What was the first game or tech demo that had lens flares?

Oberron · Post by **Oberron** » Wed Feb 24, 2016 9:05 am

As the title says, what was the first game or tech demo having lens flares? Also, does anyone on the forum like simple (sun only) or detailed (with rings) lens flare effects? My own guess would be that the first game or tech demo would be the 32X tech demo (from 1995) which had lens flares, but were not made until 1996 or so.

leileilol · Post by **leileilol** » Wed Feb 24, 2016 9:55 am

Earliest console example I can think of ATM is Earthworm Jim for the SNES (new junk city has some sort of realtime fake occlusion-checking effect with an additive static flare. it's 2d though). As for SEGA, Vectorman had plenty of them. and i'm pretty sure there's racing-related <1994 examples I haven't yet scratched. PC lens flares had to be done through either expensive lookup tables (well into the Pentium era when that happens) or 3d apis (sometimes with expensive depth testing for visibility like id tech3's rarely fixed flares, and Source engine (if you remember the initial complaints about the Cow Mangler, this is why))

not counting the whiteouts in many many older flight sims (essential realism element)

you can thank Unreal and Turok for "setting the bar" with the flare overdosing a little later on.

i can't even think of any early flarey demoscene thing right now, surely someone knows.

Oberron · Post by **Oberron** » Wed Feb 24, 2016 10:21 am

Too bad the Megadrive version didn't have this effect. Now, for the earliest PS1 game I remember having lens flares is the first V-Rally game. A segment of the 32X tech demo by a Scavenger team has a lens flare.

Dancso · Post by **Dancso** » Wed Feb 24, 2016 12:06 pm

The first game I ever saw using lens flares (in a non-subtle way) was Serious Sam. I had no idea it existed in some 2D games before that.

Oberron · Post by **Oberron** » Wed Feb 24, 2016 1:45 pm

Very well.. First game I remember having that effect is Rally Championship Xtreme.

leileilol · Post by **leileilol** » Wed Feb 24, 2016 6:25 pm

Oberron wrote:Too bad the Megadrive version didn't have this effect.

The 32X couldn't either, they had to settle for those "highlight" colored flares as in Vectorman, and since the 32X is just an addon for it, it would have been the same exact technique seen demonstrated in that tape (where sega history revisionists cry into).

Galaxy_Stranger · Post by **Galaxy_Stranger** » Thu Feb 25, 2016 12:34 pm

1932. "Jiggers" pinball machine. By that fucker JJ Abrams.

Oberron · Post by **Oberron** » Sat Feb 27, 2016 3:45 am

Woah, woah, woah... This is supposed to be the early-mid 90's, not the early 30's, you dig?

Oberron · Post by **Oberron** » Fri Apr 29, 2016 9:18 am

Sorry for bumping, but the most EARLIEST example is from this game (engine made in 1994!):

Xeotroid · Post by **Xeotroid** » Fri Apr 29, 2016 10:43 am

Oberron wrote:Very well.. First game I remember having that effect is Rally Championship Xtreme.

It definitely was in Rally Championship 2000 (or Mobil 1 British Rally Championship, if you will) a few years earlier. I remember that some weird graphics card was rendering the lens flares as squares instead of circles.

Oberron · Post by **Oberron** » Fri Apr 29, 2016 11:57 am

which model was it?

Zanieon · Post by **Zanieon** » Fri Apr 29, 2016 12:45 pm

Descent 3 have working lens flares too and seemed to not be all that expensive, the engine had lots of nice features besides that.

leileilol · Post by **leileilol** » Fri Apr 29, 2016 3:57 pm

Oberron wrote:Sorry for bumping, but the most EARLIEST example is from this game (engine made in 1994!):

DHT is a 1996 game.

Oberron · Post by **Oberron** » Sat Apr 30, 2016 1:46 am

leileilol wrote:
Oberron wrote:Sorry for bumping, but the most EARLIEST example is from this game (engine made in 1994!):
DHT is a 1996 game.

Yeh I know, but the engine was made in 1994, a year before the PS1 came out in PAL. Retail version was in 1996.

ZDoom

What was the first game or tech demo that had lens flares?

What was the first game or tech demo that had lens flares?

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Re: What was the first game or tech demo that had lens flare

Re: What was the first game or tech demo that had lens flare

Re: What was the first game or tech demo that had lens flare

Re: What was the first game or tech demo that had lens flare

Re: What was the first game or tech demo that had lens flare

Re: What was the first game or tech demo that had lens flare

Re: What was the first game or tech demo that had lens flare

Re: What was the first game or tech demo that had lens flare

Re: What was the first game or tech demo that had lens flare

Re: What was the first game or tech demo that had lens flare

Re: What was the first game or tech demo that had lens flare