HDR
High Dynamic Range. This is a lighting procedure designed to emulate the way that light levels in the real world vary over an enormous range. This is mostly achieved by the use of floating point textures and render targets (as well as using the appropriate lighting algorithm); integer formats do not offer the anywhere near the same range of values. Although visually better, the use of floating point formats can result in a large performance impact on some graphics adapters.
BLOOM (GLOW)
A bloom is a lenticular halo. Blooms are another type of effect seen around lights. While coronas form the fuzzy glow you see around a light at night, or the rays which seem to shoot out from the light of the sun, blooms are a color-banded halo which is usually visible surrounding the corona. They are only seen when a person's pupils are dilated enough.
(And lens flares are a natural phenomena that occurs when light is refracted many times by some sort of lens, creating several images of geometric shapes to appear from a single light source. Given that fact, you'll find that lens flares are often over used and appear where they ought not to in 3D graphics. In other words, you need a compund lens system for a lens flare. They aren't seen purely with the naked eye.)
High Dynamic Range. This is a lighting procedure designed to emulate the way that light levels in the real world vary over an enormous range. This is mostly achieved by the use of floating point textures and render targets (as well as using the appropriate lighting algorithm); integer formats do not offer the anywhere near the same range of values. Although visually better, the use of floating point formats can result in a large performance impact on some graphics adapters.
BLOOM (GLOW)
A bloom is a lenticular halo. Blooms are another type of effect seen around lights. While coronas form the fuzzy glow you see around a light at night, or the rays which seem to shoot out from the light of the sun, blooms are a color-banded halo which is usually visible surrounding the corona. They are only seen when a person's pupils are dilated enough.
(And lens flares are a natural phenomena that occurs when light is refracted many times by some sort of lens, creating several images of geometric shapes to appear from a single light source. Given that fact, you'll find that lens flares are often over used and appear where they ought not to in 3D graphics. In other words, you need a compund lens system for a lens flare. They aren't seen purely with the naked eye.)