Processing Reality

Faking physical cameras with post-processing.

- Xalavier Nelson Jr.

Post-processing is the catch-all term for the series of effects applied to the frame of a videogame to make it appear in the intended manner. While these effects can encompass everything from anti-aliasing to ambient occlusion, they are frequently used to replicate the viewpoint of another medium entirely: Cinema. The visual cues typically associated with physical cameras are becoming more commonplace in games. This is primarily due to advances in rendering technology and techniques, because the nuances of a physical camera are much more complex to replicate than they might initially seem.

The differences start with an essential discrepancy in how the cameras in our games even