Tech Guide: Motion Blur

August 4, 2001

Motion Blur is a technique used to create the illusion that something is moving extremely fast. In real life, you only see a blur when something is moving very fast because your brain doesn't have enough information to create a clear image of the object that is moving. So instead of game developers wasting resources by making polygons move extremely fast, they simply use motion blur. The same goes for movie special effects artists.

To create this illusion, programmers draw a whole bunch of polygons on screen, but they have transparent textures, instead of solid ones. It has to be transparent, because for it to look like a blur, you have to be able to see through it.

Games such as Zone of the Enders, Metal Gear Solid 2, Ridge Racer V, and Soul Caliber are good examples of motion blur in action. Thank goodness for today's consoles, because motion blur tends to eat a lot of system performance.

By: Solidsnake125@yahoo.com - Freelance Writer