Bloom lighting effects

Bloom lighting is used to give lighting a more realistic look, giving shiny halos of light to particularly bright objects, as is seen with most camera lenses. The effect was mentioned in the developer blog for RuneTek 5 as one of the additional graphical effects that will be possible in HD mode with the new engine. Note that bloom lighting does not work with all graphics hardware and drivers, and may fail to work in either OpenGL mode, DirectX mode, or both.

Current uses
Bloom lighting was introduced as a graphics option on 28 November 2011. Here are examples of areas and objects where bloom lighting is currently in use:
 * Animations - The sparks that appear when smithing items on an anvil
 * Areas - The path west of Barbarian Village to Falador, Barrows, Zanaris, Port Phasmatys
 * Emotes - Breathe Fire, firemaking cape, attack cape, magic cape, prayer cape
 * Items - The orbs on lava battlestaves, completionist cape, steadfast boots, glaiven boots, ragefire boots, some Dungeoneering keys, some halos, torches from the Gielinor Games and other items that use particle effects
 * Magic - Fire spells, Home Teleport and standard spellbook teleport spells (and anything that uses the same animation), Ice spells, Earth spells, Claws of Guthix, High Level Alchemy, Lexicus Runewright's normal magic attack and the explosion from book barrage, Night-gazer Khighorahk's jump-ball attack, all of Shadow-forger Ihlakhizan's attacks
 * Monsters - Aberrant spectres, Tormented demons, Rockslugs, Pyrefiends, the insides of tomes of Ranging, Magic and Strength, Har'Lakk the Riftsplitter,
 * Players and NPCs - Players who are viewing the world map, light creatures, the flowers on the chests and hats of some tool leprechauns
 * Portals - Castle Wars, player-owned house entrance portals and Portal Chambers, Pest Control, Kuradal's Dungeon energy barriers, Har'Lakk the Riftsplitter's portal attacks
 * Scenery - Fires and standing torches, lava, the four lamps in Gypsy Aris's tent, the falling particles of magic trees, Dungeoneering furnaces, "overhead" lighting in the starting room on abandoned and furnished floors
 * Summoning - Calling a familiar, Summoning obelisks, the bunyip and unicorn stallion's healing effects, lava titans, fire titans, pyrelords, obsidian golems.

Simulated bloom effects
There are instances where particles are used to simulate bloom effect around specific points of light. The halos of light found in these are NOT bloom effect. They are particles, and they register in the particle count output, which is accessible through the developer console. Here are a few examples of areas and objects where bloom lighting is simulated using particles:
 * The 10th anniversary cake.Bloomfire.png with bloom. Left: Without bloom lighting. Right: With bloom lighting.]]
 * The spirits in the 2011 Easter event.
 * The pumpkins and candles in the 2010 Hallowe'en event.
 * The trees and candles in the 2010 Christmas event.

Trivia

 * Zanaris was originally meant to be updated with bloom effect with Fairy Tale III - Orks Rift on 13 May 2010, but technical difficulties had postponed the implementation of bloom lighting.
 * There have been numerous cases of turning bloom lighting on causes the game to crash upon entering a world. To resolve this, log back in to the lobby and turn the bloom off before logging into a certain world. In fact, most computers with inferior graphics cards cannot handle bloom and will crash the game instantly. Some players have confirmed that using the "Fixed" screen mode allows the use of the bloom effect after all.
 * In the quest A Soul's Bane, if bloom lighting is turned on, the screen when in the Hopelessness room will appear completely black and white.