Widescreen vs. Fullscreen Implementation

[scooby_dooby]

Sure peripheral means top and bottom, but the fact is that on all games you can usually see teh ground and the sky at the same time, that's basically representative of our normal vision.

So vertical is cosher, all is good.

But horizontally, you can't see anything outside of a small area in front of your face, this is completely opposite of our natural vision, where if someone is standing next to you you can see them without having to turn your entire head.

In additon horizontal peripheral vision is much more important to actuall gaming as it very rare that you need to see something slightly in front of and above your head, nor do you ever need to see anything down by your feet.

So horizontal view area is crap right now IMO, that's the problem not vertical viewing area, and I welcome ANY improvements to the horizontal view area. Who cares if it's 16:10, 16:9, 15:8, whatever...you gotta accept whatever the industry standard is and enjoy it for what it is.

 

[EasyRaider]

Becuase the optimal viewing distance from picture of a given hight is the same regardless of the aspect ratio of the image; and hence, the optimal vertical range of view is the same as well.

Where do you have that from? If I'm looking at a very wide image, I'll want to move a bit further away to see more of it at once.

That isn't natural, that is like playing Quake or whatever on a 4:3 monitor at an FOV of 110. Sure, some people do it but most people don't care to play in fisheye mode.

And a FOV of 110 in widescreen isn't fisheye? Where's the distinction?

And that they do in the very rudmentry way I mentioned above, but I doubt we will see much more than that as most people don't expect more or even care to see it in console games.

I'm afraid you're right. I expect more because we get more in quite a few PC games, and I know multiple aspect ratios is quite simple to do. In movies you would have to lose parts of the picture, whereas in games the picture is rendered on the fly, not really anything to lose, unless the desired aspect ratio just can't fit all vital information.

 

[EasyRaider]

Sure peripheral means top and bottom, but the fact is that on all games you can usually see teh ground and the sky at the same time, that's basically representative of our normal vision.

So vertical is cosher, all is good.

Is it? Looking straight ahead, I can spot motion at roughly 80 degrees down. You won't get anywhere near that playing a game. In 3D environments it's often vital to spot threats above you. So I'll welcome any improvement in FOV, horizontal and vertical, as long as the effective display area is big enough.

While 16:9 may be the most common forward-looking industry standard, 4:3 is still more widespread, and 16:10 is a competitor worth reckoning with.

 

[kyleb]

Where do you have that from? If I'm looking at a very wide image, I'll want to move a bit further away to see more of it at once.

Becuase optimal is what fills your view best, and our eyes have less view on the horzonal than they do the vertical. the really wide movies and such like the CinimaScope stuff were designed not to have people sit further back but rather to createinng a a wider imagine that extends past the average persons feild of view.

And a FOV of 110 in widescreen isn't fisheye? Where's the distinction?

In widescreen the fisheye is streched across the screen; but take that CS:S pic that shows the 16:9 image with the 4:3 image overlayed, rescale that whole thing to 4:3, and you will see fisheyed.

I'm afraid you're right. I expect more because we get more in quite a few PC games, and I know multiple aspect ratios is quite simple to do. In movies you would have to lose parts of the picture, whereas in games the picture is rendered on the fly, not really anything to lose, unless the desired aspect ratio just can't fit all vital information.

It doesn't matter if it is prerendered or not, to go from one aspect ratio of display to another to another you either have to crop part of the view, add letterboxing/pillerboxing to it, or distort the image to make it fit. Obviously, if these new games are going to be designed around widescreen resolutions; then the best option for 4:3 conversion is either letterboxing or croping depending on the conent just like how it is done with movies.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Sure, 2.35:1 looks great. But if I imagine myself playing like that, I really miss seeing more of what's going on above and below. We'll just have to agree to disagree here. :smile:

This talk of aspect ratios and stuff is pretty silly! eg. 2.35:1 cuts off top and bottom view does it? What if your screen is 16 foot high and you're sat 6 foot away? Still gonna miss the top and bottom?

If we work our way along with the argument of 'we could do with some more here' argument we find no solution. Lets start with a 4:3 15" monitor, 800x600. We're sat 3 foot away at a desk and it occupies 10% of our FOV. Hmmm, pretty blocky. So we up the resolution to 1024x768. Much nicer. Only it's a square shape that's not very natural. It'd be nice to have some more screen real-estate either side. Lets turn it into a widescreen. That's better, it's 1280x768 17" 16:9 now. Only of course propertionally we have less up-and-down vision than side vision. Let's add some extra space top and bottom.

That's given us a 19" 1280x960 4:3 screen. Resolution's dropped a bit per square inch with 4" more than our 15" starter screen. To get the same quality as we had earlier we need to sit a bit further away, to get the same pixel density per degree of vision. That gives us a 4:3 screen occupying 10% of our FOV. Still it'd be nice to have some extra space either side to produce a more naturally shaped image. Let's widescreen it to 16:9, 21" diagonal. Ugh, but we're still at the 19" resolution so let's bump up the resolution to 1600x900. That fits the FOV better. Only we don't have as much view up and down anymore. We need some more vertical room. Let's add some screen top and bottom, and bump the resolution up to fit, giving a 25" 4:3 1600x1200 screen. Well now it's so big at this distance that looking in the centre I can't really see what's going on at the screen's edges. Let's sit back a bit further so the screen occupies 10% of our FOV again. Ah, that's good. Now we can see everything. Still, it'd be nice to have some more screen realestate at the edges to get a more natural image. Let's widescreen it to a 28" screen. And we'd better bump up the resolution too, to a 1920x1080 image. That's nice, but of course we don't have as much top and bottom view now...

We don't have screen technology to provide realisitc panoramic viewing. That won't be around for ages unless you go with a headset. We're stuck with finite resolutions viewed from a distance. The size of the screen and the distance you sit determines image quality in terms of pixels per degree of vision. Aspect ratio determines how much of that finite screen space caters for horizontal space and how much caters for vertical space. You can't add more here and there; only chose the shape of the screen to take from one space and add it elsewhere. the original screens were round as that's all the projection technology allowed. CRTs project in a cone naturally. Later developments accomodated a slightly more horizontal space in 4:3, matching the human priority given to horizontal viewing angle. Subsequently developments have allowed for a wider screen even more akin to the human viewing angle. Technology is still alimiting factor.

If we have enough render power to drive 1920x1080, that's 2 million pixels. If you want a 10:1 (as BlueTsunami seems to suggest ) that'll be a resolution of 4470 x 447. 447 pixels high? That's worse than NTSC! Hardly high definition quality. Or you could go with 1600x1200, which would give a constrained feeling as it doesn't match the human's extended horizontal visual awareness. Or you could go with 1920x1080 which matches human vision reasonably well.

What it all comes down to is camera zoom. If you were to view the world through a rectangular window, loking out at a beautiful vista, and that hole were 4:3 in ratio, if you wanted to see more on either side that the walls were obscuring you'd move closer to the window. You'd see further, both up and down and left and right. Or if the window were 16:9 and you could see the outstretched seascape but not the nearby flowerbed nor the crimson clouds of the sunset above, you'd move closer to the window to get a less constrained view. Whatever the shape of the window if you want to see something obscured by the wall, you'd change your 'zoom' by repositioning yourself.

If you're playing an FPS on a 4:3 and need to see you horizontal periphery, zoom out to fit in more detail which also shows more sky and ground. If you're playing an FPS on 16:9 and can't see the aircraft above you, zoom out and expand your vertical view as well as your horizontal. Screen aspect doesn't determine how much you can see, only the ratio of up/down to left/right. All a screen's aspect decides is the shape of the window into the 3D world. It makes sense to me to try and match the natural human propertions of vision. Widescreen with a simulated 50mm lens suits that pretty well for current technology, providing more pixels for horizontal viewing than vertical because the human FOV takes in more horizontal view than vertical. That's also a step towards the ideal. If we had the technology a 23,500x10,000 display would fill the FOV with enough resolution to be watchable (you can sit with you knows four inches from your 17" monitor to have it fill your FOV but you wouldn't what to play any games like that!) and provide all the horizontal and vertical imagery your eyes can take in. Of course there'd still be occassions whena plane flying overhead doesn't fit into that peripheral vision. What you REALLY need is an ability to move the camera where you want to see...

But there are no answers. You could have a 4:3 screen and fish eye lens to see all around you. You could have a 4:3 50mm lens based image and see more above and below, but not as much to the side. You could have 16:9, 50 mm lens, and see more on your sides and less above and below. Twiddling around with the screen ratio is never going to fix that. There'll always be a trade off.

 

[EasyRaider]

It doesn't matter if it is prerendered or not, to go from one aspect ratio of display to another to another you either have to crop part of the view, add letterboxing/pillerboxing to it, or distort the image to make it fit. Obviously, if these new games are going to be designed around widescreen resolutions; then the best option for 4:3 conversion is either letterboxing or croping depending on the conent just like how it is done with movies.

I don't buy this "designed around widescreen". A reasonably designed game should work well with somewhat different aspect ratios, except perhaps in specific cutscenes, but I don't care about letterboxing then.

 

[EasyRaider]

This talk of aspect ratios and stuff is pretty silly! eg. 2.35:1 cuts off top and bottom view does it? What if your screen is 16 foot high and you're sat 6 foot away? Still gonna miss the top and bottom?

No, but then I think the width would be utter overkill. Anyway, to fill the full human field of view, you really need a curved display (or project directly onto the retina).

(...)
But there are no answers. You could have a 4:3 screen and fish eye lens to see all around you. You could have a 4:3 50mm lens based image and see more above and below, but not as much to the side. You could have 16:9, 50 mm lens, and see more on your sides and less above and below. Twiddling around with the screen ratio is never going to fix that. There'll always be a trade off.

Agreed.

If all displays were 16:9, then fine, I would be satisfied with that. But since we have a large variety, I think games should be developed to fit different ones, and not essentially enforce a specific tradeoff for everyone. It'll take a little extra effort, but hardly significant with the expected next-gen budgets (or so I hope).

 

[kyleb]

I don't buy this "designed around widescreen".

That is something you'd have to take up with MS as they are the ones who set the 720p standard for their console.

A reasonably designed game should work well with somewhat different aspect ratios, except perhaps in specific cutscenes, but I don't care about letterboxing then.

And that is exactly wha widescreen games do, and they do it by croping the widescreen viewhorizontally for 4:3 displays. Loosing a bit of the sides and running cutsceeens in widescreen is exactly how Halo2 works and judging from how many people bought that it seems the consensus is that it works well.

 

[EasyRaider]

And that is exactly wha widescreen games do, and they do it by croping the widescreen viewhorizontally for 4:3 displays. Loosing a bit of the sides and running cutsceeens in widescreen is exactly how Halo2 works and judging from how many people bought that it seems the consensus is that it works well.

I never claimed it doesn't work well, it's just not obviously "correct".

What I really don't want is games which works in 16:9 only, practically enforcing black bars on less wide displays. I don't consider zooming in (potentially cutting parts of the GUI and wasting fillrate) or stretching viable options.

 

[kyleb]

Actually you did say:

A reasonably designed game should work well with somewhat different aspect ratios.

And cropping the 3d view for 4:3 gameplay is exactly how they make it work well in games like Halo2.

And of course developers will only zoom in the 3d view when they make 4:3 options, you don't have to worry about any HUD getting cut off. As for games only supporting widescreen aspect ratio, I doubt we will see much of that compared to all the current console and PC games which don't support widescreen.

 

[soylent]

In HL2 the 4:3 format uses a measily 75 degree FOV(which is one of the reasons some sensitive people got motion sickness along with some stuttering issues), and this is why 16:9 does not suffer from serious distortion in HL2.

Some of you seem to strive after a "natural" field of view in games. Where the monitor occupies the same field of view in real life as it does in the game or something along those lines.

(I find this impractical gameplay wise, I prefer not having to turn my head 90 degrees to look at my health meter/bar/inventory/HUD element; I prefer to feel like I am not playing in mode x but with 32-bit colours because I have my nose almost touching my screen; I don't want to waste money on pixels I'm not going to use/look at.

I like having a decent vertical field of view(which you cannot in 9:5 without severe distortion at the edges of the screen(75 degrees vertical FOV, which is quite reasonable, means 135 degrees horisontal FOV in 9:5 and would be just as distorted as 135 degree FOV in 4:3 except with top and bottom cropped off(if moving closer to your screen so it covered more of your field of view in real life somehow lessened the distortion it would work just as well with 4:3 screens(BTW. I hate people who nest parenthesis so deep you forget what they are talking about )))).

If I look at a 9:5 screen I will just move back until it covers maybe 40-60 degrees of my field of view in real life which feels like playing in split screen or something already.)

 

[randycat99]

I'm glad to see FOV effect being brought up, as I think this could be a big perk for widescreen presentation in games (at least for me). I hope we will get to enjoy more natural FOV settings in 16:9 games, rather than the highly fish-eyed view that most FPS games seem to have these days. That $hit gives me a headache! If I can now jump into next gen FPS, widescreen games w/o getting severe headaches after a mere 10 minutes, that will be wonderful. I don't even bother with FPS games anymore these days, unless there is something specific about the storyline or story genre that really interests me. Even then, the chances are pretty low that I stick around to the end of the game (I need some serious enjoyment to draw me in to outweigh the growing headache and resultant downtime for me afterwards, waiting for the headache to subside).

 

[soylent]

I'm glad to see FOV effect being brought up, as I think this could be a big perk for widescreen presentation in games (at least for me). I hope we will get to enjoy more natural FOV settings in 16:9 games, rather than the highly fish-eyed view that most FPS games seem to have these days. That $hit gives me a headache! If I can now jump into next gen FPS, widescreen games w/o getting severe headaches after a mere 10 minutes, that will be wonderful. I don't even bother with FPS games anymore these days, unless there is something specific about the storyline or story genre that really interests me. Even then, the chances are pretty low that I stick around to the end of the game (I need some serious enjoyment to draw me in to outweigh the growing headache and resultant downtime for me afterwards, waiting for the headache to subside).

If it looks distorted in 4:3 it's going to look just as bad in 9:5.(there is nothing magical about the aspect ratio that would make a huge horisontal field of view not look distorted.

If you want to have the same vertical FOV to avoid 9:5 feeling claustrophobic and mailbox like you will need a very high FOV horisontally, and this will look much worse than 4:3 does.

 

[randycat99]

My point was that the extra horizontal display area may encourage less aggressive (more natural) FOV settings in coming games. That would have seemed to be the whole motivation for introducing such funky FOV settings in all these 4:3 games in the first place- to squeeze more horizontal information into a limited horizontal window. It would not seem to me that horizontal and vertical FOV settings need be inherently tied together. You should be able to pick whatever is suitable for either, but probably they shouldn't deviate too far from each other.

 

[soylent]

My point was that the extra horizontal display area may encourage less aggressive (more natural) FOV settings in coming games. That would have seemed to be the whole motivation for introducing such funky FOV settings in all these 4:3 games in the first place- to squeeze more horizontal information into a limited horizontal window.

I'm unclear on how this could happen. "Horisontal FOV" is the angle between the two vertical sides in the view frustum extending out from the viewer. This angle fully defines how much you see horisontally. Your horisontal resolution does not make any difference but for quality.

It would not seem to me that horizontal and vertical FOV settings need be inherently tied together. You should be able to pick whatever is suitable for either, but probably they shouldn't deviate too far from each other.

The aspect ratio of the device makes them dependent of each other. If you don't use the same ratio as your aspect ratio then things change shape as they rotate. People look like overweight midgets standing up and anorexic giants laying down.

If you are striving for as much as possible in view but the least distortion you want a 1:1 aspect ratio. Or even better, a circular display device.

 

[randycat99]

Your horisontal resolution does not make any difference but for quality.

It can affect quality, sure. It can also be implemented to add to the scenery- essentially increasing FOV in a natural manner (assuming the screen size is physically growing in that dimension, in like). I believe that was the basis for much discussion that occurred earlier in the topic- that a particular scenario of cropping a 16:9 presentation to 4:3 would essentially remove crucial "scenery" that could put the player at a disadvantage. The FOV has essentially changed. Now the game designer could compensate for this and tweak the rendering to incorporate the same FOV in the 4:3 that is present in the 16:9, at the expense of some geometric distortion (artificially squeezing more imagery in from the sides, but not evenly, such that straight-on view still looks fairly natural, with the effect being more progressive as you look closer to the sides of the image). Essentially we end up with the FPS games we currently have (that also give me a headache, unfortunately) with the funky distortions that allow you to see more, but are visually unnatural (though some gameplayers will certainly acclimate better than others).

I'm not too worried that 16:9 would suddenly make FOV more unnatural or even merely equally unnatural, when movie presentations have done exactly that for what, decades? They look natural, they don't give me headaches to watch, yet the panoramic view provides a great expanse of scenery in the horizontal dimension. For a given screen presentation, there will be a natural FOV, and I hope widescreen game designers put that to good use (it's certainly not impossible that they could just as easily push the FOV even more, giving you something like bug-eye peripheral vision on a 16x9 presentation).

 

[soylent]

It can affect quality, sure. It can also be implemented to add to the scenery- essentially increasing FOV in a natural manner (assuming the screen size is physically growing in that dimension, in like). I believe that was the basis for much discussion that occurred earlier in the topic- that a particular scenario of cropping a 16:9 presentation to 4:3 would essentially remove crucial "scenery" that could put the player at a disadvantage. The FOV has essentially changed.

Or you could provide the same horisontal FOV in 4:3, only with a less restrictive vertical FOV such that 16:9 would essentially be a cropped version of 4:3. This choice is of course quite arbitrary, and you could do any combination inbetween.

Now the game designer could compensate for this and tweak the rendering to incorporate the same FOV in the 4:3 that is present in the 16:9, at the expense of some geometric distortion (artificially squeezing more imagery in from the sides, but not evenly, such that straight-on view still looks fairly natural, with the effect being more progressive as you look closer to the sides of the image).

But this would lead to absolutely deformed geometry, no one does this!

Horisontal and vertical field of view still need to be in the same proportion as the aspect ratio or things change shape as they rotate. What I am arguing is that you can "compensate" if you wish to call it that, for using 4:3 instead of 9:5 or 16:9 by changing the vertical field of view and the amount of percieved distortion will only change very little(due to the corners being slightly farther from the center of the picture in 4:3 than in 16:9).

Essentially we end up with the FPS games we currently have (that also give me a headache, unfortunately) with the funky distortions that allow you to see more, but are visually unnatural (though some gameplayers will certainly acclimate better than others).

We ended up there because the opposite is much more annoying to most people. If you make a too small field of view you get rid of the distortion, unfortunetly it becomes rather unplayable as you don't see what you are doing and it has a tendency to make people kinda motion sick(e.g. HL2 which only uses 75 degrees horisontal FOV for 4:3 resolution).

I'm not too worried that 16:9 would suddenly make FOV more unnatural or even merely equally unnatural, when movie presentations have done exactly that for what, decades?

What are you basing this on? I have seen no evidence that movies today are using a larger horisontal field of view today than they did before.

In my experience movies today are using about the same horisontal field of view as they always did, albeit with less vertical field.

They look natural, they don't give me headaches to watch, yet the panoramic view provides a great expanse of scenery in the horizontal dimension.

Movies are not games. Movies, IMHO, use a rather low horisontal field of view as far as I can tell and a really meager vertical field of view that I don't find satisfactory at all. But they can get away with this without much complaint because every shot is coregraphed and planned before hand. There is no action to miss, everything happens on camera.

For a given screen presentation, there will be a natural FOV

No, this is largely subjective when you do not have a format(if you shoot a movie in 16:9 aspect ratio, of course it will look best at 16:9 aspect ratio when played back instead of cropped or stretched. But with games you get to choose the camera you want to use when filming).

Although some things are better fit to some aspect ratios to some extent. In a racing sim you will always be looking along the horison so 4:3 wastes a lot of pixels on uninteresting things like the skybox and the ground, pixels that in 16:9 at the same horisontal FOV would have led to increased quality of the things we care about(the horison, scenery, cars, obstacles). On the other extreme we have space sims with 6 DOF and no preffered direction at all like the classic descent; where 16:9 severely limits vertical FOV as you cannot do a high horisontal FOV without significant distortion except for when using weird projections like cylindrical.

and I hope widescreen game designers put that to good use (it's certainly not impossible that they could just as easily push the FOV even more, giving you something like bug-eye peripheral vision on a 16x9 presentation).

It would be severely distorted, much worse than all those "unnatural" 4:3 games OR, it would use some innovative mode of projection lika cylindrical projection. But doing so would inherently give you a very narrow vertical field of view(things on the top and bottom of the screen are stretched horisontally and will be seen to shrink in this direction when turning to look at them. This distortion will be minimal when using a small vertical FOV, but will rapidly become extremely annoyingvery rapidly becomes worse as you increase vertical field of view). This is the type of projection you generally see on rectangular maps of the globe. At the poles the distortion is so severe that a single point(the north and south poles) take up the entire upper and lower edge of the map.

(A simple calculation on the amount of distortion for cylindrical projection gives that: At only 50 degrees vertical FOV objects will be seen to expand by 10 percent when at the top of the screen compared to at the center, and at 80 degrees vertical FOV this will be up to 30% and I cannot imagine this being anywhere near tolerable.