psrock said:
i havent been to war, but i wonder how colorful it gets there. |
It depends on where you're deployed.
In the desert, everything is in warm hues due to all the sand and the amount of sunlight.
In the rain forest, lots of greens and browns due to the foliage.
In urban environments, generally more greys and subdued colors.
In an urban, destroyed environment, there is a lot of dust and soot everywhere, even covering the ground. Imagine images of NYC post 9/11 or any urban area after a heavy artillary barrage or airstrike. If you are in an area that is still hot with active shelling, even the air will be thick with dust from destroyed building materials.
As for the blood issue, only fresh arterial blood is bright red. But even that in poor lighting will look blacker. Venous blood is much darker overall. As blood dries and congeals, it blackens when thick, and turns a rusty/brown color when smeared. Only wet, pooled blood still looks red.
But all attempts to mimic realism aside, color pallets and filters are simply used by the developers to set moods and convey context of a given situation. It is an art direction call.
The film industry has been doing this for ages, so it's no surprise with the advances in hardware lighting that game developers would do the same. Even if you don't notice it, cinematographers regularly rely upon filters to convey everything from time of day to mood, tone, etc.
