Choice of aspect ratio for games *spawn
- Thread starter Malo
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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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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
...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:
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.
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 ...
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.
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
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.
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!!!
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!!!
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.
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.
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.
L. Scofield
Veteran
Well it's possible to adjust the vertical and horizontal FOVs separately in many games.
Could you explain how this image is showing a 4:3 aspect ratio?Actually, the human field of vision has a 4:3 aspect ratio:
BINOCULAR VISUAL FIELDS WITH HEAD AND EYES FIXED
http://vision.arc.nasa.gov/personnel/al/papers/64vision/17.htm
totally unscientific guess with no idea what's going on in here
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.
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).
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.
L. Scofield
Veteran
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?
edit: one pic is 96ppi the other is 72ppi (a bit misleading by whoever made them)
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That's about 7:5, which is wider than 4:3.
And at 110 and 250 degrees, the visible area is beyond the limits of the given circle, again suggesting that something wider than even 7:5 is preferable.
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.
Those are angles, though. Aspect ratio is width/height on a plane. Peripheral vision, in that sense, is infinitely wide.
For example, tan(65°)/tan(50°) = ~1.8
