3D Vision to actually improve gameplay

[Manareth 0]

Aside from adding depth to the world making it easier to determine range, a few features could be programmed to make 3D a worth-while investment for gamers. Imagine flying the Apache with the I.H.A.D.S.S. (it can't be moved to the left eye in real life) system only rendering to what your right eye will see, or pulling up a scope and only having it render to your dominant eye allowing you to close one eye and see through the scope, then open the other to have better awareness of whats around you.

Just a thought

[jasonnoguchi 11]

Darn Nvidia really walking way ahead of ATI...

[Manareth 0]

Darn Nvidia really walking way ahead of ATI...

Hopefully ATI will catch up soon, and it will become a standardized part of directx like cuda did (under a different moniker, of course).

[dmarkwick 261]

I would love to play ArmA2 in 3D. Unfortunately (or not ;)) I use XP and the 3D driver abilities don't function in XP.

I manually made some ArmA1 3D images just out of curiosity and they looked really fantastic. You need to sort of look at them cross-eyed to simulate the 3D effect, but you only need to look at them for a minute to get the idea :) If anyone's interested I'll dig them out & post them up, but they come in at >100kb each.

[cm. 10]

Darn Nvidia really walking way ahead of ATI...

lol.. i think it's the other way around at the moment ;)

[Leon86 13]

I tried the nvidia drivers with a set of blue/red goggles I had. It's cool to try it but I woudn't want to use it every day. It's really stressful for your eyes trying to focus on something they think is very far away but turns out to be 1m in front of them.

[-=seany=- 5]

imo using 3D Vision Discover with games really doesn't do 3d vision justice, its no where near as good. Looking at the demo pictures with 3D vision discover does give a nice idea of the depth/pop out though.

[dmarkwick 261]

As requested, here's a few 3D images I manually made from ArmA1. I know they are not "scaled" properly (i.e. the interocular distance is exaggerated for effect) but the basic idea is there, that ArmA2 could look quite good in real full-screen 3D.

You'll need to cross your eyes when you view them, so that your left eye is looking at the right image, and the right eye is looking at the left image. Takes a little practice, and I don't recommend you do it for too long :)

image1

image 2

image3

image 4

[Nicholas 5]

Cool.

[grendel [aps] 0]

As requested, here's a few 3D images I manually made from ArmA1. I know they are not "scaled" properly (i.e. the interocular distance is exaggerated for effect) but the basic idea is there, that ArmA2 could look quite good in real full-screen 3D.

You'll need to cross your eyes when you view them, so that your left eye is looking at the right image, and the right eye is looking at the left image. Takes a little practice, and I don't recommend you do it for too long :)

Any chance that you could make and post a short video clip?

[EDcase 87]

I dream of a day when we can use 3d goggles (with TrackIR) to get the full VR experience.

[TheHarvesteR 11]

I was playing around yesterday and found out a way to experience a 3D effect without using any tools...

It may sound silly, but all you have to do is cover one eye up and then move around a bit in the game (leaning left and right works best).

What happens, is that after a few minutes with an eye closed, your brain will start to try interpreting distances based on perspective, instead of relying on the sense of depth provided by the different perpectives seen by each eye.

The brain can judge distances with a single eye by using motion parallax, which is the ability to determine depth by shifting your eyepoint around (ie, leaning left and right).

So, what this means is that one eye can be fooled into thinking it's seeing an actual 3D image on the screen, while with both eyes open stereopsis would prevail and you would see a flat screen ahead of you.

I tried it for a while yesterday and it totally works... the obvious downside is that no one would fancy playing with an eye-patch on... but it does work for experiencing the effect for a few minutes.

BTW, I loved the 3D images. :) If anyone is having trouble viewing them, try using your thumb as a focus point first, move it back and forth until you realise you can see 3 images in the background, then try shifting your focus to the center image without losing focus of the thumb (the 3D image will seem to be hovering about where the thumb is)

Cheers

HarvesteR

Edited February 1, 2010 by TheHarvesteR

[Black² 10]

I used to do the 3 image 3d technique when i was like 6 years old on the wallpaper at my school when i got bored.. now i looked at them images and i wet my panties.

[Suchy_ 10]

I'm using a 3D monitor (http://www.iz3d.com) in addition to TrackIR for Arma/Arma2. It works in a similar way to 3D cinema - the picture is polarized, so you need passive polarized glasses to separate images. The glasses are transparent and don't make your eyes tired like that red-blue crap. The picture is in full resolution, no flickering and no interlace. You need a strong computer though, because everything you see has to be rendered twice, separately for each eye.

I believe that HMD goggles would produce even better immersion, but what's currently on the market is way too expensive and doesn't support high resolution.

The only problem I have with this monitor is a bit of ghosting, but with right separation/convergence settings it's almost unnoticable. Oh, and you need to reduce shadow quality to normal, otherwise a weird effect appears as shadows would be placed differently for each eye. I guess it's a problem on driver level and something's wrong with shader model support.

Edited February 3, 2010 by Suchy_

[dmarkwick 261]

I'm using a 3D monitor (http://www.iz3d.com) in addition to TrackIR for Arma/Arma2. It works in a similar way to 3D cinema - the picture is polarized, so you need passive polarized glasses to separate images. The glasses are transparent and don't make your eyes tired like that red-blue crap. The picture is in full resolution, no flickering and no interlace. You need a strong computer though, because everything you see has to be rendered twice, separately for each eye.

I believe that HMD goggles would produce even better immersion, but what's currently on the market is way too expensive and doesn't support high resolution.

The only problem I have with this monitor is a bit of ghosting, but with right separation/convergence settings it's almost unnoticable. Oh, and you need to reduce shadow quality to normal, otherwise a weird effect appears as shadows would be placed differently for each eye. I guess it's a problem on driver level and something's wrong with shader model support.

That sounds really good Suchy :) I've been watching the development of that 3D technology, and I expect it to be the next immersive layer, after game, HOTASS, TrackIR :)

But, a little expensive for me to implement right now. I use a somewhat older PC running Windows XP (I believe the 3D drivers don't support XP) and I'd like a new, ulra fast PC before I think about upgrading to such a monitor, which itself is still quite an expensive luxury. I envy you :)

Coupla questions on your observations so far:

Bringing the weapon up to ironsight, is this effective in 3D? How do scopes act?

My own view is that anything rendered at > 100m should be rendered flat at infinity, can you set it up like this? I don't know the abilities of the 3D system setup.

[TheHarvesteR 11]

Nice!!

I had a set of 3D goggles (from E-Dimensional) myself once. They worked well in some games, but the toll on hardware was way too high for it to be practical as an everyday gaming device.

The one thing I noticed, and IMO it detracts a bit from the immersion you would expect, is that everything appears to be a miniature when in 3D. Things don't seem to be full-sized. So it kinda looks like you're looking at little soldiers in model vehicles :rolleyes:

Well, that's just what I thought back when I played with 3D goggles... I figure having a larger screen, and adjusting the FOV to match your eyes would cancel out this effect... Of course having your screen FOV set to align with the cone made by your eyes and the screen bounds would result in something along a 20º FOV... which doesn't really work for playing...

The best solution IMO, would be either a huge screen, or better yet, some kind of dome projection display :bounce3:

Cheers

[Suchy_ 10]

@DMarkwick

The driver also works on XP, that's what I'm using. But the hit on performance is noticable regardless of the system, especially in ArmA2, so yup - a fast PC with good video card is a requirement.

To answer your questions... Bringing up gun works good - you just see it in 3D, so you have to close one eye when using ironsight to aim properly, just like real life. Scopes can cause problems, but work good with the right convergence setting.

Basically you have 3 parameters to set:

1) Shifting - it's the way images are separated. It can be symmetric, shift left, or shift right. This one you set before launching a game, others can be modified realtime. For Arma (and everything in first person) I'm using shift left. This way the original image is rendered for the right eye and this is needed to use iron sight.

2) Separation - it's simply how much of 3D effect you want. I always try to set it to a natural level, so that playing doesn't make me feel dizzy and it's not tiresome for my eyes.

3) Convergence - this one can be a bit tricky. Think of it as monitor screen placement in the game world. Objects that are closer than this point appear as popping out of the monitor, while everything beyond it seems to be far behind the screen. 2D elements such as GUI are rendered on the screen level and their placement within the game world depends directly on convergence setting. Now if you set it so that everything seems to be "inside" the screen, the effect is most natural and your monitor works as a "window" to the game world. But this causes problem with scopes, because the scope's crosshair is part of GUI and it's rendered at a different depth than your target. Then again if you set convergence so that 2D elements are placed too far, you'll see your gun popping out at you. And because of screen edges this feels unnatural, as something that appears farther away from you, obscures a closer object. Same happens with icons, text, etc. It's weird, but you can get used to it.

The trick is to find a good balance between "in depth" and "pop out", so there's no too big depth difference between your scope's crosshair and far objects, while close object's don't pop out too much. In Arma/Arma2 it's easly done, but other games can be more problematic. Anyway you can set 3 different separation/convergence settings and switch between them at a touch of a button.

As for the 100m distance of 3D rendering, it's more. I'd say it's about 300-500m. Farther than that objects still aren't completely flat, but 3D is barely noticable. In real life that distance is much higher though, you can easily tell the difference between a house 500m away from you and a mountain several kilometers farther.

By the way if you have a pair of these oldschool anaglyph glasses, you can try that iZ3D driver. Just to see its impact on performance and how the settings work. The 3D effect won't be that good of course, but it will still be noticable. The driver also supports HMD, dual projectors and shutter glasses, but only anaglyph is free (others are are time limited trials).

Edited February 3, 2010 by Suchy_

[dmarkwick 261]

@DMarkwick

The driver also works on XP, that's what I'm using. But the hit on performance is noticable regardless of the system, especially in ArmA2, so yup - a fast PC with good video card is a requirement.

Hmm yep I think I already spent enough getting this old rig up to an acceptable speed at acceptable settings, so I will leave a 3D monitor for the next major from-scratch build :)

To answer your questions... I have to close one eye when using ironsight, just like real life. Scopes can cause problems, but work good with the right convergence setting.

Basically you have 3 parameters to set:

1) Shifting - it's the way images are separated. It can be symmetric, shift left, or shift right. This one you set before launching a game, others can be modified realtime. For Arma (and everything in first person) I'm using shift left. This way the original image is rendered for the right eye and this is needed to use iron sight.

OK that sounds like a seriously cool implementation and realism enhancer right there :)

2) Separation - it's simply how much of 3D effect you want. I alway try to set it to a natural level, so that playing doesn't make me feel dizzy and it's not tiresome for my eyes.

Yep I'd say - without having tried it of course - that maybe even a less-than RL implementation would be better than absolute, or exaggerated, settings. Natural vision takes huge cues from convergence, and your eye's natural urge to focus based on convergence could easily lead to headaches I expect, as you force your focus onto the monitor. You probably already know all about this :)

3) Convergence - this one can be a bit tricky. Think of it as monitor screen placement in the game world. Objects that are closer than this point appear as popping out of the monitor, while everything beyond it seems to be far behind the screen. 2D elements such as GUI are rendered on the screen level and their placement within the game world depends directly on convergence setting. Now if you set it so that everything seems to be "inside" the screen, the effect is most natural and your monitor works as a "window" to the game world. But this causes problem with scopes, because the scope's crosshair is part of GUI and it's rendered at a different depth than your target. Then again if you set convergence so that 2D elements are placed too far, you'll see your gun popping out at you. And because of screen edges this feels unnatural, as something that appears farther away from you, obscures a closer object. Same happens with icons, text, etc. It's weird, but you can get used to it.

Yeah your solution sounds like what I would tend to do - set the minimum to the monitor plane.

The trick is to find a good balance between "in depth" and "pop out", so there's no too big depth difference between your scope's crosshair and far objects, while close object's don't pop out too much. In Arma/Arma2 it's easly done, but other games can be more problematic. Anyway you can set 3 different separation/convergence settings and switch between them at a touch of a button.

I guess flight sims would benefit also, particularly helo sims like DCS.

As for the 100m distance of 3D rendering, it's more. I'd say it's about 300-500m. Farther than that objects still aren't completely flat, but 3D is barely noticable. In real life that distance is much higher though, you can easily tell the difference between a house 500m away from you and a mountain several kilometers farther.

Yeah but my basic tests with CGI 3D always gives one odd effect - that although each object is drawn in 3D, each of those objects *seems* to look like a 2D card within that 3D look. If you see what I mean :) I'm guessing this is a result of resolution of the monitor limits. I read somewhere that even 2K cinema images suffers from this, and that even at those resolutions, dodgy separation of even 1/4 of a pixel is easily apparent. This can be overcome by non real-time rendering methods, but not easily on real-time rendering methods.

By the way if you have a pair of these oldschool anaglyph glasses, you can try that iZ3D driver. Just to see its impact on performance and how the settings work. The 3D effect won't be that good of course, but it will still be noticable. The driver also supports HMD, dual projectors and shutter glasses, but only anaglyph is free (others are are time limited trials).

I might try it, but I have a feeling that the nVidia anaglyph 3D features are what I was thinking about being Vista+ only.

But thanks for the write-up. Very interesting stuff, and something I will very probably work toward achieving. Somehow :)

[Suchy_ 10]

I've made a few screenshots and converted them to anaglyph mode. Use your red-blue glasses :)

http://soundscapes.cozywebhost.com/stuff/3d/arma2_01.jpg

http://soundscapes.cozywebhost.com/stuff/3d/arma2_02.jpg

And this one shows ironsight. Looks weird with anaglyph glasses, but you'll get the idea.

http://soundscapes.cozywebhost.com/stuff/3d/arma2_03.jpg

[Voyage 34 10]

Yeah, I tried too the iz3d in anaglyphic mode, and I have to say: yes, it's cool,, but:

-it have a big impact on performance (it lags on most of the pcs i think), making the game unplayable.

-it stress your eyes a lot

-difficult to aim, due to the 2d nature of the crosshair (i was told at least, because i don't use it)

-the colours are some kind of...psychedelia, due to the red-cyan lens you wear; it's somekind annoying after a while, seems to be in a trip.

So, comparing advantages/disadvantages, I gave up on anaglyphic (i want to save my eyes too).

On the other side, the new generation 3d (e.g. real 3d you see in the cinema) is a lot better, without color distortion, high quality, etc.., and i think that playing ArmA 2 that way must be something awesome.

Unfortunately you need a 3d screen and a lot of other things to have, that they will become for sure more popular and cheaper in the future, but now are not so widely used. (I will wait when my son will be playing ArmA 7, with full 3d vision, virtual soldiers all over the kitchen, and all that kind of thing XD)