DropTeam uses High Dynamic Range Rendering

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Battlefront.com and TBG Software have released a brand new set of screenshots from DropTeam, showing the cutting edge 'High Dynamic Range Rendering' in action. DropTeam is TBG/Battlefront's upcoming 'realistic' Sci-Fi game about mechanized combat in the far future, compatible for the PC, Mac and Linux systems. DropTeam uses advanced lighting and postprocessing effects including High Dynamic Range rendering and full-scene glow. These techniques make atmospheric lighting and bright light sources more realistic. For example, muzzle flashes, ion beams, and bright sunlight cause 'glare' that obscures the outlines of intermediate objects and throws them into sharp silhouetted contrast.

HDR's 'dynamic range' is the difference between the darkest color it can display and the brightest color it can display. Monitors have far less dynamic range than the human eye. Images displayed on monitors, even in 32 bit color, only have 8 bits of precision for each color component. That means there are only 256 levels of 'brightness' possible on screens. The human eye, in contrast, has either millions of levels of brightness or an infinite number of levels, depending on who you believe, but either way it's much greater than 256. HDR is an attempt to render an image where the dynamic range is closer to the human eye's.

For DropTeam, Pixel Shader 3.0 is not required for HDR to work. It runs even on low end NVidia 5200 cards and older Radeons.

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