How it works...

The way the bloom and the lens flares effects work is quite intuitive, even though they are slightly different. As we've said before, the first technique is rendered to the screen through six different Gaussian blur passes. Lens Flares, however, is an image based technique that uses textures to simulate the scattering of light through a camera's lens. In the end, what both of those implementations are trying to do is to replicate what can be observed both with our naked eye and through a camera.

As with many other effects we've seen, they are at their best when used in a subtle way. Overuse is always bad, especially with new techniques such as these. Taking care of how those effects impact the scene is an important task for the artist, so make sure to check the effect every so often and under different angles. Best of luck!