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Matrix-Style Bullet Time for Realtime Online Games

Posted by Zonk on from the leave-it-to-the-finns dept.

gcnaddict writes "Creating a slowdown in time on one end of an online game while maintaining normal speed on another was once one of those impossibilities which should never have happened. However, Finnish researchers have successfully invented a way to replicate a bullet-time-esque scene on one end of a real time multiplayer game without affecting the play speed on the other end(s). Of course, there are some slight issues which may never be resolved, such as when a player may occasionally think they have shot an opponent in a game and is surprised when his target refuses to die..."

2 of 59 comments (clear)

  1. Found the paper by Elkboy · · Score: 5, Informative

    Realizing Bullet Time Effect in Multiplayer Games with Local Perception Filters (PDF)

  2. bullet what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Bullet time is created in the film industry with cameras that have a HIGH recording speed. This means a movement that normally may take say 6 frames in stadard film cameras could take 600 frames to complete.

    Something that is invented in bullet time is that the character that "created" the bullet time event is basically just cranking up the frame rate. But since our human brains have a maximum frame rate the play back or viewing of the high frame rate has to be slowed down for us. This is why bullet time slows down. for us to see every frame of detail and understand it it is slowed down.

    The magic that is added to bullet time is that the "person" that triggered the bullet time is granted the ability to move faster than they could before bullet time but are allowed to see the world moving "slower" while the rest of the world continues to move at normal speed.

    Technically bullet time for the person that triggers it slows down but can't really speed up the character's actions. The pragmatic idea is that it is a nitro effect on the brain that more information is going into your brain faster and you are able to see the bullets fly in the air. Your brain is acting faster to process the information feed. That way no special bubbles have to be created.

    But it does create the problem that if one wants to create the effect that the person in bullet time gains the ability to move at "normal" speed even during the slowed down bullet time. What this means is that if on a 600 frame rate played back to us in a speed that we can handle in our brains if a character where to move at a "normal" real speed the character would have to have been recorded moving at a much faster rate!!! So to the viewers of a bullet time activated character with the ability to move about in an unrestricted time they are just cranking a hella refresh rate of information and are moving twice or more of their normal speed.

    pragmatic way to approach the idea. but not the solution for games and real-time between two people. the problem.. both people have a maximmum brain limit on how fast they can see information. Bullet time is a rush of information in high detail. if you had the ability to see the action sooner then you have gained that abiilty to react. But... does bullet time create the ability to move faster? In the matrix it seemed to allow that ability.. why not.. if your brain becomes faster in receiving information why not have an increase on muscle twitch.

    but only interesting hacks will exist.. all information at each computer node has to be translated back to the rate that all brains can handle.....