Choice of aspect ratio for games *spawn

In 16:9
http://s27.postimg.org/xtcuaaez7/Alyx_Vance_cropped.jpg

You don't think the latter framing conveys more presence and intimacy ?

Cheers

nXTRwTK.jpg


vNkP2ju.gif
 
Cinema primarily pushed for wider aspect ratios for framing wider vistas, think westerns; Without the wide screen format, the screen would primarily be filled with uninteresting sky and dirt,

Same goes with games. Aerial dogfighting simulators aside, everything interesting happens in a horizontal plane (surface of the Earth).

Cheers

To this I would also add that as far as marketing goes, high quality tv picture was often presented as if you were looking out of a picture window, which usually tends to be fairly wide. So I think the wider format if anything at least was more preferential when it came to stores selling them.
 
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The existence of good 4:3 photography would never be doubted. Artists always adapt to their medium. Given 4:3 to work with, the photographers did a great job with it. Given 16:9, they do a great job with it.
yes true, but will they have so many portrait shots 9:16 I think would look too narrow in a lot of cases

true most FPS games benefit from 16:9
but on my site zedzeek.com 8 games
2 better 16:9
6 better 4:3

the vast majority of games on phones/tablets benefit from 4:3
true on consoles I believe most games are better 16:9

edit: notice today googles new tablet theyve ditched 16:9 and gone with 4:3
 
Visual field preference is really a discussion for another thread. I'll just throw in that it's more psychological to prefer widescreen. The sky and the ground at your feet are generally irrelevant to understanding a situation - there's a reason why Hollywood chose the aspect ratios they did, and it was to get meaningful content onto their expensive film instead of filling the screen with clouds and road/grass.

...but is that the correct reason why Hollywood chose those aspect ratios? You might have a point that too much sky / road/grass is irrelevant to the overall experience, but I would think it also has to do with how films are made. If you look at a typical film set, you will often find that the microphones are above the cropped part of the picture - so there's a practical limit on how much vertical detail they can show. By cropping bottom and top, it's less obvious and gives them more than enough room to produce high quality film making with clear vocals/recordings.

Example:
bbc-dracula-filming.jpg


If we were still stuck with 4:3 ratios, the typical filming would be even more challenging I would think. I would therefore think that the 16:9 or 21:9 makes sense on many levels.
 
You're not cutting anything off, you have a wider field of view. Since almost all action in movies or games happen in the 7 feet immidiately above ground all the way to the horizon, there is very little point spending screen real estate above and below what is needed to display that.

If you fill your vision horizontally with a 16:9 monitor you're missing the top and bottom. If you also fill it vertically you wasting pixels off the side. But no-one does this, so you just end up with the top and bottom cut off.

In games, and particularly first person games you're frequently looking up and down. Portal wouldn't work without it. More vertical visibility can be a great plus. 16:9 is very restrictive for first person games. I'm very much looking forward to the Rift, assuming they don't letterbox the thing ...

Why would FOV be the same as 4:3? you have a wider screen and a wider field of view.

Some games restrict FOV for gameplay reasons. The can work for or against 4:3 monitors. Bioshock made some good compromises with its restrictions. In Team Fortress 2 you can set the same FOV for 4:3 as for 16:9. The game is better if you do, as it's a game where you have to look up and down. Left For Dead on the other hand make 4:3 use a horribly narrow FOV that practically breaks the game.

Nobody games in portrait mode. Nobody uses surround gaming by stacking monitors on top of each other. Why ? Because all you get is sky, ceilings and floors.

Millions of people used to game in portrait actually! It was incredibly common in the arcades. My monitor can pivot into portrait, and I've used it with my Dreamcast which has a good number of TATE mode games.

Reminds me, I need to get Ikaruga on Steam on flip my monitor on its side ... stacked monitors for vertical scrollers would be fucking awesome!

But regardless, just because protrait isn't ideal for most games, it doesn't mean that 4:3 should be judged the same as 3:4. Your eyes, after all are kinda 4:3 ish, and it must have had its uses over the millennia.

In 16:9
Alyx_Vance_cropped.jpg


You don't think the latter framing conveys more presence and intimacy ?

I'd probably think so in a movie, as like most other folks I've been conditioned to know that's what the director would want me to associate.

Not so in a game, particularly where I'm in control of the camera. More like with real life, I wouldn't need or even appreciate that kind of framing. It would be an intrusion. I want to see as much as possible and read cues more naturally.
 
But regardless, just because protrait isn't ideal for most games, it doesn't mean that 4:3 should be judged the same as 3:4. Your eyes, after all are kinda 4:3 ish, and it must have had its uses over the millennia.
Looking where you're walking and not tripping over things. How important is that in a computer game? ;)

The reason the human vision isn't circular is because our face limits the view. The brow extends to provide shade against the sun, but the cheeks remain clear so we can see the floor. 4:3 isn't inherently, organically better - circular and unrestrained would be the ideal. But if our eyes protruded on stalks, would we have built round TVs? I think not. Manufacturing favours rectangles. The TV is just a window, a picture. There's no more a right or more evolutionary suited image aspect for the eye's natural FOV as there is for a photograph, and cutting out rectangular photos from glossy paper is a darned sight easier and less wasteful than circular photos.

So I say the eye's FOV isn't the issue. It's about the content. As you say, a vertical shooter warrants a vertical aspect. But the majority of content is a better fit for a wider view, or at least at no disadvantage while the screens double as media sources.
 
My argument isn't an artistic one, it's about simple utility I suppose. I want the option for games to use as much as my vision as possible, as in various game types it can all be used for gameplay or immersion.

I'd rather a screen fit my natural vision as closely as it could and then the game chose - based on its objectives - which parts of it to use an which to border. And as the limiting factor in how big your tv / screen can be is normally physical width, with lots of free space to be larger vertically, I see the move to 16:9 as being, on the whole, "cutting off the top and bottom" rather than simply "going bigger at the sides".

There are some games seeing your feet would be useful btw, for example Resident Evil 4, stepping on man-traps in the grass ... FUUUU letterbox!!!
 
My argument isn't an artistic one, it's about simple utility I suppose. I want the option for games to use as much as my vision as possible, as in various game types it can all be used for gameplay or immersion.

I'd rather a screen fit my natural vision as closely as it could and then the game chose
That would only be true if your display extends down to around your feet. Otherwise, it remains a window, and as a window, it's best directed to accommodate the content to be shown.
There are some games seeing your feet would be useful btw, for example Resident Evil 4, stepping on man-traps in the grass ... FUUUU letterbox!!!
Yep. But then if you use 4:3, you don't see the guy running in on your left in COD, because your view width is truncated. The only real solution to that would be a fish-eye lens.

There are no perfect solutions to this problem outside of headsets. Given a compromise, the choice has to cover the majority of content, no? Which is what widescreen is doing AFAICS.
 
isnt there's some misconception in this discussion?

16:9 is not just cropped 4:3 and vise versa. I think Rodéric's post on page 3 visualize it well with the Lord of the rings screenshot. I also posted something like that on page 2 but a little bit wrong on the 4:3.

i think people that played Evil Within experienced this 1st person. the full-screen mode in the game is wrong, it just cut left-right. The modded full-screen mode from community is correct, it not simply crop but also adjust the field of view.

*assuming correct/incorrect from standard AR scaling and cropping on movies and the majority of proper PC games.
 
Makes me think it would be best to have square screens for games/videos, probably not for working though, as you need tools somewhere, so 16:9 makes it easy to have them on the sides...
 
Could you explain how this image is showing a 4:3 aspect ratio?

totally unscientific guess with no idea what's going on in here

KtHgV2x.jpg


G = 4:3 (240x180 = 43200 sq units)
B = 16:9 (256x144 = 36864 sq units)
R = 2.4:1 (288x120 = 34560 sq units)

I tried to maximize area coverage within the completely white area while keeping the boxes centered.
 
Could you explain how this image is showing a 4:3 aspect ratio?
I think it's just the suggestion that the visual field is pretty tall for its width, if you compare the visual field with "rectangular" regions of "typical aspect ratios."

Obviously that's not strictly "4:3"; it's a pretty oddly-shaped region, and the exact characteristics will differ by person. Not to mention, aspect ratio is generally defined for rectangular regions on a plane; we're looking at human visual field on a sphere, and it's not always even possible to project such viewing areas completely onto a plane (i.e. instances where the extent of horizontal peripheral vision exceeds 180 degrees).
 
totally unscientific guess with no idea what's going on in here

I tried to maximize area coverage within the completely white area while keeping the boxes centered.

The white area is only the area of depth perception.

Most people are still using 2d displays, so you have to use the grey area. ;)

By my reckoning, the grey area has an aspect ratio of 7:5, which is between 16:9 and 4:3.

Of course this is for straight-ahead vision. If eyes are allowed to move, then the width becomes greater since up/down vision is limited by cheeks and brow ridge while left/right vision isn't as obstructed.
 
You don't think the latter framing conveys more presence and intimacy ?
Cheers

When you paste one image ontop of the other you realise one is much bigger than the other, if both are 1024 pixels high why is one pic taller than the other?
fcVrkb7.jpg


edit: one pic is 96ppi the other is 72ppi (a bit misleading by whoever made them)
 
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And at 110 and 250 degrees, the visible area is beyond the limits of the given circle
Indeed. If you keep within the visible range (and that's including the peripheral vision which obviously doesn't make sense for a display), so from the corners at 250 degrees, 130 degrees, 300 degrees and 60 degrees, it ends up about a 3:2 aspect. If you stay within a 60 degrees either side of centre, you end up with pretty much the Academy ratio. Keeping edge-to-edge horizontal view within the binocular region, taller aspects would extend the display into the periphery.

Or basically, this diagram means squat when choosing display aspects. ;)
 
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