I really like the MXAO effect, but it would be cool to be able to use it in older games (pre-dx9). Unfortunately, direct draw games don't have depth buffers (from my understanding), so this isn't possible.
However, I was wondering if it could be possible to do a "FAKE AO" (kind of like "FAKE HDR" and "Curves", but which only applies a darkening effect to the intersection of three lines like the lower corner of a cube, and only applies a darkening effect at a limited radius. (Kind of like an Inverse bloom) but instead of looking for whites, it looks for a very particular shape/pattern.
Kind of like a reversed "fake flashlight", which only applies to a surface edge pattern as seen in at the bottom of a cube.
And this effect could be limited to only the bottom half of the screen so that these linear patterns are not darkened on, for example, top corners of a crate or a ceiling.
The effect would be messed up by exaggerated vertical camera movement (a limitation of this fake effect). but maybe a delay can be added so that the darkening doesn't disappear/reappear immediately since most gameplay will require horizontal mouse movement to a greater degree than vertical mouse movement.
Of course, I am not talking "computer vision" "AI" crazy stuff. Just like a really rough fake effect with very minimal improvement in quality in certain limited scenarios. But unfortunately, I don't know how to do any of this so I cannot try it myself. Otherwise, I probably would.
I know nobody is gonna like the idea but whatever, there goes nothing.
Last edit: 5 years 4 months ago by drv30.
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