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Gaming on the IMAX
JavaTenor writes "The Tech Museum in San Jose, CA, is holding the 1st Annual MaxGames tournament on August 15, 2002. The final matches for each game will be held on the IMAX Dome screen, so if you've ever wanted to play Halo eight stories high, this is the event for you."
i knew i didn't pay $2000/month rent living a block away from this thing for nothing!
personally, i would rather play a god type game with that perspective... GTA, Warcraft 3, etc.
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
holy fucking shit this owns! where do i sign up!?
If you want to play Halo 8 stories high, all you have to do is stack up 8 Xboxes. ;)
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
they ripped this off The Wizard!!
I prefer PS/2 on my Sony 61" projection TV coupled with a serious surround sound system and a couple of blunts and bumps.... Nothing beat that ;-)
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
...will they have enough processing power to run at a resolution high enough so it's not a massive blur for the person gaming?
I want to play Dead or Alive 3 on this... nothing like seeing chicks in super high res ;-)
I saw an IMAX movie about Kilimanjaro in the Natural History museum.. it looked great when they were in the rain forests and stuff, but after a while it became so boring that I literally fell asleep.
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Nave H. Weiss
WOW! What an amazing way to illustrate what low fidelity images are provided on your television than to blow them up onto the IMAX screen :)
I think IMAX is really cool, but things not designed to play on an IMAX screen don't necessarily translate well. The IMAX screen over at Navy Pier in Chicago does showings of various non-imax movies during weekends at midnight. So, some friends of mine and I went to see the Matrix there.
The problem is that it was filmed for being shown in a normal theater. So all of the quick cuts are just totally overwhelming on that screen. Furthermore, the images end up being rather grainy because the scale is so much bigger than is natual. And if you happen to see it on a dome IMAX, then you've got that as another impact on it. The sound was awesome, but man it's hard to watch.
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Halo 8 stories high...a 30 foot soldier running around trying to figure out how to aim.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
My experiences with IMAX movies have so far been a little disappointing. So far they come across as slow 20 minute documentaries intermixed with a few seconds of truly impressive, IMAX-exploiting, gut-wrenching fun. Show me the cool stuff! Mess with my head! Let me 'feel' like I'm doing something I wouldn't do in real life!
Maybe if the IMAX theaters are opening up to allow such 'adolescent' activities such as a video game competition, they'll start to broaden their selection of movies and relax their conservative death grip.
We can always hope anyway.
Even at HDTV resolution, each pixel will be several feet across, no? Won't this look kinda bad? People weren't real thrilled with AOTC in digital theaters because they could see the pixels. This will be worse.
;-) why would you do this?
Aside from the geek "because I can" aspect (which I totally respect, BTW
I am the very model of a modern major general!
Wow, that was a stretch.
As my father lik@(munch munch)...
Hey everybody look at the size of my penis! Isn't it big? Would you like to touch it?
When are we going to see some IMAX pron.
God, playing Gran Tourismo 3 on something that large would be larger then life!
Too bad I live in Florida and don't have the money to fly over there to participate.
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The link has been /. again
My friend and I have always wanted to do something like this (the big projection thing). Just borrow the projector and point it on the side of a building. If we hadn't been so fast to return the project after the senior (high school) banquet we would've had dreamcast unreal tounament on a screen 30 ft. diaginal. Although at a school dance I helped DJ we did have a 35 ft diagonal projection of Crazy Taxi 2, more people were watching the player play than dance.
This sounds a little better then it will be in reality. The San Jose 'IMAX' theatre is in fact an OmniMax or Dome theatre format. The 180 degree (ish) * 360 degree (ish) view giving you pretty much full periferal vision if you look straight at the center. Not the super resolution rectangular 5 story high IMAX format that would make for some awsome gaming! They will either display the games on a small awkwardly stretched rectangle or stretch it beyond recognition over the whole screen.
The sound system on the other hand features 6 channel 13000 watts of quad-damage (to your ears as much as your avatar) coming from 44 speakers.
Haha, I hope that the IMAX has some backup projectors, just in case...
Just wait until the Tech Museum tries to charge you after you burn in your game images on their projector!
It's a shame that there are no 1080i games out for XBox yet. This would be a good place to demo some of the Hi-res games tht XBox can do.
playing games on the IMAX Dome screen on weed|coke|acid!
I always have to take it to the next level.
Well, if he's into "bumps", his penis is probably shriveling. I'd type more, but I have to go jack off on my Land Rover.
We all know that true 3l33t gamers will say something like "Screw Imax, monoscreen gaming sucks, I use a parhelia and I *need* 3 displays, does IMAX offers 3 screens gameplay? no! so it's already obsolete HA!".
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
Sure, the novelty aspect is fun, but having an 8-story screen means having a screen you have to move your eyes and head to see all of. Movement at what would be the edges of the monitor might not be noticed until well after that movement has shot you...
I've forgotten my name and password. Shoot.
Has anyone ever tried to play quake or cs with a projector? (The wall screen kind) It seriously made me want to puke, as well as suck. I used to have to take a dramamine before playing descent. Perhaps it's time to get back into the habit.
Heh. On a most remotely related note, anyone else ever try to land a plane after forgetting to get the non-drowsy kind of dramamine? It's much fun.
set fov reallyreallyreallyhigh
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
If they demo DOA3 they can also market it as the 'world's largest pr0n show'.
using namespace slashdot;
troll::post();
From the website: :)
Xbox Games: Project Gotham Racing, Halo, Tony Hawk, DOA, NFL Fever
GameCube Games: Super Monkey Ball, Soccer Slam, SSX Tricky
PlayStation2 Games: Gran Turismo, Virtua Fighter 4
I remember playing Doom on a projection screen at work years ago (okay so the training room was empty and I was supposed to be setting up the network, but you've gotta 'test' these things somehow) and it was great
I agree with previous comments about how well these games will scale up tho. It will certainly be interesting to see which console (and game) ends up coming out on top in terms of eye-candy on screens this size...
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What's the notcha? The notcha is the area "in between." It's notcha balls, but notcha asshole either. Notcha!
Here is a clear illustration of why graphical
implementations should be mathematically
represented (scalable). Works on a 320x200 as
well as an infinite resolution IMAX.
Hey, someone snuck in your house last night and wrote "gullible" behind your monitor. You'd better check on that.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
How Big is the IMAX Screen?
A: The IMAX theater screen is a huge wrap around dome. We'll be able to project the games onto an image about 40' by 60'.
I play Nerd-Folk!
Maybe it's just me, but aside from the resolution problems of blowing an NTSC display up to OmniMAX sizes, seeing Virtua Fighter $(N) on an OmniMAX screen just doesn't make me want to get up and check out the competition. NFL Fever? Please. The X-style games (Tony Hawk, SSX Tricky) and racing games (Gran Turismo) might possibly be interesting.
OTOH, if you want to get me to claw my way to the head of the line, all you have to do is set up nearly any of the Star Wars spaceflight games (Star Wars Starfighter, XWing Alliance, etc.). Crank the resolution to 1280 * 1024 * 32bpp and even on an IMAX screen it would look stunning. Go the extra mile and compensate for the spherical projection surface, and you could have a major spectator attraction on your hands ("Come ride shotgun in an XWing fighter as some of the best gamers on the planet go after the Death Star").
I've always wanted to experience a truly immersive space flight simulator. XWing Alliance on an OmniMAX screen would do it.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
I'd like to see this on an imax screen
There aint no pancake so thin it doesn't have two sides.
Yes, actually, I believe US West pilots HAVE had that experience, though not w/ the same drug.
I do security
Cheezus, and I thought it gave you motion sickness
on a regular TV.
I hope the theater has barf bags...
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine...
Pixelization
Check out http://games.lasers.org/
40ft x 60ft Vector Games!
Each pixel should be a about an inch tall, assuming 800x600 resolution.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
so if you've ever wanted to play Halo eight stories high
No, not really
However imagine nethack at that size!
I Agree With This Post!
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News For Turds
iMAX pron in 3-D would be pretty damned scary. Remember the porn theatre episode of "WKRP"?
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Remember to bring the barf bags. I once played Descent II using a 4'x6' projector screen. I damn near vomitted out my ears after that.
"My God...It's full of ads!" -Fry, about the Internet, Futurama
Fuck gaming, I'd rather see an orthoscope go somewhere fun on an Imax!
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Killer entertaintment system, blunts, & bumps...c'mon man...share the wealth: invite me over. I'll bring over Frequency, Wipeout Fusion, Rez, and a few 4-packs of Hoegaarden.
I want to play Tempest on the side of Stone Mountain.
I've always dreamt of playing an FPS with one of them goggles that shines a laser beam directly onto the retina, thus making full use of the field of vision physiologically possible.
Pixels as big as my head! Can't wait!
"Keep your Power Glove off of my girl" ...or something like that...
The funny thing about the movie [The Wizard] was when the girl was telling the kid what to do when he played [a beta version of Super Mario Bros. 3]
She says: "Find a warp!" There were warp zones in the first three Super Mario Bros. games (SMB 1, SMB 2: The Lost Levels, and SMB 2: Mario Madness).
like she would really know where the damn warp whistle was ....
She says: "Use the flute!" Jimmy played a metric buttload of NES games to prepare for the competition. The puzzles in those games typically fell into cliché patterns. It's not likely that he never touched Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda, which included warp whistles that even played the same tune.
What ticked me off with respect to the final round of that movie was how Jimmy got points just for warping to world 4 Giant Land. None of the Super Mario Bros. games give you points for warping. And the game didn't seem to have the concentration game yet. SMB 3 gives the player a concentration game (called "N-spade" by some players) after every 80,000 points; Jimmy finished with 81,520. Yes, I'm sick enough to remember that.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Sounds like a good place to play LazerMAME.
check it out here.
anyway -- playing games on that would be rediculously hard. the point of IMAX is so that your entire peripheral vision is occupied. except that in games etc, the part of the screen which is now at the far end of your p.vision actually conveys important information... so i would imagine this won't come out too well.
but it's all about the bragging rights afterall, i guess.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
I used to run the network for a big architecture firm. We had a nice conference room with a 12-foot rear-projection glass screen, and an LCD projector in the room behind. On weekends we'd often have LAN parties, so one day I decided to drag my box into the room.
Man, I lasted about 3 minutes, and I thought I was going to puke. Staying as far from the screen as possible, I still had to move my head side-to-side to see all the action, and I had bad-ass motion sickness.
The resolution was actually pretty good, even for the 800x600 projector - no real pixelization. I wouldn't do it again, though. On an IMAX I bet it would be even worse.
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
I'm not sure of the whens or whys... but for the past few years, most OmniMax installations are now called "IMAX Dome". The IMAX.com website has information on both formats.
Perhaps the IMAX folks have their fingers in the OmniMax market now, too.
GameCube Games: Super Monkey Ball, Soccer Slam, SSX Tricky
What about Super Smash Brothers Melee? Easily the best multiplayer title for the GameCube.
While I'd imagine The Tech will be open late for the mature gamers (mature games start at around 5 PM) I find it odd that The Tech normally closes at 6 PM.
I don't know how many times I've been in San Jose for a convention, usually less than a few blocks from The Tech, but have been unable to go because they close at 6.
San Jose, the city that's alive way into the wee hours of the morning...
*sigh*
Is this just a single person playing on one huge screen? Or would that be a bunch of smaller screens, one for each contestants?
With a screen that large, they could easily project 9+ screens of gameplay. Might be interesting. I've always thought video/computer games should be available as a spectator sport. I guess that's one way to do it, although not the 'bring it to the masses' that I would hope to see one day.
If I were to undertake a project such as this, I'd set up a central larger viewscreen run much like spectator sports are today - with a director choosing which feed to show (first person views to 3rd person cameras placed around the level) with each individual's play screen lining the sides.
No, this is a stretch.
I'm feeling a bit better about playing games on my big screen -- I've always kept the contrast/picture and brightness low, and I'll continue to!
Trust me, games are _way_ more fun when you can play them comfortably from 10 feet away from the TV!
Halo is choppy as it is, anything larger and the XBox is too outdated. Maybe for XBox2, but who will want to buy that..
Those mid-story-skull-bug-ear-wing-things would be ultra-creepy if you could see them parabolic style. Ripping thru that scene on IMAX if rez wuz good wood be super-thanks-for-asking. Pass the shotgun baby!
Touche.
As my father lik@(munch munch)...
IMAX is Flat, OMNIMAX is a dome, like here. So is it a Omnimax or Imax?
Screw Halo! Imagine playing PONG on this thing
You may laugh, but that sure brought back a memory. Back in 1981 I was in college and working at the student union setting up for a concert later that evening when one of the building's directors wheels in this big, bulky thing and starts to roll down the 20-foot diagonal movie screen. Come to find out it was a new projection TV system. (Films were popular on campus, so the thinking was why not project videos, too?)
A lightbulb went off and I asked "What does it use for inputs?"
"Basically any NTSC source; there's antenna connections and RCA jacks."
Within 15 minutes' time, I'd hooked up my Atari 800 (*) to the projector and to the concert sound system (1000 Watts!) and started Star Raiders(**). The explosions were deafening, and when I launched into hyperspace, it sounded like a jet was taking off in the student union! Got to play for almost an hour until some students complained they couldn't study.
(*) That was a 6502 (8-bit) system. IIRC it ran at 2 MHz; had 8 KB of memory; display was in color and capable of 12 rows of 40 characters. It was pretty advanced at the time!
(**) Star Raiders was a killer app of the time. Many people bought an Atari 800 (or 400) just so they could play it! It was certainly a big factor in my decision.
sounds cool. but how well will it work (speed, hi-res)? my system runs slowly on a 1600x1200 desktop, so how well will the XboX work on 8 million x 6 million?
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Hey MASCO fag: I thought you were the one who sucks ass and cock -- willingly, I hear. Isn't that site a self-portrait, btw? Still sneaking behind your Mommy's back to use the family computer to post, eh?
While not quite up to IMAX standard, most college students can use lecture halls after hours for their own purposes. It's actually quite easy to do. I started by calling the Union and getting the central reservation office number for the university. I admit, it's not eight stories tall, but Quake is quite cool on 30ft screen too. Most major lecture halls have projectors with VGA and RCA in for both computers and game systems. Just a thought if you can't compete in the contest yourself.
And you brought back my memory...
Very similar, in High School, we had a projector that was in the Auditorium where we'd have study halls etc. Well, seeing as a few friends were going in over the weekend for play practice, we decided to show up early, and throw around some Street Fighter 2 on the big screen.
I was definitely in awe. Even though it was pixellated, and a little dim (not the best equipment, even for it's day), having Ryu and Ken as tall as 2 humans was sweet!
Karnal
If I had the chance it would be Mech Warrior, any version or a combat flight sim or Perfect Dark (N64)
61 inches? Nah. I'd rather play on my projector. 9 feet of goodness.
Well, some people are talking about a warped image when using an IMAX screen, due to the width of the screen. Perhaps if the Matrox card was out... with the Surround Gaming feature, it may actually look ok, although I don't know about the resolution... Playing Jedi Knight 2 on a huge screen would certainly be cool, though :)
And so we go, on with our lives
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For my last year of high school I went to a charter school that was housed in St. Paul's (as in Minnesota) old science museum. And lo and behold, they use to have an imax screen. The old imax theatre was transformed into the audiotorium and once a week we held gaming contests. We played all the N64 classics (goldeneye, mario kart, etc. etc.) and all the new X-box games on the huge screen. It was seriously a lot of fun.
The best though, was bringning in our own computers (the school's computers blew hard) and setting up Quake III tourney's, Counter-Strike tournmanets, TFC, and etc, on the school's network. The cool part was, if you weren't playing at any given time you could walk into the auditorium and watch the game spectator style on the huge screen.
I used to work at the Ontario Place tourist trap and would spend lunch watching the movies in the first IMAX theatre in the world.
Without a doubt the older movies are far better then the current efforts. The first IMAX filmmakers had a whole new canvas to draw on and used their abilities to the fullest.
The very first IMAX film was basically a travalogue for Northern Ontario which isn't a place you'd normally go. (Too many mosquitos and not much else) But the makers of "North of Superior" made it visually spectacular with a great soundtrack and an eye for the small details of northern life that translated so well to the large screen.
It was a big kick watching it in a retrospective years later and seeing the same gasping reaction from the audience to the opening sequence...
The little opening titles transitioning to a small square in the middle of the screen with what looks like rushing water behind and a soft folksy acoustic guitar soundtrack that fades out.
Then...
BOOOM! The picture blasts out to fill your entire field of view and you find yourself in a plane skimming fast over a northern lake. Soaring up and banking to the left you fly towards sheer cliffs just missing the edge then violently bank to the right and dive down the other side of the ridge.
Absolute fscking magic.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
Well an IMAX theater can induce nausia (sp) in some people. Watching some jackass play on their own system can be irratating, but on an 8 story dome, my god the jerkiness would make me sick. Image trying (or watching someone try) to run and spin shoot with huge characters and even bigger targets. It is a recipe for a barforama.
Pukes away!!!
I grew up in Toronto, home of IMAX.
I saw the very first and subsequent 30+ IMAX films long before it became a common fixture at the local cineplex. (We're talking the 70's here)
There may be a bit of nostalgia but I recall the earlier films being FAR more entertaining than the current product.
"Siegfried and Roy"? Please.
"North of Superior" the first, remains my favourite. A mix of dynamic plane and helicopter shots with slow, almost lyric scenes from the North. The kids playing hockey on a snow-coverted street at twilight. The view from a tugboat pulling away from an ice-covered laker.
Last year we were able to watch "Silent Sky" which, while a bit repetitive, remains one of the most outstanding examples of aerial cinema ever produced.
And, although I've seen most of the Shuttle-filmed features, it was the docking scene in "Mission to Mir" that had me sitting there with my mouth hanging open. I haven't seen "Space Station" yet, though...
"If you live in the past, you are already repeating it." - Me.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
I'd rather play Tic-Tac-Toe or some good old Global Thermonuclear War on that screen.
mogorific carpentry experiments
Yes, but did you get to Star Commander Rank?
Besides, I always used the "Off-by-one" Long range scan trick when I jumped (unless LRS was offline), so I'd have missed the hyperdrive effects.
And the 800 usually shipped with 16k of memory, and you could upgrade to 48k (or do as I did and put 256k bank-switched RAM in, and use a ramdisk).
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There is no such thing. IMAX is an extremly large flat screen that uses a different millimeter film than a normal movie theatre. When you turn it into a dome screen like the article said, it is called OMNI. IMAX is much more widely available. OMNI theatres can be found at such places like the Boston Museum of Science (Mugar Omni Theatre, or Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama (they have IMAX at their other campuses).
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Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
Since a lot of posts are somewhat off-topic, I'll add to that. Most IMAX shows are lame. However, I've seen "Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure" (on both IMAX and OmniMAX) and it is a GREAT true story of human survival played out in a visually stunning environment. If you ever get a chance to see it, I highly recommend it.
BTW, I much preferred the IMAX over OmniMAX.
Vic
Just think of how much better the game would play if it was 1280i and not 480i (p?)
It would be nice to have some games that ran @ this resolution (for xbox or ps2).
The opportunity for a theatrical videogame didnt offer itself up to me until i reached college. the console at the time was the psx.
:)
Ill never forget it. I got special permission from the techgoons in the batcave to play anything i wanted in the theater. We watched anime, played games, and generally mucked about. Much to the security gaurds annoyment when i did _indeed_ have a pass to use the theaters.
Games at the time included marvel superheroes, omega boost (WOAH!) and, of course, final fantasy 7. I played most of the way through ff7 in the theater.. and the ending blew my mind.
wow.
of course, there were other varied games and consoles hooked up throughout the year.. even got the snes hooked up a couple times.. starfox was lots of fun.
I only wish i could go back and try it out with Rez.
no
Yes, but did you get to Star Commander Rank?
Nope. I thoroughly enjoyed playing it, but that doesn't mean I was that good at it! =) As for the memory configuration, I bought mine within a few months of its coming out... I did buy a floppy disk drive a while later as it was so much faster than a cassette tape. Besides it had so much more storage... something like 80K (or was that the Commodore 64? I dunno; it was way too long ago!)
I've still got it around someplace; it'd be interesting to see if it still works.
you should of played with the "fov" setting, its normally set to 90 (an aparent third of normal vision)
Gnome wasnt built in a day.
We did, and setting fov to 180 didn't work nearly as planned.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
I would imagine that putting a 180 degree image up on a screen in front of the viewer would never look right to a human. If the screen is flat, it would need to be infinitely wide in order to make a 180 degree angle of vision image look "right".
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
At the Exploration Place in Wichita KS, they have an interactive "movie" of sorts. It's all about the body, and includes several mini-games that the audience participates in via buttons on the chair armrests. It was really well done by programmers who work at the museum specifically for creating exhibits and such. Especially fun was cheating against all the junior high kids we were chaperoning. Using the controls of the empty seat beside me, I controlled their ship/laser/bloodcell/etc. away from the goals as my wife used our controls to guide our team to victory.
That was why fov = 180 didn't work. After some mild hacking it looked ok. Custom GL code however worked fine, using skew algorithms.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
You mean like this?
/
http://wouter.fov120.com/gfxengine/fisheyequake
I tried this out once with a projector while I was sitting closer to the screen.
Provided you don't crank up the FOV too much, it emulates peripheral vision quite nicely.
Cheers!
janic (not logged in)
Imagine a Beowolf Cluster of THESE!!!
Well, I don't know the graphic model they use, but if it's the one I've seen in textbooks, a 180 degree angle of vision fails because you can't really do it mathematicly. Mathematically, you draw a line segment from the camera eye to some point in the 3-d world. Calculate where that line intersects the plane of the viewscreen and you have the coordinates of where to put that point on the 2-D screen. The problem is that to use that matehmatical model with a 180 degree field of vision, you need the camera to be on the plane of the viewscreen, which then means there isn't a single point where the line segment passes through the viewscreen. I imagine that this ends up being a divide-by-zero in the mathematical model.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
It wouldn't crash, but it would look horribly obscured. They provided a set of GL libs that supposedly mutated the perspective to work. Some times they worked, sometimes they didn't. If we used some GL code that hacked around a bit more than the norm it seemed to have some problems.
If we used their GL lib, and coded something specifically for it it would work awesome. Also, switching it over to the regular GL lib and switching the fov back would also work. Was a lot of fun, but there are a lot of problems running regular applications in a spherical display.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.