Examining a Game Character's Physical Presence

GameSetWatch is running a feature about the evolution of game characters' physical presence. In many games, you can look down and not see your feet, or pass right through other players or NPCs. Other games rely on a believable model that can animate and collide with its surroundings. Tom Cross examines some of those scenarios, and also games that raise the bar for having a physical presence, such as the new Alone in the Dark. "Edward Carnby's body is a distinct factor in everything that the player does. Your inventory is carried inside Carnby's leather jacket. To use, drop, or combine items, you must open it wide and look down at your own chest. The healing mechanic, too, reinforces the oft-forgotten fact that you have a body. To heal yourself, you must look at the parts of your body (arms, leg, chest) that are wounded, and then spray them with first-aid liquid. Likewise, when you equip an item, Edward reaches for it, palming it and then switching back to the stock third or first person view."

Comments

Suspending disbelief.

[B5_geek]

A 2D screen cannot portray the necessary 3D clues that we as humans need to identify with an object as 'real'.
task: place an object on the table between a few obstacles. Now try to do the same thing using a computer monitor and remote controlled arm. Magnitudes more difficult.

Re:Suspending disbelief.

[Anonymous Coward]

humans don't see in 3d, they see in 2d but have two different viewpoints which gives them a sense of perception of depth. This was recently achieved in video games with parallax mapping, see stalker:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKHbtxmybmc

Re:Suspending disbelief.

[grumbel]

Parallax mapping is simply a texture shading technique that gives a texture the impression of depth, just as bump mapping and normal mapping do, only more advanced. It has nothing to do with giving the final image any kind of depths and is a completly unrelated topic.

Re:Haptics?

[UnderCoverPenguin]

Same problem with driving/flying games. You don't have the tactile feedback of the Gs of turns and climbs and descents,

Actually, there are benefits to not "feeling" the plane bank, pitch and yawl. As a pilot muself, I know that seeing is, by far, the most important sense when flying. Your other senses can easily be fooled. I certinly became a much beter pilot when I finally learned to rely only on my eyes. Playing Descent helped me a lot. When visiting friends, I used to fly MS Flight Sim. If I had a decent PC, I'd fly Flight Gear (http://flightgear.org/).