Color Correction
- This is a rough draft and needs major work!
Introduction
Colour correction has been used in films for a long time now. Essentially, it involves the altering of colour balance of a sequence (or entire film) in post-production. This used to be achieved by applying a chemical treatment to the film stock, but thanks to the wonders of modern technology, it is now possible for directors to mess around with ideas digitally without permanently altering the original footage.
Benefits
The blue Spielberg hues of Minority Report invoke a feeling of a cold, isolating futurescape, while the bright, saturated colours of the Jet Li film, Hero, are used by the director Yimou Zhang to reflect the emotions felt by the characters at the time. Other films, such as Sin City and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow employ heavy colour correction to drastically alter the appearance of the film, achieving a comic book-like look & feel. Using colour correction can enhance the features in the world, draw attention to a part of the level or even reinforce a feeling, such as suspense or fear. It is also invaluable for re-using content over and over, as you can apply game, level or even event specific looks to a particular part of a level using colour correction
So how do I use it??
At the moment Color correction is available on in the friends beta in CS:S. To enable it do the following: Video options-->Advanced-->Color Correction Enabled. Then start a game and set sv_cheats "1" and type "colorcorrectionui" into the console.