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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."
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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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.
"Won't this look kinda bad?"
:)
Quite possibly. IMAX movies use 70mm film because 35mm doesn't quite have enough resolution. IMAX movies also run up to 60 fps because at 24 strobing is far too distracting.
However, there is a far bigger problem to playing games on the IMAX screen: They video card (or the software) has to warp the video so that it'll look correct on the screen. It doesn't look right if the regular image is projected on the screen.
Why would anyone play this? I can think of a really good reason right now: peripheral vision. I depend on peripheral vision while I'm driving, I'd LOVE to have that capability in a video game. It'd definitely be an interesting experience.
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!
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?
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.