Posts Tagged stereoscopic

Paper Moon Bits and GAMMA 3D

Posted by The Management in games on February 13, 2009

Edge (probably the best overall videogame magazine still in print) recently ran a feature on Kokoromi‘s GAMMA 3D challenge. The focus of the event was stereoscopic imaging in videogames; in layman’s terms, the red and blue glasses that make things “3D.” Jason Rohrer‘s Passage made waves after last year’s GAMMA 256 challenge, so I was curious to see what Kokoromi’s latest event would showcase.

Well, Fireflies definitely looked interesting, as did all the other entries, really, but most of them haven’t yet been made public. The demo of Infinite Ammo‘s Paper Moon is available right now, though, so I decided to check it out.

papermoon Paper Moon Bits and GAMMA 3D

The intro to the surreal Paper Moon.

Bullets:

  • Obviously, a stereoscopic graphic presentation.
  • All art consists of jagged paper cutouts.  The art was initially hand-drawn on paper with a Sharpie, then scanned in and touched up in Photoshop.
  • Jumping is only accompanied by “shifting,” a mechanic that — in real-time — swaps the layer property of certain on-screen objects. This effectively pushes things into the background pulls them into the foreground, with the character usually finding himself somewhere in between.
  • Death is not really penalized on account of frequent checkpoints and unlimited continues, and it’s actually required to solve some of the puzzles.
  • Paper Moon contains a hard, 5 minute time-limit, but that’s simply a result of Kokoromi’s submission guidelines.

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The FOV in Mirror’s Edge

Posted by The Management in design on February 2, 2009

The pros and cons of Mirror’s Edge have been debated time and time again, but there hasn’t been much talk about its FOV.

mirrorsedge 1 The FOV in Mirror’s Edge

Fisheye field of view in Mirror's Edge.

In order to simulate a sans peripheral, stereoscopic view, FPS games tend to use a 90 degree window. The FOV in Mirror’s Edge, however, seems to be smaller. This might’ve been a result of wanting to achieve a more personal, zoomed-in feeling and a cleaner, flatter look (a smaller FOV tends to flatten the perspective of the projected image), but was it really necessary?

Now don’t get me wrong, DICE has created some really impressive visual effects in Mirror’s Edge. The motion blur, camera movement, body positioning and reactions, etc. were all a large jump ahead of the usual FPS fare where disembodied, chest-level cameras are a standard. Still, why shorten the FOV? After all, it tends to exaggerate camera movement which can lead to motion sickness, something that DICE had battled throughout the game’s development.

I myself never got motion sickness playing Mirror’s Edge, but the FOV still bugged me. Why? Well, at times it made everything seem too cramped up. Now this isn’t really noticable when overlooking a large vista, but it becomes quite apparent in tight hallways or in areas without an expansive view of the horizon. In a game that’s supposed to embody the spirit of parkour, it often caused me to feel boxed in and not adequately aware of my surroundings — probably not the sensation DICE intended.

Also — and this is completely unrelated — more of the music in Mirror’s Edge should’ve been as good as the title theme.

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