Bloom effects in Ghost Recon (The Original)

[Foxtrot360]

I found this reading a GTA Forum and then I saw a version for Vice City which is DirectX8, then I noticed people saying it worked with other DirectX8 games.. So I tried it with Ghost Recon, and it had some bloom effects although thats about the only thing I think I really noticed. I think its supposed to have some other things too though. You gotta tweak the .ini file to get it the way you want it.

Download the Vice City version and then follow the instructions in the readme file. This is the version that works for GR.

Click Here for Webpage

Click here to Download from GR.net

Edited April 3, 2008 by Rocky

[doubletap]

Very interesting! Even if the bloom effect is the only advantage, that's worth giving it a try. Great find and thanks for sharing!

[Foxtrot360]

No problem, I shared since I figured some people might like it. It may have shaders too but I think its less noticible in GR, but I think I could tell on Characters and Weapons but not really the map.

[Rocky]

Interesting, I'll play around with this later on! Nice find.

[Rocky]

Here's some comparison screenshots. You can click on the bloom screenshots to load a full screen version.

Normal screenshot followed by "bloom" screenshot.

Railway Bridge

Here we can see that the bloom actually wipes out the forward vision, to the extent you can't even see the bridge from here.

Castle

In the castle, the bloom does add a certain ambiance.

Cottage

This shot highlights both aspects, the bloom gives us a more pituresque scene, it looks great, but it also obscures the enemy to the point that they would have a much greater opportunity to spot us.

Woodland

In wooded areas, again, a more atmospheric, realistic look.

Overall I am torn, on the one hand I think some of these shots look great with the bloom switched on, on the other hand I am left wondering if all it is really doing is boosting the brightness levels...? Then there's the problem of the bloom obscuring what would normally be an easily spotted enemy.

It does look cool though, great find Foxtrot.

GR.net Download Page.

[migryder]

that does look nice, but you are right Rocky and there is not much worse than having an enemy you cannot spot, but he is in the open - spotting you and shooting you...of course, if you can see the flashes that helps...if this only requires turning on I'm gonna test it on some winter maps....

I'll be back...and, after reading the read me file I don't have time right now to investigate this like I would like ...too much modding work to do...

mig

[WhiteKnight77]

I think the bloom effect just adds undue brightness to it though in one shot, it does add to the ambience.

[CrowmanUK]

Might be worth having a nose through the ini file and seeing if theres a way to tone it down a bit, I tried it on embassy and it really does brighten that sky up.

[Foxtrot360]

The author's website has details on what his mod is supposed to add to games its compatible with, and the readme file details what settings in the INI file does. As I said, I think it also has shader stuff but I think its less noticable on the actual map than it is on characters and weapons, since bloom is most noticable with the maps. Has anyone tried it at night? I'm curious as to how it looks at night. Gotta say it does make the game look nice though, especially for something with a simple installation (basically throwing it into the GR folder and holding Shift + F12 to turn it on/off ingame if you dont bother tweaking it)

I tested it some too and I also noticed you couldnt see some of the enemies that would normally be easily spotted. I think that with some tweaking you can tone it down though. I might try tweaking it to see how it does and if I get it toned down where it doesent obstruct the enemies so much I'll post up the INI file settings I changed so you can copy and paste to your own INI files.

Here is what his readme says about the Bloom settings in the INI

[bLOOM]

BloomPowerDay=(0..100) power of bloom at day time, dependent from screen brightness.

BloomFadeTime=(0..100000) time of bloom adaptation to screen brightness change, in milliseconds.

BloomConstantDay=(0..100) power of bloom at day time, independent from adaptation time between screen brightness change.

BloomQuality=(0..2) bloom effect quality, 0 means maximal quality.

BloomScreenLevelDay=(0..100) level of screen brightness in percents, that determined as day time.

BloomCurveDay=(-10..10) gamma correction of bloom at day time. negative values increases halftone brightness (smoggy look), positive values decrease halftones brightness (contrast, intensive image).

BloomPowerNight=(0..100) power of bloom at night time, dependent from screen brightness.

BloomConstantNight=(0..100) power of bloom at night time, independent from adaptation time between screen brightness change.

BloomCurveNight=(-10..10) gamma correction of bloom at night time. negative values increases halftone brightness (smoggy look), positive values decrease halftones brightness (contrast, intensive image).

BloomScreenLevelNight=(0..100) level of screen brightness in percents, that determined as night time.

BloomAdaptationScreenLevel=(0..100) level of screen brightness in percents, over which bloom deactivating. It's desirable that this parameter will be greater than BloomScreenLevelDay.

BloomAdaptationMultiplier=(0..100) percent of day time bloom brightness, that will be used when screen brightness will be greater than BloomAdaptationScreenLevel. Value 100 disable adaptation

BloomAllowOversaturation=(0,1) if 0, bloom softly applied to screen and bright areas not become too oversaturated.

Edited April 3, 2008 by Foxtrot360

[thales100]

Great find, thanks.

[squad_e]

BLOOMin' heck, me wants to play it all over again in shader mode!..

[Deadpreacher]

(Overall I am torn, on the one hand I think some of these shots look great with the bloom switched on, on the other hand I am left wodnering if all it is really doing is boosting the brightness levels...?)

I have to agree. I played afew levels and more or less it looks like its just the brightness turned up for the most part. Skies look better with the bloom yes, but everything else looks like the brightness turned up high. Heck even in the main menu before your even in a map with it on you see the screen brightness is turned up. This is not even in a map but in the menu! If you can turn the brightness back down and just keep the bloom this can really be a great add on!

[=US=PUNiSHER]

This might be great for single player to make the game look better. But if your playing multiplayer why would people want to use this? Isn't this basically handicapping your vision to the point that you can't see things that other people can see if they had it turned off? Would be cool if it was worked into a "Mod" somehow where people can't change the file and everyone is forced to use the same settings.

[ROCO*AFZ*]

This looks almost exactly what Post effects on High did for GRAW1 and GRAW2.

Most gamers shut it off. Looked Great but in MP it would get you killed due to reduced visibility.

[Foxtrot360]

Yeah. I never said it was great, I think its a personal preference.

But if anyone tries tweaking it I think you can make it less bright.

[Slow]

Bloom or no bloom...... I miss GR.

[Lightspeed]

how can u miss GR? it's still being played?

[squad_e]

O.k i extracted to the root dir where GR.exe is, but when game loads it just CTD's with "error report send "

[JasonFMX]

I'm surprised to see so many positive reactions to this. I think maybe because its something new for something old. Over at the UBI Vegas forums people have made mods to get rid of bloom and haze. It looks like crap, you can't see anything and it defeats the purpose of having high end graphics. When you put the anti bloom mod in the game looks GREAT! the colors are sharp, vibrant, and detailed. Just wait I paid for my video card to produce! We are all absolutely befuddled as to why UBI put the bloom and haze in Vegas because it looks so bad.

I think after while alot of you guys will feel the same way, some of you already side mentioned it does reduce vision and its only good for certain modes, etc. If you keep it in long enough you'll get sick of it. Then when you take it out and put it back the way its suppose to be you'll see how nice it is.

That's just my two cents.

[WhiteKnight77]

I'm surprised to see so many positive reactions to this. I think maybe because its something new for something old. Over at the UBI Vegas forums people have made mods to get rid of bloom and haze. It looks like crap, you can't see anything and it defeats the purpose of having high end graphics. When you put the anti bloom mod in the game looks GREAT! the colors are sharp, vibrant, and detailed. Just wait I paid for my video card to produce! We are all absolutely befuddled as to why UBI put the bloom and haze in Vegas because it looks so bad.

I think after while alot of you guys will feel the same way, some of you already side mentioned it does reduce vision and its only good for certain modes, etc. If you keep it in long enough you'll get sick of it. Then when you take it out and put it back the way its suppose to be you'll see how nice it is.

That's just my two cents.

The bloom is nothing more than a gimmick to me honestly. I think this is something that GRAW did wrong (some say HDR), but the color palete of Vegas looked washed out even in offical screens. Bloom may very well be the reason for it.

I like a vibrant palete, even if it is just greens and browns of a wooded setting. Now I am not talking about the garish palate of say Far Cry, but more like GR and R6's. Even Homeworld2 has a good palate that has some wild purples and blues.

[Rocky]

We are all absolutely befuddled as to why UBI put the bloom and haze in Vegas because it looks so bad.

The Vegas effects were just awful, very poor implementation compared to ther titles.

[thales100]

If someone knows how to decrease a bit the brightness of the effect please share.

[Foxtrot360]

I agree with Jason I think. But as I said, I think its a preference whether you want to use it or not and I also did think it was a cool addition just because GR is pretty old. I still find it an interesting addon even though bloom isnt implemented well in all games.

Edited April 5, 2008 by Foxtrot360

[Brennus]

Here's a quick way to reduce the "Bloom" effect by ~50%:

Open "enbseries.ini", and find this line:

BloomAllowOversaturation=1

Change the 1 > 0, so it looks like this:

BloomAllowOversaturation=0

Thats it...

This also has the benefit of allowing FSAA!

(So far, I've tried this w/ both "Ghost Recon" and "Raven Shield", and it works as advertised...)

Bloom or no bloom...... I miss GR.

Sorry if this is off topic, but I can't help but ask if this is the same Slow from the SimHQ ArmA server.

[MarkAm_i]

I tested it some too and I also noticed you couldnt see some of the enemies that would normally be easily spotted. I think that with some tweaking you can tone it down though. I might try tweaking it to see how it does and if I get it toned down where it doesent obstruct the enemies so much I'll post up the INI file settings I changed so you can copy and paste to your own INI files.

Sounds interesting enough, let us know if/when you find out whether it can be optimized. Thanks.