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The New Difficulties In Making a 3D Game
eldavojohn writes "MSNBC spoke with the senior producer of a new stereoscopic 3D game called Killzone 3 and highlighted problems they are trying to solve with being one of the first FPS 3D games for the PS3. The team ran into serious design problems, like where to put the crosshairs for the players (do they constantly hover in front of your vision?) and what to do with any of the heads-up display components. Aside from the obvious marketing thrown in at the end of the article (in a very familiar way), there is an interesting point raised concerning normalized conventions in all video games and how one ports that to the new stereoscopic 3D model — the same way directors continue to grapple with getting 3D right. Will 3D games be just as gimmicky as most 3D movies? If they are, at least Guerrilla Games is making it possible for the player to easily and quickly switch in and out of stereoscopic 3D while playing."
Make a 4D game then remove one dimension.
If you can turn the feature off, then it is a gimmic.
When was the last time you could turn 'color' off in a game? 3D is a gimmic, and the fact they offer you the ability to turn it off WHILE playing means it's not required to immerse you in the gameplay.
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Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
...just make it work more or less like a real-world "red dot" gunsight: a translucent marker that appears to hover a few feet in front of the weapon, as long as the user is looking through the sight. I always thought it was a really clever optical design - it's as if (for aiming purposes) the weapon is a couple of meters long, which makes it much easier to determine where the shots are going to go.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
I played WoW in 3D at the nVidia booth at Blizzcon last year and the game looked fantastic, it really did. However the interface was a huge problem. In 3D-WoW, the interface is closer to you than the game world, so if you're focusing on something in the world, your interface elements all split into 2. This is particularly weird when trying to click on things in the game world. If you focus on the creature or whatever, you have 2 mouse cursors. If you focus on the cursor, there are two creatures.
After a while you do get used to it, but it is definitely a huge gameplay issue that will keep 3D gaming in the gimmicky realm unless a game is designed to address it, either by having no interface or having an in-the-world interface, like Dead Space for instance.
But seriously, games do look amazing with properly calibrated 3d glasses (shutter or polarized, not red/blue lenses!) but it will most likely never be anything more than a neat gimmick.
On a real weapon, the laser "paints" the target - it looks as though it's actually on the spot where the bullet will hit. Simulate this, problem solved.
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Thats the answer. I had a aftermarket speed HUD in car that was designed to appear to be 20 feet or more in front of the car to minimize the need to refocus on a nearer object, but close enough it doesn't seem weird when tailgating or whatever. I understand this is done in factory models as well, and aircraft HUDs are also designed this way.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
Seriously, "Wicked 3D", go look it up. It sucked then (over 10 years ago). I'm more than willing to bet that even if the game is designed with 3D in mind, it still sucks now.
>>Will 3D games be just as gimmicky as most 3D movies?
Yes, yes they will - but moreso, and with gusto. But gimmicky doesn't have to be bad - the Wii and Nintendo DS libraries are chock full of gimmicky games that are actually quite good. Actually, most blockbuster games in history have been filled with fairly new exploits of gimmicks hamfistedly attached to a narrative.
Video games are marketed on the idea that an analog of yourself is being placed somewhere, with something interesting to do. The very definition of a game is tied to goals that exist only for you to solve - its gimmicks all the way down to the simplest games of rocks and sticks.
Ain't nothing wrong with gimmicks.
Ryan Fenton
Maybe they should ask the guys that were developing 3D games in 1995. Descent 3D comes to mind so does Hi-Octane both of which had 3D modes compatible with LCD glasses. HUDs and crosshairs were 2D. I worked for 3DTV [http://www.3dmagic.com/catalog/consumerframe.html] company in 1995/6 - demo'ing Descent 3D at Comdex among other things. FU Microsoft for killing off 3D gaming for a good 10 years.
With the budget of today's games, its most likely that 3d gaming will be a "one and done" experiment for most studios. I just cant see the sales of 3d titles having enough sales to be self sustaining and frankly the gimmicky nature of 3d will likely weaken the traditional 2d experience resulting in lower game sales overall. I have yet to find anyone who has invested in any 3d gear or anything with the intention in investing.
When you view 3D content windowed, it's fairly easy on the eye to transition between what's 3D and what's not 3D (neutral). So I reckon, just leave any panels neutral and hard alined to an edge. As a rule of thumb, I've found that anything the user needs to explicitly interpret (language and stats), is much better neutral. Leave the content to being the content.
As for the cross-hair, that's less obvious. My gut feeling is to leave it neutral since it's so small, it's not going to be _that_ noticeable that it doesn't quite comply with the depth of field. Having it hanging infront of your eyes is definitely going to be a distraction.
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3D LCDs don't have focus. Your eyes are always focused on the same point since they are just a flat screen like a 2D LCD. In fact they ARE just 2D LCDs, just displaying left and right images in rapidly alternating fashion. They do stereoscopic vision but nothing else. So you don't really focus on different points. Stuff does appear in front or behind other things, but it is all in focus, unless the game engine chooses to defocus something.
Why am I not surprised to read that the gaming industry is struggling with how to handle splattering blood in 3D.
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....getting anyone to want to buy one. Please let this 3D fad die already.
In optimized games the aiming reticule operates like a laser sight, it rests on the depth of the object it is hovering over. Seriously people this is a solved problem...
Check the Virtual Boy for prior art ideas. Obviously something so popular and successful can serve for further inspiration.
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Where was this tirade? Appears that the only one freaking out is your cowardly ass. I don't care what happens with 3d, I think it will fail as I really don't think enough people care about it for it to succeed. Its been tried and failed many times before, the only thing new now is that the glasses are more expensive and there is a smaller viewing angle, neither of which I see as much of a bonus.
What I really don't understand is how its "fans" are so rabid about it, and seem to take any negative comment about the technology as a personal attack against them.
I still remember the discussions on how much 3D was Wolf3D almost 20 years ago.
Place a thin translucent line to show the bullet path instead. Like the do for grenade thowers.
Don't apologize for your own behaviour.
... I feel that I might have some worthwhile knowledge of Stereoscopic 3D games.
First off, 3D in games isn't as gimmicky as 3D in movies, not by a long shot. If the dev programs the game with 3D in mind, then things like the UI, blood splatters don't pull you out of the 3D experience.
Like games that have the blood splatter on your screen? Looks killer on 3D.
Games like Left 4 Dead (1 & 2) the 3D is very, very good on it. It makes zombie killing a little more realistic.
Need For Speed World? While the 3D isn't perfect on it (some ghosting), the game is a lot better to play in 3D.
Titan's Quest and Torchlight in 3D is have to play to understand. The game looks like toys or something while you are playing.
Some games, like Alien Breed the lighting is messed up on it, so it doesn't look good in 3D, but if they fixed that, would be killer.
As for the gun sight, ya, that matters. What nvidia does with 3D Vision is has a "laser sight" you can toggle on and off (you have to turn off ingame targeting crosshairs) if the game doesn't do the 3D on it correctly. I don't use it much, but some games like Fallout 3 you have to use it. And yes, Fallout 3 is better on 3D.
Honestly, dev's don't have to do much extra but test their games under 3D to see what elements need to be fixed. Games that are made in a 3D engine already have what is needed. Unlike TV or Movies, the games are made from 3D models, so getting the 2nt camera viewpoint is easier to do, and why games look way better then any 3D movie can.
Plus I don't think people understand, buying a 3D TV doesn't mean you can start playing 3D games. For example, 3D Vision users need the 3D vision hardware, a 120khz Monitor (that's supported, currently most tv's aren't) to get 3D gaming. Cost is just over $500 (Acer GD235HZ 1080p monitor & 3D Vision). Not to mention running a game is 3D means your cutting your normal frames per sec down by half. So you need some powerful video cards to play the latest games (that are being made with 3D in mind) with decent frame rates, which normally mean 60fps.
Need for Speed World. Normally, I can do 1080p at 60fps with all settings maxed. But to get 60fps, I have to cut the graphics down to medium. If I don't, the 3D in the game doesn't look right, tends to cause headaches & eye strain more. Which is more or less true with most of the games.
Granted the Nvidia GTX 460 1G cards are cheap and give great fps, mainly in sli. but still, that's another $500 cost.
So $1000 will get you a great 3D gaming setup, that can play 3D movies, if you get a bluray player for your computer.
3D in games is great as long as it's does right. And it takes some playing around with the 3D to figure out what works for you. Will most gamers want/need it? No. Besides entry cost is sort of high, it doesn't work good for every type of game, and there's sort of a split on what to get between PC & consoles/tv/bluray 3D players.
I think the biggest problem with 3D is no standards. This isn't a case of tech that is going to be adopted by everyone, so having standards is important for market growth.
You don't want to have to buy a 3D HDTV, a 3D bluray player (ps3), and a 3D Monitor & 3D kit for your pc.
Like with 3D bluray movies. With hardly any of those movies being released, they stupidly make them exclusive bundles with 3D hardware. I mean, wtf? Instead of making 3D movies easier for early tech adoptors, they make it harder.
I still haven't found any decent 3D movie downloads yet, so I don't even know how they look on my setup. But I got it for gaming, and it does gaming well, and I'm very happy with spending the money I did on it. Anyone that comes over and sees games in 3D, start wanting to get it.
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All I know is that I won't be happy till I can play games on a holodeck. That said, 3D for games makes way more sense to me then for movies or TV's.
I had 3D glasses for my old games computer a few years ago. (The drivers only worked with CRT's.) Some people had no problems, while others got headaches after just a few moments. I was fine for an hour at a time. I think newer tech makes 3D much more comfortable though.
Anyway, stereoscopic gaming was great! A couple of experiences:
WoW
Wandering in a cave, cave walls are made up of mottled bitmaps...
Monoscopic: Even though the map shows a branch in a cave, it can sometimes be hard to find it, and one walks back and forth to see if it's there.
Stereoscopic: You simply cannot miss the branch. The cave now looks like a proper shape, that just happens to be patterened with mottled bitmaps.
Rome: Total War
- You get a better feel for distances, so you can see exactly when to tell the archers to unleash a volley of arrows against advancing troops for maximum effect.
- You get a better idea of how well catapults will be able to shoot over the crest of a hill, or whether the rocks will hit the hill/fly over the enemy.
- Also, position the camera among those being shot at, and see the cloud of arrows coming at you. Awsome! =)
Basically, with a sterescopic view, you get a much better idea of the lay of the land, and distances (and therefore timing).
To me, 3D vision helped so much, that it almost felt like an unfair advantage. Almost.
This whole 3d thing might be great, it might be terrible. But there are now several reasons why I wouldn't be bothered with it:
- PS3 games are terrible
- Need another brand new TV to view it
- Got to update the PS3 firmware to support it
- Need to buy a 'Move' to enjoy it
This is such a niche market, and Sony should really understand it.. let's guesstimate that 1 in 10 households have a PS3 ... of those, 1 out of 5 buy a move ... of those, 1 out of 50 have a shiny 3d television set.. so that's one out of every 10,000 potential customers having an interest in 3D gaming?
Just another Sony misstep here ... move along.
This is NOT new territory, FPS games have been playable in stereoscopic 3D via middleware packages like Tri-Def Ignition for some time now. The crosshair issue is easily solved with the simple substitution of a laser sight. What is still an issue for stereoscopic FPS games is quick response to attack from behind. Whipping around as quickly as is the norm for playing in 2D gives most people a bit of motion sickness in stereoscopic 3D. The hardcore will train themselves to shut their eyes but the casual gamer will merely find this to be yet another complaint about stereoscopic 3D gaming. For what its worth, racing games seem to be the most approachable for stereoscopic gaming newbies.
at least Guerrilla Games is at least making it possible for the player to at least easily and quickly switch in and out of stereoscopic 3-D while playing, at least...
For games, stereo is not the right approach. Viewpoint adjusted by head tracking is. For recorded images like TV, you don't have the data to do that. But for a game, you have full 3D models and all the necessary graphics hardware. And, as that video shows, it just takes a few Wii Remote parts to do it. The effect is that, at long last, the screen becomes a window, rather than a surface.
Since games tend to be played by one player per screen, the restriction that the view only works for one person is fine. Unlike stereoscopy, there's a big win for gameplay - you can move around and change your viewpoint. You can duck behind on-screen obstacles, so you can actually use cover in a shooter.
You can hang stereo and depth of focus on this, too. And it will work better, because the system knows how far away the viewer is.
When this is done well, the visual effect is spectacular.
If you are watching a "regular" movie, be it photographic or CGI, the 3D world is mapped onto the 2D screen When your eyes see this 2D image, you brain is able to use all the cues that are available in the mapped 2D image and it reconstructs the 3D world that was used to create the 2D image. Therefore, a "regular" move IS IN 3D.
When you see a stereoscopic "3D" image, even if it is an old ViewMaster http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viewmaster, all that you are getting is extra horizontal parallax that is provided by having different 2D images for the left and right eye. You are not even getting vertical parallax, so you can't see the top and bottom of things, just some extra details on the left and right of objects. Although this is noticeably different then the 2D picture image, it is still not the same as natural real world vision. So in a basic way stereographic images are not much closer to 3D then a regular image.
Because of the very limited and specialized nature of the stereo information, it is easy to create situations that cannot occur in the real world, resulting in a very confusing experience. Breaking frame is one example. This is when the "3D" object crosses the edge of the image, and it can completely destroy the illusion. Also, normal "flat" cinema uses foreground/midground/background to organize the visual composition of shots, and this becomes much more complicated when stereo is involved.
In some ways "flat" 2D is better, because it uses a uniform transformation to map from 3D to 2D. In doing stereo, the scene composition has to include intra-ocular distance information, and this adds difficult decision making for composing the scene. (Yes, the stereo mapping is mathematically uniform, but the composition restraints are different depending on the shot set up.)
There is a massive body of knowledge in how to use "flat"images that goes all the way back to he introduction of perspective in the Renaissance, and has been further developed with the invention of photography and moving pictures. Stereo has yet to prove that it really provides any kind of advancement for image presentation.
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Just like a real gun sight, you only look through it with one eye. So just put the crosshairs and other HUD elements on either left or right eye (configurable), then when the player wish to aim better, he can close the other eye (just like aiming a real gun).
For iron sight, even better, only the right (or left) eye would be aligned with the iron sight, the other eye would be looking down the barrel a but from the side.
The HUD elements would appear as if the player is wearing a transparent display over one eye.
Oliver.
3D shutter glasses have existed forever on high-end workstations, and remained a niche for a reason. Back in ~1995 when Descent 2 came out with 3D capacity, I rushed out to buy a pair of compatible glasses (~$150, a lot of money for a college student), and was promptly underwhelmed.
The game did a great job, but I remember one of the problems was that the small computer monitor (compared to the silver screen in a movie theater) makes the 3D effect extremely unnatural, almost like peeking through a tiny window into a midget infested world. On the other hand, when looking at 2D, I think the brain knows it's fictional and automatically applies suspension of disbelief and subconsciously scales things up. I suspect the whole situation is not unlike the uncanny valley in robotics.
Or maybe it just takes some get-used-to. In any case, it's definitely a gimmick -- like others said here, but not a gaming-changing one (pun intended).
P.S. You can still download Descent 1 or 2 for free. After almost two decades it's still more playable than most modern flying/shooting games out there.
I can understand this is maybe not of so much interest for console gaming since often you are talking playing in a room with more people on one display and this is a one person only technology. However PCs are designed for single person use, so this would work well. What's more, it would be rather cheap to implement. No new display needed, just a cheap IR camera to mount on the PC and something to wear on your head.
I won't get a 3D glasses display for the computer. You need a new monitor, that does not have very good colour or viewing angles for the cost, glasses, and a really high end 3D card since you need to double the FPS. I would get something that does this since it would integrate in to my existing setup.
Are you entirely sure? This is something I haven't experienced while playing 3D games, and it strikes me as extremely strange, since your eyes don't actually change focus when you play 3D games. They always focus on the TV. Even though some things appear to be farther away than other things, they should all be in perfect focus.
To put differently, you have infinite focus when playing 3D games, unless the game itself decides to artificially put stuff out of focus, but in that case, changing the focus of your eyes wouldn't do anything either, since the game would determine to focus point.
I don't understand how 'focusing' as you describe it can be a problem. Regardless of the simulated 3d, the distance your eye focuses on is the distance from you to the screen. The 3d effect is due to your eyes getting different pictures, not because you eye is actually focussing at different ranges.
This is my main problem with 3D (live action) movies, the 3D effect is fine when you are looking at what the camera is focussed on but if you try and look at something in the foreground or background the effect is ruined because that area remains out of focus no matter how hard you look at it.
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Try this experiment: Hold your finger about half way between your face and the computer monitor. Look at your finger. Without moving your finger look at a specific icon computer monitor, preferably something directly behind your finger. Without looking directly at your finger how many fingers do you see? (The answer should be two). He's talking about the same effect, and it has nothing to do with the actual focus of your eyes, but rather which direction your eyes are pointing. See Stereopsis.
I think by "focus" the parent really means the effective 3D distance - that is, the amount by which your eyes have to "cross" to align the two images... sort of like how a spot on the windshield drives you crazy, because when you're looking at the road, you see two spots - but when you look at the spot, you see two roads!
I don't care at all for this stereoscopic shit they call 3D, what ever happened to the good old 2D platformers such as Sonic & Mario and all the others? Why is it that the majority of games these days are FPS of some variety that basically suck donkey balls? It used to be about fun, now it's about polygon counts & gore.
FWIW, Killzone 1 and 2 were great games with interesting and compelling story lines.
Try this experiment: Hold your finger about half way between your face and the computer monitor. Look at your finger. Without moving your finger look at a specific icon computer monitor, preferably something directly behind your finger. Without looking directly at your finger how many fingers do you see?.
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'Focus' is the wrong word.
Long ago, when I had a CRT, I played Everquest with 3D shutterglasses. It was amazing. But he's right about the interface elements doubling up. Your eyes don't have to refocus, but they do have to change alignment so that both pieces of whatever you're looking at are in the center of your vision. The greater the 3D effect, the more you'll notice this.
And for the record, it was amazing in 3D. At the time I didn't think it would be that much different, but it was somehow so much more amazing just by adding the 3D effect.
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So the crosshairs show up on whatever surface is the closest one to where the gun is being aimed.
Sorry, but stereoscopic vision is stereoscopic vision -- 3D by triangulation. This is only required for static depth perception.
Parallax is an effect that is caused by motion. It is depth perception due to motion on a PARALLel AXis. Even Wolfenstein 3D had parallax. Strafe sideways -- horizontal movement, horizontal parallax. Die -- fall down the vertical axis, vertical parallax.
All 3d games already have two dimensions of parallax, and the addition of stereoscopic vision is one more element in building the 3D experience. What's missing? Well, as yet focus pulling is beyond our computational means, so we don't get to blur things that the player isn't looking at. Some of the light/contrast effects (eg mach banding) are still too complicated. But all in all we're getting there step by step.
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I'm not going to play a tiny violin for the developers. I'm talking about the cost in computing power. It's not like there's a tiny little scene inside your PS3 and this new stereoscopic 3D just adds a second camera to film it. The PS3 needs to render the same scene twice, from two different angles. Even if you can turn off the 3D they're not going to throw all that extra computing power into making the "2D" version look even better. Else all the people who bought their overpriced 3DTVs would start crying about how it isn't fair that their new toy isn't magical.
If your entire focus is on making games that involve running around shooting things, then of course you will have problems with the crosshairs. If the game isn't focused on that, and instead is based on...I don't know, plot and trying to use your brain to solve problems instead of shooting everything that gets in your way, then the game may not have any of that sort of thing to get in the way of the field of vision. What these so-called game designers are running into is being sucked into making new versions of the same old military "if it moves, shoot it" type of game. How many World War II combat games can they come out with before they lose their audience? Ok, future version with lasers and larger explosions, but the same basic gameplay....it runs out of steam eventually.
So, focus on making a game that is fun, and where you only end up in "combat mode" a small portion of the time, and the rest involves playing without the obstructions. Come up with NEW ways for players to play, from the violent methods, to diplomatic, to stealth. The game industry really started in the 1970s, and it is amazing that the focus has come down to different flavors of the same game, with some rare RPGs that show up less and less frequently.
I was thoroughly confused by this article until the end of it, when I realized they meant "new" 3D (aka glasses 3D). Sigh.
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