlusion and bloom?

[SchumiVettelDE]

In the graphical settings are three points I do not know:
1. distortion
2. ambient occlusion
3. bloom
What are they? Is it better to disable or enable them?
Sorry cracks but I am a newby at this game!

[Dowlphwin]

Indeed it's bad style to not even have any kind of info about these things. I know that bloom is a kind of shininess, like a glare from reflected sun, and I know what ambient occlusion IS, but not how it affects the game's visuals. I also don't know what distortion affects. Apparently not the visual distortion in the game's menu that annoying me a bit.

[Internet_Hero]

Ambient Occlusion is basically shadows, what's exposed to the light and what isn't, it's a pretty heavy graphic setting to have ON when playing high graphical games.

For this game, just keep it on.

[chibilibi]

Distortion:

Makes the the rendered world bend, and, well, distort. Think of how light refracts in water. Distortion allows the game to do similar things.

Ambient Occlusion:

A special type of shading to add soft shadows to objects to make it look more believable. It's a bit hard to describe, so I suggest looking up some videos about it.

Bloom:

An effect that adds a sort of "haze" around bright light sources. Looks nice in this game.

[Dowlphwin]

This is a bad implementation of ambient occlusion: http://dowlphin.tumblr.com/post/101747095302/blizzard-still-having-trouble-doing-ambient

[SchumiVettelDE]

Very thanks for the answer :-)

Originally posted by FuG chibilibi:

Distortion:

Makes the the rendered world bend, and, well, distort. Think of how light refracts in water. Distortion allows the game to do similar things.

Ambient Occlusion:

A special type of shading to add soft shadows to objects to make it look more believable. It's a bit hard to describe, so I suggest looking up some videos about it.

Bloom:

An effect that adds a sort of "haze" around bright light sources. Looks nice in this game.