3d in gaming?

[geekmarine]

I'm sure this topic has come up before, but I bring this up because I've been experimenting with it a lot lately. When I got a new computer, I got a new video card, too, and the drivers support 3d gaming. In my case, I don't have a fancy 3d monitor or anything, I just have some old red/cyan 3d glasses lying around, and the driver supports that. So, for instance, I can load up a game of Half-Life 2 and hit a button to view it in red/cyan for a 3d effect.

Sure, it's not the best, as obviously you lose a lot of color and whatnot, but it actually works. I've tried it with a few games, and it really does give you a 3d effect. The problem is, I've only ever really noticed it while standing still. As soon as I start moving around, I'm paying too much attention to where I'm going and what I'm doing to notice the 3d effect, so it almost feels like a waste of time to even bother.

So, just wondering, with the trend of everything going 3d these days, is it even worth it to do 3d in games? I know the Occulus Rift is really big right now, but if it's anything like my experiences, I don't even see the point. To me, it's kind of like fancy graphics. Oh sure, insane detail on every surface is cool, but when you've got a dozen monsters charging at you trying to kill you, it's hard to even notice. On the other hand, are there certain types of games where 3d might actually be effective?

[Maes]

geekmarine said:

Oh sure, insane detail on every surface is cool, but when you've got a dozen monsters charging at you trying to kill you, it's hard to even notice. On the other hand, are there certain types of games where 3d might actually be effective?

You just answered your own question. Take away all those elements that don't blend well with 3D gaming (fast action, distracting effects, etc.), leave those that do go together well (slower pace, emphasis on visual puzzles, depth-based gameplay etc.) and you have the future of gaming ahead of you. It won't be the first time that game styles (or "paradigms") shift driven by technological shifts and the subtler limitations or radical changes they brought with them. That's why 2D platformers or Doom-like FPS eventually died.

[phi108]

From what I understand, the Oculus rift should be many times better than glasses, as you are not limited to a just the rectangular view of your monitor, but a scene covering your whole peripheral view. This could increase feelings of unease or motion-sickness compared to normal 3D, but it would bring a greater awareness of surroundings in games.

My only experience with 3D on a normal monitor is a cross-eyed zdoom mod and Youtube videos with red-cyan or crosseyed view, so I expect it would be much better to have a 3D monitor with clear glasses. Though, in the 3D movies I've seen so far, I sometimes end up not noticing the effect much after a time, aside from the very high vertigo-inducing moments that I love, so I wonder if a higher ticket price, or 3D monitor, is worth the cost for such moments.

[geekmarine]

phi108 said:

Though, in the 3D movies I've seen so far, I sometimes end up not noticing the effect much after a time, aside from the very high vertigo-inducing moments that I love, so I wonder if a higher ticket price, or 3D monitor, is worth the cost for such moments.

Actually, now that you bring that up, there was only one movie I ever saw in 3D, and that was Avatar. The 3D was very well done, but I hardly noticed it most of the movie. Yeah, if I focused, I could tell it was 3D, but the only times it really stood out were when, say, someone was working on a computer console, because the camera didn't really move then. It's funny to me, because you'd think the effect would be best for the action sequences, but really, it's most noticeable when people aren't really doing anything.

[bcwood16]

geekmarine said:

Actually, now that you bring that up, there was only one movie I ever saw in 3D, and that was Avatar. The 3D was very well done, but I hardly noticed it most of the movie. Yeah, if I focused, I could tell it was 3D, but the only times it really stood out were when, say, someone was working on a computer console, because the camera didn't really move then. It's funny to me, because you'd think the effect would be best for the action sequences, but really, it's most noticeable when people aren't really doing anything.

Yea Avatar was my first 3D movie and I did think it looked good, but once the excitement wore off and I started being drawn into the movie I forgot about the 3D and didn't notice it. The brain is very clever and think it adjusted its self to the normal flat look, removing the 3D its not used to......yes I know real life is 3D.....but you know what I mean.....or not! lol

Other 3D movies I have seen since were either not that good with the 3D effects or I hardly noticed it at all. To be honest wearing 3D glasses is like wearing sun glasses and I found everything desaturated, the colours were crap and I much prefer it in 2D.

Anyway, glad im not the only one that finds the 3D effect goes away after a while.....thought I was just....special!

[geekmarine]

The more I think about it, the more obvious I think it is. I mean, if you watch a 2D movie or play a game on a 2D screen, how long do you notice that the images are on a flat screen? 3D would make a lot more sense if the awareness that we're watching a flat screen distracted us, but our brains quickly adjust. I mean, even without true 3D, we can easily tell what's in the foreground and what's in the background. Just take Doom - you don't need 3D to tell how far away an imp is, you can tell just fine on a regular monitor - and you never really have the sense that you're just looking at a flat screen.

[Koko Ricky]

3D gaming/movies won't truly be effective until we develop a volumetric technology than can give actual depth to an image. Problem is, there's a number of ways to achieve this and no way of knowing beforehand which method will be the most effective. There's also the problem of how the edges of the display would look; it's easy to imagine everything getting awkwardly clipped off.

[bcwood16]

wow - I kept hearing about Oculus rift, thinking its just another cheap crappy way of having some sort of 3D effect in games. However, its being made because of all this rubbish 3D goggles stuff, they wanted to do it 'properly' and from what I can gather its most likely the future of playing games for sure!

Its quite exciting,so far most people that have given it ago have been blown away with what it does (unless they vomit), and they are only prototypes, its constantly being developed.

If this catches on and new games are built with proper support for this hardware then this 'will' be the next generation of gaming, not silly console stuff that is just a PC in a box that eventually catches up with modern hardware every 10 years or so (if anything, holds technology back)

I hope Doom ports will support this in the future and we can play Doom in 3D! Yea, this would actually be the first on my list, along with Half Life and Doom 3 (which already have support)

I would adore it of System Shock 2 supported this, but I doubt this will ever happen except some sort of hack on, but not sure how effective that would be!

Anyway.....enough about me rambling on....I just got all excited!

[Maes]

GoatLord said:

3D gaming/movies won't truly be effective until we develop a volumetric technology than can give actual depth to an image.

What about LED cubes?

Though I'd hate to see the data required for a volumetric raster video...even worse, what do you see "inside" e.g. a volumetrically rendered human head? I suspect the main problem would be that the projection cannot be independent of the viewer's position.

[Blzut3]

geekmarine said:

The problem is, I've only ever really noticed it while standing still. As soon as I start moving around, I'm paying too much attention to where I'm going and what I'm doing to notice the 3d effect, so it almost feels like a waste of time to even bother.

You know, I never thought about it this way before, but the opposite seems to be true for 2D projections. They only seem 2D if the image is still. I guess the best example would be to look at photos taken with the Lytro camera that have perspective shift. If you jiggle the image, the image kind of looks 3D, but as soon as you stop it's 2D again. Same reason why head tracking can kind of look 3D as well.

I believe this has to do with how our depth perception works. A majority of the cues we use for depth perception actually work in 2D. Things like how fast an object moves relative to another object and of course the size of the object.

My dad is big into 3D technologies so I hear a lot about them. So far it has just been mostly the same. New technologies come along that make the effect a little nicer, but ultimately there are trade-offs vs a 2D solution that most people aren't really willing to take. The Oculus rift is no exception. Yes it may be technologically better than all head mounted displays before it, but are people going to want to block out their surroundings to wear VR goggles? Maybe a few, but overall no. That's not even taking into account the people who simply have no use for 3D technology due to flaws in their binocular vision for one reason or another.

Until auto-stereoscopic displays are perfected, I expect 3D to continue to be fad that comes back every 30 years. Even then I'm not sure it will be particularly desirable.