In computer graphics and photography, high dynamic range imaging (HDRI) is a set of techniques that allow a far greater dynamic range of exposures (i.e. a large difference between light and dark areas) than normal digital imaging techniques. The intention of HDRI is to accurately represent the wide range of intensity levels found in real scenes ranging from direct sunlight to the deepest shadows.
HDRI was originally developed for use with purely computer-generated images. Later, methods were developed to produce a HDR image from a set of photos taken with a range of exposures. With the rising popularity of digital cameras and easy to use desktop software, many amateur photographers have used HDRI methods to create photos of scenes with a high dynamic range. However, HDRI has many other applications and "HDRI" should not be mistaken for just this use.
When preparing for display, a high dynamic range image is often tone mapped and combined with several full screen effects

where´s the point in copying a wikipedia-article into these forums, without any further comments?

What's the point of HRDI on a LCD or CRT if you only have 32bit color?

-1 for now.

+1 in the future, when physics and more important stuff is more complete.

At least in a multiplayer FPS like CS:Source, I can't stand HDR. I suppose it's okay in single-player games like HL2:Episode 1.

I'm not sure it would be any better in a racing game, though.

Imo LFS should go directly for raytracing with S3...
last week there was one guy in our uni, showing us scenes with 1,000,000,000 polygones in realtime
Like... 10k spheres with 100k polys each, with reflections of the whole scene in each sphere. And even better, recursion depth of 20 or more...
Ok, it used about 40 CPUs to render 20 fps, but a hardware solution could make this damn quick. He also talked about a 90MHz sample GPU unit with almost the same performance... Just imagine how a 1GHz chip from nvidia/ati would perform

Just to give you an idea, a screenshot from Quake4 raytraced, which runs in realtime on a normal CPU. Only very few spheres, but still amazing
http://www.idfun.de/temp/q4rt/screenshots/reflect04.jpg

...or realtime global illumination ("real" shadows and lighting)
http://graphics.cs.uni-sb.de/SaarCOR/conference.jpg

maaaany polys:
http://graphics.cs.uni-sb.de/SaarCOR/sunflowers_1.jpg

Quote from ORION :

Just to give you an idea, a screenshot from Quake4 raytraced, which runs in realtime on a normal CPU. Only very few spheres, but still amazing
http://www.idfun.de/temp/q4rt/screenshots/reflect04.jpg

primitive raytracing like this is pretty useless for anything but rendering a whole bunch or mirroring spheres ... radiosity or raytracing with consideration of surface colour is where things get interesting ... ive seen a gorgeous video of a real time radiosity engine a while ago ... not a particularly high poly count but still amazing

edit:
found it http://www.geomerics.com/technology/lighting

yeaa that vid is pretty cool
I have also seen a video of the conference room from the pic above - those shadows looked amazing aswell

raytracing is so powerful, it's the future of game gfx

Quote from ORION :

raytracing is so powerful, it's the future of game gfx

its still years till well see any serious global lighting raytracing in real time and tbh standard raytracing doesnt look any better than todays graphics ... so for now radiosity is just fine

HDR would be nice if game developers would know what means over-exaggarated, blurred or overexposed. Maybe they should take some photography lessons. Practically in most of the games HDR means that F-ing stupid bloom effect that simply sucks because it's always totally overdone. Apparently next gen graphics = motion blur & bloom. Yay and goodbye fotorealistic graphics.

Not always. Oblivion looks absolutely fantastic and doesn't have mtion blur and stupidly exagerated bloom effects. It's really up to the designers to get the right look.

I think Oblivion is very good example how overdone bloom can be. E.g. in the game human heads can glow in a totally dark room, I don't think that's very realistic...

LOL, deggis, totally agree. :up:

Quote from deggis :

E.g. in the game human heads can glow in a totally dark room, I don't think that's very realistic...

screenshot? I've never had this problem.

Oblivion's HDR and Bloom systems are both flawed. But that doesn't mean that either of them can't yield good results.

Yeah, half the time Oblivion looks gorgeous, but the other half things do go crazy. My only other gripe with Oblivion is that if I use FSAA and HDR by framerates drop to a measly 5fps whenever I go outside. Great for screeengrabs though.

Quote from Davo :

screenshot? I've never had this problem.

http://media.pc.ign.com/media/702/702491/img_3475199.html
http://media.pc.ign.com/media/702/702491/img_3400492.html

maybe someone just sticked up a light bulb in their heads

Like in Braindead?

Links don't work for me lol

Quote from deggis :

I think Oblivion is very good example how overdone bloom can be. E.g. in the game human heads can glow in a totally dark room, I don't think that's very realistic...

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=224

haha, perfect