Stop the Bobbing and Shaking!

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a hamburger
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Stop the Bobbing and Shaking!

Post by a hamburger »

:announce: Please, please please please please, PLEASE ... Stop the Bobbing and Shaking! :announce:

I want to make it very clear that the human body, and, in particular, the human brain, has extraordinary systems of motion-stabilization, that camera producers have only recently picked up on. This means you see a beautifully smooth visual experience, almost as if you're gliding, even in rough conditions. If you don't get such an experience, I STRONGLY recommend visiting your doctor and explaining this problem. It is NOT normal.

If you get the chance, I beg of you to explain the same thing to all game-makers and film-makers everywhere (copy and paste, quote, whatever), because the cheap handycam experience (or as I like to call it, "puke cam" or "dizzy cam") does not add any realism, as normal healthy people do not see that way, and most certainly does not add to the professionalism of a movie or game. It just makes people dizzy and confused about what's happening. It's also used to add "action" to a scene, but the problem is, if there isn't action already going on, shaking the camera does not help add action to a plain sequence. :thumbdown: :frown:

Furthermore, I have carried a real live weapon :lasgun: before, and I keep my gun as smooth and steady as my view or else I can't see or hit crap. I don't prance around swinging my head and gun like a loony :bugeyes: . Unfortunately, that's exactly what it seems like in Unvanquished at the moment. Unvanquished is great :grin: , and it's developing nicely :smile: . Keep it very easily and widely moddable, and you've got yourself an addict :drool: here. But at the moment, I'm sorry to say Unvanquished makes me feel nauseous :frown: . Please HELP!

Now, for the question part: Are there any options or vars in particular that head-bob and weapon-bob can be disabled, as well as any jitteryness that happens when moving around a lot? In essence, how can I get my in-game view to be as smooth as an eagle's graceful glide? And I strongly advise putting focus on having as smooth a view as possible, and have bobbing of everything as extra options for masochists.

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ViruS
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Re: Stop the Bobbing and Shaking!

Post by ViruS »

Bobbing is fun though! :advgranger: :granger: :advgranger: :granger: :advgranger: :granger:
"Sunrise... sunset. Sunrise... sunset... " - Fiddler on the Roof (Musical Film/Drama Play)

If it makes you dizzy, I think quake 3's combat is worse for you. Most of the time I don't even notice bobbing, and a lot of people don't find it hard to quick/jerk-shot. The only one where it does kinda bother me is the tyrant's charge.

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Tom
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Re: Stop the Bobbing and Shaking!

Post by Tom »

Although this does not bother me, it is true that head bobbing make some persons sick, therefore, if you can easily disable it with a new cvar, why not?

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Viech
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Re: Stop the Bobbing and Shaking!

Post by Viech »

I just noticed it after a hamburger's post. I'm not sure what it does for atmosphere but I'm certain the slight bobbing while walking/sprinting isn't in any way important for gameplay. I'd vote to remove it and see whether the game feels less realistic that way. (And even if it does, there are plenty of options we haven't yet tried.)

Any vetos? Thoughts?

Responsible for: Arch Linux package & torrent distribution, Parpax (map), Chameleon (map texture editor), Sloth (material file generator), gameplay design & programming, artistic direction

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kharnov
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Re: Stop the Bobbing and Shaking!

Post by kharnov »

Make one option to control everything. cg_atmosphere or something. If you want the game to feel realistic at the cost of some performance, everything will be enabled at once. On the other hand, if you're one of those pro gamer types that doesn't care, turn it off.

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Viech
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Re: Stop the Bobbing and Shaking!

Post by Viech »

No kharnov, I feel this is what we've been doing for a while and it failed badly. We have first person claws that you pretty much have to disable as soon as you can win against bots because they obscure most of your view during combat. We have color grading effects that tint the whole screen permantently and made me disable colorgrading alltogether months ago (when Tim was still here, he did the same…). We can't continue to add or tolerate crappy features and justify them by allowing users to turn them off. This will result in inconsistent looks of our game and out of the box it will just feel like a mess that has never seen the mercy of a designer, because all of them have opted out at some point (or became indifferent about it, which is even worse for the quality of thegame).

We have to set our goals a tad higher if we still think that competitive play and graphics are mutually exclusive. And by that I mean we should rip out all the "features" that don't satisfy both aims in some way and replace them with something better if there is the need to do so.

Responsible for: Arch Linux package & torrent distribution, Parpax (map), Chameleon (map texture editor), Sloth (material file generator), gameplay design & programming, artistic direction

metaschima
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Re: Stop the Bobbing and Shaking!

Post by metaschima »

I also dislike view bobbing. I don't think it adds any realism to the game as I do not waddle when I walk in real life.

View shaking would better be used when getting hit or injured or pounced upon, that would add realism.

Adding a cvar or removing it completely is fine with me.

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kharnov
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Re: Stop the Bobbing and Shaking!

Post by kharnov »

What? People don't waddle in real life? I must be doing something wrong.

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Veyrdite
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Re: Stop the Bobbing and Shaking!

Post by Veyrdite »

View bobbing is serious issue for some players, some out of necessity to be able to handle the game video, not just mere taste.

Hamburger is right about the human processing of video content: players already deal with their own slight head movements, filtering out saccades (blinks, eye movement) and ignoring distracting foreground content such as their nose and arms in order to focus on what is being communicated on-screen. I don't believe people have had issues with first person guns before (smaller than the alien FP models?) -- but many games still provide options to relocate or remote them. For some people the extra layer of movement or very-close foreground objects is too much.

I personally have trouble tracking moving objects on-screen. To avoid problems I tend to fixate my vision on my reticle, rather than on enemies and walls, then try to centre my reticle on my opponents. This is the opposite to what most people do: focus on the target and bring the reticle to line up with the focus of vision. Although this problem can't be fixed within the scope of this project (/me looks for a nice high refresh rate CRT) I believe many people have their own personal problems with computer games that stop them from fully engaging with them for long.

Also: while doing a few minutes of research on head bobbing I found some interesting community responses. Some people catch on and include toggling as a feature, others tell players to f* off because they don't have the problem themselves. :D

[rant]
Keep in mind that pretty art is very new to the Unvanq line of games. Previously gameplay and ideas have ruled, now a third lobbyist has appeared. I'm going to be conservative and say that it's the gameplay and ideas that will continue to matter more, so as much as nice art is great, it needs to stand in second position for assessing how changes will modify the player experience.

The advances made to this game project by the skills of the artists are tremendous: in consequence making it much more appealing for players to pick up and keep playing. On the other hand art is also a difficult field to compete in: many commercial games sell themselves on heritage (like Unvanq has) and appearances alone. Both extremes of art quality are detrimental to a project.

kharnov wrote:

Make one option to control everything. cg_atmosphere or something. If you want the game to feel realistic at the cost of some performance, everything will be enabled at once. On the other hand, if you're one of those pro gamer types that doesn't care, turn it off.

That would make players have to choose to polarise their view one way or another, which probably isn't best :)

[/rant]
We need to look at how changes affect the game in all terms of quality: gameplay, appearance, comfort for players, comfort for developers, etc. Assessing multiple goals also helps avoid the law of diminishing returns biting as hard.

Most of all: problems such as colour grading and first person alien models are not dead ends. They can be improved to better ensure they work better and/or don't detriment certain things as much. Making the FP models smaller & more subtle for example could be a possible improvement. (I'm just throwing a random idea)

Spiney
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Re: Stop the Bobbing and Shaking!

Post by Spiney »

The weapon bobbing is too pronounced I think. If you tone it down by 50% it would look better.

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