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3D Television and Gaming
An Arse
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Heya,
I was going to make a thread about this at some point, today's comic just pushed that forward as it is extremely relevant. In case you are wondering, a 3D television without goggles on looks like a blurry screen with 2 copies of the screen split apart like you are crosseyed. The further apart they are the more the effects have been cracked up.
So I am lucky enough to have regular access to one of this awesome devices, a friend of mine recently splashed out on a 22" TV with a set of goggles. I think, it was £400 for the TV and £60 per pair of glasses, so yes it's a pain in the wallet.
There are pros and cons to this new technology and in my eyes it doesn't seem quite complete yet, in a few years I imagine it will be even more amazing.
It uses the distance value in a game to work out the depth of an object from the player, this means aside from the official compatibility list it will basically work, to varying degrees, with any DirectX game. It can't handle some post processing effects, such a bloom, as these are flat and applied over the entire screen but don't worry anti-aliasing works and that is most important.
Another drawback of the technology at this stage is that it requires an awful lot of setting tweaking to get the 3D looking correct. There are two settings, converge which gives it the pop out of the screen effect and depth which gives the far distance effect, these need to be adjusted for each game until you get the effect you are looking for.
For example, for racing games I like to have a lot of depth, which makes the long parts of the track literally look like they are miles away... it's like you could put your hand into your television.
For shooters I prefer more converge, which means my gun is rendered beautifully in 3D and pops out of the screen at me, converge is great for when you are up an close on objects, fences and barbed wire look AMAZING with this setting. So when you are taking cover behind a wall, sandbag or other object it really gives you the feeling that you are actually there!
You cannot have the extremes of both at the same time, the 3D just stops working. I have also noticed that the higher you set either of these values the more strain it puts on your eyes, high converge sets the point your eyes are actually focusing on somewhere behind your head, which is a weird feeling and your eyes will hurt if you do it for too long.
It should also be noted that not everyone can see in 3D. You have to take a test beforehand and on some people it just doesn't work because of how their eyes work.
The goggles themselves are really good, I thought they would be bulky things but they are just shades as pictured in todays PA comic. They have a little button on the left side frame that you can push to turn them on and off and the only bad point is that they are dark tinted so, as 3D TV works best at night, you get that "arg the TV is blinding me" feeling when you take them off.
Another issue is you can get a crosseyed effect on crosshairs, which is a flat overlay ontop the 3d, so there appears to be two of them. The goggles have a laser dot effect which somewhat counters this flaw.
Despite the flaws I still highly rate this technology. It's amazingly impressive to watch and adds considerably to the immersion.
Imagine you are playing L4D, walking through a seemingly empty building, long corridors stretching out before you.
You walk past the corpse of an unfortunate zombie victim, flies are buzzing around it flying around at different depths as if they where actually in the room with you.
Then you hear the familiar purr of a hunter... too late! It leaps on top of you, catching you unaware, popping out of the screen as it claws at your face! Your team mate then promptly shoots in the head, sending gore flying realistically in all directions....
It's hard to describe how well it works and obviously screenshots can't be taken. Firstly it is definitely considerably better than you are imagining, I was quite sceptic at first, and secondly it is a considerably different effect to the old red/green plastic 3D goggle effect we are used to.
We have tried a lot of games with it so far and are in the process of making a list of games, not on the official list, that work especially well.
A couple of the best for 3D effect I personally have played so far have been Audiosurf and Testdrive Unlimited because both these games have long stretches and clean graphics the depth effect just works perfectly. It's great fun to drive around Hawaii on Testdrive in cockpit view, it's literally like you are sitting in the drivers seat of a real car.
To sum up this wall of text...
3D TV is amazing
Too expensive for me at the moment.
Limitations are on your eyes, more than the technology.
Long periods of use _will_ hurt your eyes, this won't sneak up on you, take a break if your eyes start to feel strained.
Not yet perfect but still awesome.
I was going to make a thread about this at some point, today's comic just pushed that forward as it is extremely relevant. In case you are wondering, a 3D television without goggles on looks like a blurry screen with 2 copies of the screen split apart like you are crosseyed. The further apart they are the more the effects have been cracked up.
So I am lucky enough to have regular access to one of this awesome devices, a friend of mine recently splashed out on a 22" TV with a set of goggles. I think, it was £400 for the TV and £60 per pair of glasses, so yes it's a pain in the wallet.
There are pros and cons to this new technology and in my eyes it doesn't seem quite complete yet, in a few years I imagine it will be even more amazing.
It uses the distance value in a game to work out the depth of an object from the player, this means aside from the official compatibility list it will basically work, to varying degrees, with any DirectX game. It can't handle some post processing effects, such a bloom, as these are flat and applied over the entire screen but don't worry anti-aliasing works and that is most important.
Another drawback of the technology at this stage is that it requires an awful lot of setting tweaking to get the 3D looking correct. There are two settings, converge which gives it the pop out of the screen effect and depth which gives the far distance effect, these need to be adjusted for each game until you get the effect you are looking for.
For example, for racing games I like to have a lot of depth, which makes the long parts of the track literally look like they are miles away... it's like you could put your hand into your television.
For shooters I prefer more converge, which means my gun is rendered beautifully in 3D and pops out of the screen at me, converge is great for when you are up an close on objects, fences and barbed wire look AMAZING with this setting. So when you are taking cover behind a wall, sandbag or other object it really gives you the feeling that you are actually there!
You cannot have the extremes of both at the same time, the 3D just stops working. I have also noticed that the higher you set either of these values the more strain it puts on your eyes, high converge sets the point your eyes are actually focusing on somewhere behind your head, which is a weird feeling and your eyes will hurt if you do it for too long.
It should also be noted that not everyone can see in 3D. You have to take a test beforehand and on some people it just doesn't work because of how their eyes work.
The goggles themselves are really good, I thought they would be bulky things but they are just shades as pictured in todays PA comic. They have a little button on the left side frame that you can push to turn them on and off and the only bad point is that they are dark tinted so, as 3D TV works best at night, you get that "arg the TV is blinding me" feeling when you take them off.
Another issue is you can get a crosseyed effect on crosshairs, which is a flat overlay ontop the 3d, so there appears to be two of them. The goggles have a laser dot effect which somewhat counters this flaw.
Despite the flaws I still highly rate this technology. It's amazingly impressive to watch and adds considerably to the immersion.
Imagine you are playing L4D, walking through a seemingly empty building, long corridors stretching out before you.
You walk past the corpse of an unfortunate zombie victim, flies are buzzing around it flying around at different depths as if they where actually in the room with you.
Then you hear the familiar purr of a hunter... too late! It leaps on top of you, catching you unaware, popping out of the screen as it claws at your face! Your team mate then promptly shoots in the head, sending gore flying realistically in all directions....
It's hard to describe how well it works and obviously screenshots can't be taken. Firstly it is definitely considerably better than you are imagining, I was quite sceptic at first, and secondly it is a considerably different effect to the old red/green plastic 3D goggle effect we are used to.
We have tried a lot of games with it so far and are in the process of making a list of games, not on the official list, that work especially well.
A couple of the best for 3D effect I personally have played so far have been Audiosurf and Testdrive Unlimited because both these games have long stretches and clean graphics the depth effect just works perfectly. It's great fun to drive around Hawaii on Testdrive in cockpit view, it's literally like you are sitting in the drivers seat of a real car.
To sum up this wall of text...
3D TV is amazing
Too expensive for me at the moment.
Limitations are on your eyes, more than the technology.
Long periods of use _will_ hurt your eyes, this won't sneak up on you, take a break if your eyes start to feel strained.
Not yet perfect but still awesome.
An Arse on
0
Posts
I also don't want to pick up this tv and buy two pairs of glasses, then have to buy an nvidia 3d card and another pair of glasses for my htpc.
It's a bit of a mindfield at the moment.
PSN: SirGrinchX
Oculus Rift: Sir_Grinch
I don't know about you guys, but I don't watch TV like a slave to the Television. I have the TV on in the background. Sometimes I will watch a program, but even then I usually get up during commercial breaks to do things around the house or check the internets.
I sure as hell am NOT going to wear those damned uncomfortable glasses all the time, on top of my normal glasses. Nor am I willing to shell out big bucks so my friends can have there own glasses. Hell, after Homecoming last year I had sometthing like 20 people in the apartment watching a football game on TV. No way a 3DTV would work in that situation.
3DS Friend Code: 0404-6826-4588 PM if you add.
There are only a few monitors right now that do 120hz, so if you got the Nvidia 3d route you'll need to pony up for the monitor too. The whole deal set me back 400 about a year ago. 3d gaming on the PC is a hit or miss experience. A lot of games work incredibly well with it (Left 4 Dead, World of Warcraft, Starcraft 2, pretty much any FPS really), some work good or okay, and the rest are kinda blah.
I'm not sure how the 3d console games will work but it doesn't seem like there will be too many of them... I'm glad to see this technology being the focus of a lot of companies though, having the option to view this stuff in 3d is great.
How's the 3D in WoW? Isn't it a hindrance say...during a 3 hour raid?
If you don't 3d a lot then you'll want to take a lot of breaks when you can by looking away simply because your eyes will get tired. I would use the 3d glasses when running 5 mans or dailies or what have you - I rarely used the 3d glasses when raiding simply because it can be distracting.
The 3d in WoW is amazing though, it's one of the only games to support the out-of-screen 3D effect. It's pretty cool to walk up to a titan grip warrior and his sword comes out of your monitor and pokes you in the nose. I believe Starcraft 2 will support this as well when you zoom in, although I haven't played it with full 3d support yet (probably will happen on release).
Since I don't play WoW anymore I mainly use the 3d for Left 4 Dead...I never tried them with TF2 which I will do today actually.
Bingo. We don't watch TV like we do movies.
That's not even going into the possible health issues for some adults and definitely for kids under the age of seven.
Like the idea, but I think it's fine where it is. This is more TV manufacturers trying desperately to get people to buy the next big thing
The tech works fine outside of health issues. It's the cost that's prohibitive. What's your budget and how many people are going to be watching?
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/
I write about video games and stuff. It is fun. Sometimes.
Reminds me of the Virtual Boy box/manual. It was like 5 pages before you even got to anything besides "WARNING: THIS DEVICE CAN HURT DEVELOPING EYES."
3DS Friend Code: 0404-6826-4588 PM if you add.
And how long until you can buy perscription 3D glasses? This is literally the only downside to the 3D trend for me right now. Putting them on, hanging them down on my nose and leaning my head back is the only way I could sit through Avatar and Toy Story 3 and it kind of sucks.
I figure in another 2 years or so I'll need to upgrade, and 3D will likely have found it's groove by then. Hopefully no glasses required, too.
I just cannot fathom buying one now, though. Makes no sense.
Switch - SW-3699-5063-5018
3D TV doesn't actually work with television broadcasts at the moment. To watch films they have to be specially designed to be viewed in 3D as, unlike video games, they have nothing that defines the distance of an object from you. Avatar is one movie that is available in 3D.
I can't speak for all 3D glasses but the Nvidia one I've used where okay. They aren't too comfortable resting on your ears but they are tight enough, at least on my head, that you can place them a little higher and they just grip your head. Which is fine.
You shouldn't be wearing them for too long a period anyway, as you would risk eye strain if you did.
If I actually owned them myself and comfort was an issue I would just modify the glasses. I would do what I did with my old headset and wrap some of that black stretchy padding stuff from a pair of old headphones around the ear parts to stop them digging in.
I can see how if you already wear glasses you might experience issues, I can't see any way around this apart from wearing contacts. I can't comprehend a way of having 3D TV without goggles as our eyes where just never intended for that sort of thing.
Aumni I'm surprised you can play WoW in 3D without destroying your eyes. Even a 5 man instance can take over an hour and that would be a little too much for my eyes to take.
You're shitting yourself if you think Glasses-free TVs will be widely available in 2 years.
3DS Friend Code: 0404-6826-4588 PM if you add.
You put them over your normal glasses. Your mileage may vary.
Note, the glasses for 3DTV are battery-powered and synced to the set. They aren't passive like the movie theatre ones. That's not even going into the fact, that currently glasses are tied to a manufacturer. Your Sony glasses may not work on a friend's Samsung set.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/
I write about video games and stuff. It is fun. Sometimes.
3DS? That tech will make it to TVs sooner or later.
I wear BTE Hearing aids, too, so that's another mark against glasses.
As for gaming with 3D....I think it has a long way to go. Right now it's too much money and too specialized. Sony can rap about it all they want but the fact is their 3D games have their own problems, like reduced framerate.
Eyestrain would be a MAJOR issue, too.
3DS Friend Code: 0404-6826-4588 PM if you add.
TF2... I forgot about that game. I bet it will work amazing in 3D, cell shaded games tend to work especially well in my opinion. I'll have to let my friend on my Steam account so we can play it later
XIII for example, is amazing in 3D.
I think he was talking about Console games in 3D being specialized.
As far as Eye strain goes I constantly take 10-30 second breaks when using the 3D, although I rarely experience discomfort even after 2-3 hours. Adjusting the amount of 3d effect helps too, usually a medium level is fine for both your eyes and the 3d experience.
PC Gaming is still specialized since you have to have the correct monitor and a new graphics card, too.
3DS Friend Code: 0404-6826-4588 PM if you add.
The 3DS tech requires you to sit in a sweet spot. Good for a portable, bad for home theatre.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/
I write about video games and stuff. It is fun. Sometimes.
It can't, only works with smaller screens. For it to work with a 40 inch TV, you would have to stick your face right up to the screen or extend the distance between your eyes to around 3 feet.
That being said, I read a Popular Science article that claimed that no-glasses 3D will come in the form of some type of holographic thing. I didn't understand any of it since it's Popular Science but the writer seemed pretty confident that it is plausible.
Movies in 3D are lame, but I'm really psyched to try out 3D gaming. Unfortunately I have a PC with an ATI GPU, so I don't think I'll get access to this tech anytime soon.
And the Glasses don't? It's not like the 3D is going to work if you're sitting off an a sharp angle.
3DS Friend Code: 0404-6826-4588 PM if you add.
I heard you only need to wear them upside down when using other tvs, as the lenses are the reversed for each set, only works with Samsung and Panasonic.
http://www.trustedreviews.com/tvs/news/2010/05/05/3D-Glasses-Incompatibility-Solved--Wear-Them-Upside-Down/p1
I'm gonna test this out in a few actually.
If you're at 90 degrees to the side it's pretty tough, but you can get 3d from a pretty wide angle.
And TF2 works pretty well with 3d glasses.
Much smaller sweet spot. They're attempting a headtracking thing where the TV can track one or two people around the room to provide a perfect image, but that's a ways off for commercial use.
That is cool for Samsung and Panasonic sets. Thanks for the info.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/
I write about video games and stuff. It is fun. Sometimes.
Nope, 3DTV has a pretty decent viewing angle. Just don't tilt your head 90 degrees if you went Sony.
And the thing about the glasses is sure maybe it'll sorta work when you flip the glasses over (I've actually tried it on a Panny and Samsung and it wasn't terribly successful) there's still the fact that each TV is polarized to different colours. Each brand's glasses compensate for that. So when you cross brands the actual colour of the picture will change.
I heard the same tech that is in the 3DS was already used in a actual TV already. From what I've heard it was a huge flop because of the one person only being able to see the effect.
Hang on, just think about this for one second. This article says that the 3d glasses somehow give 3d perception without requiring stereopsis, anbd thus may hinder it's development. But this isn't true. In fact, it absolutely requires you to have a fully functioning sense of stereopsis for it to work. It simply broadcasts an image to each eye which is the same as that eye would receive if those objects were actually existing in space, it doesn't somehow pull a 3d image out of nothing, your brain does that. In fact, I've never noticed any change in perception after a 3d movie, since the 3d in the movie is produced in the exact same way as in real life.
Oh, that's the other thing that kinda bothers me. I currently have two TVs: an old set on the living room for family and friends and a 26 inch LCD I mainly use for PC and gaming. The thing is, I play a lot of local multiplayer games lately. Be it SSF4, Mario Kart, Rock Band, etc. I wanted to get a new 42 inch Plasma since there's usually a gathering of some sort every weekend. I don't think a 3D set would fill that need tho. Especially since it would mean I'd have to get a lot of glasses.
Yes glassesless 3DTV generally has a 15 degree viewing angle and definitly not being marketed right now. I've heard estimates for increasing the viewing angle to anything useful is somewhere in the ball park of 10 years. So there's still a wait.
And all 3DTVs can do 2D television as well. They aren't 3D exclusive and most do 2D quite competently as well.
They're just trying to sell this for a while before they go glasses free in a few years, there are screens that already produce 10 sweet spots scattered at different angles, and that number just goes up and up.
It's baffling that they didn't come up with some kind of standard. Well, not so much baffling as it is business as usual, but still you'd think the blu-ray HDDVD battle would be recent enough to make companies want to lessen the confusion of early adoption.
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DO NOT BUY ANYTHING THAT REQUIRES GOGGLES.
3D without glasses is just around the corner. Any money you spend on a 120hz TV or $150 goggles is highly likely to end in buyers remorse once the parallax barrier panels start shipping.
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2008/10/philips-3d-hdtv/
Philips had a glassesless 3D TV with 40 something viewing angles back in 2008, just before it became popular. Then they stopped making them.
The problem is the way the 3D effect is achieved is close to how we view the world, but it's not exactly the same. You brain has to ignore the lack of certain cues in depth perception in order to make the fake 3D image work. The previous article is talking about the fact that children could learn a type of stereopsis from 3D programming that doesn't mesh with real life.
In adults this shift leads to the eye strain, nausea, and headaches. And it's hypothesized that extended constant viewing could lead to something called binocular dysphoria.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/
I write about video games and stuff. It is fun. Sometimes.
Imagine if something like that was combined with already 3-D tvs..... It could pull 3d effects further out from the screen, get that shit double out of the box.
I want to know more PA people on Twitter.
Eh, I kind of take issue with this. They use words like "properly" and "consistently" which are not quantifiable at all. Maybe it means 12% see it slightly flatter than everyone else but it still works. They aren't specific.