the adequate distance to view the game...

[squidgyb]

He's actually onto something here, though I'm not sure how well it would work in practice.

What he's getting at would work in a similar way to the tech demo that someone made using a wii remote, so that when you moved your head, the head traching follows and adjusts the field of view and perspective point to give an illusion of depth, though it's still displayed on a flat screen, and to any other viewpoint (like someone looking over your shoulder) it would look decidedly weird.

The problem I see is how then do you treat the pilots head - you would need to use the x/y/z translation axes as inputs for the faux 3d, and so would lose the 6 degrees of freedom we're used to using trackir/freetrack. we could still have 3dof, and I'm still not entirely sure how well this would work in practice. We would need to be able to map field of view to an axis, and then have some sort control via the x/y axis of the perspective point.

e: having re-read his comment, I think he just means the mapping of, say the z-axis of a trackir set to the fov setting. Much more doable than the idea I had. I'd still like some kind of control over the perspective point like I suggested though, it'd be... interesting to see the effects in this way, though it'd take a hell of a lot of configuring/fine tuning.

[Vorondil]

This would effectively transform the monitor to a 'holographic window' for one single user. It would be an awesome party trick, but as mentioned above, it would be unwieldly to use in a flight sim. Using rotating axles to rotate the camera and translating axles to reposition the holo-window might be feasible.

Anyhooo, this calculation should give the proper FoV for an adjustable distance, as long as monitor size and window sizes are known.

FoV = 2 * arctan( MonitorDiameter * cos( arctan(PixelsHeight/PixelsWidth) ) / 2)

This would make the FoV zoom out as you lean forward, giving you a single-user-holo-window.

[Kakashi]

I think it would be unwise and unhealthy to put in practive though you guys developped some pretty interesting ideas there, the only way to have a wide field of view would be to stick your face onto your screen (bad for your eyes), also if you have a small screen like me (17inch) and you need to get closer to it briefly to aim, or look at your instruments' readings it would increase the field of view making the instruments smaller as you try to get closer to them for reading.

So although the initial attempt would be to increase realism of point of view, it would really make it less realistic. Like I said before though he actually made some sense this time , with an interesting idea at first but it comes down to it being a little useless IMO.

[raaaid]

not necesarily

the only rule is that 10 pixels at 1 m got to be 5 pixels at 0.5 m

theres no need to take away the wide view

[Kakashi]

Originally Posted by raaaid

not necesarily

the only rule is that 10 pixels at 1 m got to be 5 pixels at 0.5 m

theres no need to take away the wide view

lol now you just confirmed what I said.

[raaaid]

imagine your using wide view at 1 m distance from the screen and the crosshair takes 20 pixels

6dof should make sure that gunsight takes 10 pixels when you move to 0.5 distance

this is the principle behind gunsights

but you can still use the widest view with this system as you see

[bongodriver]

Originally Posted by raaaid

imagine your using wide view at 1 m distance from the screen and the crosshair takes 20 pixels

6dof should make sure that gunsight takes 10 pixels when you move to 0.5 distance

this is the principle behind gunsights

but you can still use the widest view with this system as you see

Why?.......we don't need to throw in any more complications to this sim, just get on with ironing out the existing bugs, trackIR 6dof works just fine and everything you are hoping to achieve will become redundant when we finally have commercially available HD 3d dome projection.

[Kakashi]

Originally Posted by raaaid

imagine your using wide view at 1 m distance from the screen and the crosshair takes 20 pixels

6dof should make sure that gunsight takes 10 pixels when you move to 0.5 distance

this is the principle behind gunsights

but you can still use the widest view with this system as you see

You reconfirmed what I said yet again changing the values in your example, which brings nothing new to the equation. Let me dumb it out for you:

at one meter distance you have an object in game which appears to be of size x (call it 20 pixels if you will). Let's say that object is the speedometer.
From my little screen, with a small resolution (1280*768 I believe in game) I need to lean toward the screen in order to get the reading off that instrument of size x.

With your idea, if I do so and get closer to the screen (0.5 m) the speedometer will now be of size half a x (or 10 pixels.) effectively reducing its size by half, making it just as impossible (or difficult) to read.

So with your principle, getting closer to the cockpit would actually make it smaller... not really realistic is it?! The mistake you are making right now is to consider your computer's screen as a window. Indeed you have a wider and wider field of view as you get closer to it. But playing the game is not looking through a window, a person's field of view does not changes as he lean forwads.
Hopefully you get that much.

EDIT: Just did some math actually... So with my 17in screen if you principle is respected, when I sit a meter away from the screen, I should have a 13degree field of view vertically, and 20degrees horizontally.
If I would like to have a 30 degree field of view horizontally, sitting a meter away from my screen... I would need a 47inch screen. Now again, do you really think raaaid, that the Track IR has got it wrong for every games ?!
(Whaaaaaat? I take it waaaaaay too seriously?! what you guys are talking about )