[meinersbur]

Researchers trained a deep learning network on photos to make GTA5 more realistic-looking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1IcaBn3ej0

I was surprised that most of it is is just tone mapping. It looks too green-ish to me, needing some white balancing, but realistic.

I think Video games are intentionally over-saturated and contrasty to make them look better, just as paintings are[1]. I took many screenshots in Horizon Zero Dawn that would be look bland if it was realistic like the modfified GTA5 footage above[2]. You also don't want animation movies[3] with realistic tone mapping. But for a horror game you would do exactly that, it's about immersion (or you would never be frightened), not beauty.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/horizon/comments/1ix7ms2/my_hzd_oil...

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/horizon/comments/x97gi1/this_game_i...

[3] https://www.imdb.com/de/title/tt0892769/mediaviewer/rm284102...

[saltcured]

That's pretty funny... at least the narrator seems to reference the problem. It is trying to normalize it to some model of reality extracted from photos of Germany.

I think the stock game footage may be too contrasty but has much more realistic coloring for how Southern California actually looks in the summer.

Chalk one up for needing reality filters to include a notion of locale-specific and season-specific references?