Does anyone play with the film grain on?

[AssMonkey3000]

Does anyone play with the film grain on? I do not see a point. Unless someone can tell me why they use it?

[TkBD]

To give the nostalgic effect from the original 70's flick.... ambience is all.. I use it...

[Chemicali74]

I use it as well.

[redfblack]

I love a well implemented film grain/noise effect. Unfortunately there have been some terrible implementations (Mass Effect 1 comes to mind) but when done well it really can add a lot to the visual style of a game or of course other visual media like film or television.

Noise is a fascinating subject in this context. It can really affect how the brain perceives a visual image or even how the brain perceives a sound or a collection of sounds. Artificially introducing noise can be a particularly useful technique when you are mixing together a collection of disparate elements such as in the rendering of a scene in a game engine or even in the mixing process of music productions; It can help the brain perceive the disparate elements as a whole.

Real film noise (and tape noise in audio) is mathematically random as it is analogue in origin. I'm not aware of any games that take mathematical generative approach to their fake film noise (as opposed to a pre-rendered overlay) but I imagine that would be the superior implementation.

I'm not sure what approach A:I takes but I'd be keen to find out! I've got a feeling that it's grain recorded from VHS tapes and then looped and overlaid but I'm just going from memory, I don't have my own copy of te game as of yet..

[fUn*z13l5ch31b3]

I use it, too.

and Red, you won't regret it -because the Alien will thrill all out of you.

[redfblack]

I can't wait.. I played for a few hours at a friend's house and it was absolutely fantastic!

As soon as I get home from overseas I'm buying a copy and locking myself in a room for a day or two! :)

[Uunn]

Originally posted by AssMonkey3000:

Does anyone play with the film grain on? I do not see a point. Unless someone can tell me why they use it?

When I first got the game I spent almost an hour messing around with video settings, wondering why the game looked the way it did. I realized it was because of the film grain intensity so I turned it all the way down but I may turn it back on since it's probably the way the game was intended to look. Do you guys keep it up at the max level or like half way up?

[Uunn]

Originally posted by holychair:

I'm using maxed out film grain here because it really adds to providing an atmosphere like in the Alien movie. Without film grain it looks too much like, well, a computer game. I don't use film grain in all games, mind you. E.g. in "The Evil Within" I disabled film grain because the game looks much better without it (and I don't see why it should look like a movie in the first place).

Hey, I just turned film grain up to the max but for some reason it doesn't seem to be doing anything. I can't even tell that it's on but when I first played the game I could tell immediately that it was on. Has this ever happened to you or anyone else?

[Berserk Belta]

Film grain is cool when the content you're playing is film-like.

Not when it's spammed too much, and not when it's used as a "fix" for bad graphics, but when suited to the game and done well? Nice.

I quite liked it in the Wolfenstein game.

[Ezekiel]

I turned it off, as well as the lens flares and chromatic aberration. I think the desire for games to be like movies dilutes them. I don't get the point of end credits either. Games are interactive. The credits can be anywhere.

[Uunn]

Originally posted by Killjoy:

I turned it off, as well as the lens flares and chromatic aberration. I think the desire for games to be like movies dilutes them. I don't get the point of end credits either. Games are interactive. The credits can be anywhere.

What is chromatic aberration? I have it enabled just because I have no clue what it is.

[Ezekiel]

Originally posted by YamtHecLam:

Originally posted by Killjoy:

I turned it off, as well as the lens flares and chromatic aberration. I think the desire for games to be like movies dilutes them. I don't get the point of end credits either. Games are interactive. The credits can be anywhere.

What is chromatic aberration? I have it enabled just because I have no clue what it is.

It's another lens effect. Here's an example:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Chromatic_aberration_%28comparison%29.jpg

I want to feel like I'm looking at the environments through eyes. Not through a camera.

[newsWatch9]

Since this is a very atmospheric game and not a twitch shooter where every view obstruction, alteration or filtering could impact your performance, I like to keep these options on.

Originally posted by YamtHecLam:

Originally posted by Killjoy:

I turned it off, as well as the lens flares and chromatic aberration. I think the desire for games to be like movies dilutes them. I don't get the point of end credits either. Games are interactive. The credits can be anywhere.

What is chromatic aberration? I have it enabled just because I have no clue what it is.

It adds an RGB color shift to everything on the edge of your vision (..and light sources?), kind of like depth of field.

[Uunn]

Thanks guys. I also keep DOF off because I dont like switching focus when the motion tracker is out

[Ezekiel]

Originally posted by holychair:

Originally posted by Killjoy:

I want to feel like I'm looking at the environments through eyes. Not through a camera.

But that's exactly what effects like DOF and chromatic abberation try to accomplish. Your own lenses are susceptible to these effects, it's just not (normally) there if you look at a flat picture instead of a real 3D scene.

I like depth of field. Chromatic abberation, though? I don't think I see it in real life. I'm trying the film grain again and I guess it's not so bad. I do see little dots in the dark in real life. It should just be called grain.

[Mutant1988]

I'd rather have the experience of being present in the game world and seeing what the characters would be seeing instead of seeing it as if it's played back through sub-par video hardware.

Film grain is garbage.