Are you farsighted?

[Doubleplay]

Having migrated to the EC long ago, I was not particularly impressed with the graphics, but liked the macro tools. I have not subsequently paid much attention to all the complaints about how the client makes some people dizzy, or nauseous.

Since I am slightly farsighted, I use reading glasses to make things clear. However the reading glasses focus at about 20 inches. Since I sit more than 20 inches from the computer screen, I had my eye doctor make me glasses that focus at closer to 30 inches or so. They work great.

I never used chat for much until recently. Today I realized that when using chat, I need my glasses, but I never use them when playing my character onscreen. Oh, wow a revelation. The game play window looks better to me with my glasses off, lots better. It looks lots sharper. I know it does not make much sense, but that is the experience I wanted to share. Sharp vision results in a blurry game play window, and blurry vision results in a sharp game play window, at least for me.

 

[Doubleplay]

Having migrated to the EC long ago, I was not particularly impressed with the graphics, but liked the macro tools. I have not subsequently paid much attention to all the complaints about how the client makes some people dizzy, or nauseous.

Since I am slightly farsighted, I use reading glasses to make things clear. However the reading glasses focus at about 20 inches. Since I sit more than 20 inches from the computer screen, I had my eye doctor make me glasses that focus at closer to 30 inches or so. They work great.

I never used chat for much until recently. Today I realized that when using chat, I need my glasses, but I never use them when playing my character onscreen. Oh, wow a revelation. The game play window looks better to me with my glasses off, lots better. It looks lots sharper. I know it does not make much sense, but that is the experience I wanted to share. Sharp vision results in a blurry game play window, and blurry vision results in a sharp game play window, at least for me.

Is it possible that a farsighted graphics artist who doesn't realize they are farsighted could design graphics that are blurry for normal sighted people and sharply focused for farsighted people? I don't understand the mechanics, but can someone with more knowledge in this area educate me?

 

[Raptor85]

EC's blurryness issues aren't really with grims art, it's with poor configuration of the engine behind it, it's a common problem when scaling lower resolution artwork but the EC takes no measures to avoid it (in general, use higher resolution art and have pre-generated mip maps to make the sampling more "crisp", add in to that that a lot of the artwork is essentially imported, and was origionally designed pixel perfect for a certain scale, it becomes a blurry mess when upscaled or downscaled)

 

[Conrad]

The game play window looks better to me with my glasses off, lots better. It looks lots sharper. I know it does not make much sense, but that is the experience I wanted to share. Sharp vision results in a blurry game play window, and blurry vision results in a sharp game play window, at least for me.

Very interesting.

Knowing this, perhaps the problem of nausea and such is a result of both an issue with the vision of the player, as well as being associated with specific visual cues presented by the game screen, depth in particular.

Basically, we all see things differently, but Doubleplay gives us some more information--depth of vision is involved. Ever get a new pair of glasses and suddenly the floor looks closer? Over time that resolves itself and the floor looks normal again, but only because all depth references are changed simultaneously--the glasses change everything you see equally.

What I suspect is happening is that there are inherent depth cues in the game (false depth, really. The engine is designed to give the appearance of depth by tricking the brain with visual gimmicks) that are in conflict with each other, and that the only people that are having a problem are the ones that have a visual depth acuity that picks it up. By conflict, I mean something as simple as two items on screen having two slightly different perspectives but still be on the same plane, distance wise. These kind of perspective issues exist in UO as a result of artwork from several clients being used concurrently in one client--the perspectives in one client don't perfectly match the artwork in the others, but are displayed on the same screen. This confuses the brain, me thinks, especially while moving.

It could be other cues involved, but the differences in perspective in some of the artwork are obvious even when no problems of nausea exist. I've seen other posts where people comment on some of the weird perspectives on certain items/objects.

The solution might be simple--do something to alter the perceived depth of the game screen, either by sitting closer to, or further from, the screen, or as Doubleplay stated, changing glasses. Perhaps even tilting the monitor? I cannot test this because I don't suffer any ill effects from playing (and for that same reason, I could be completely wrong about this) .

 

[Doubleplay]

When I was in college, we studied an experiment where people were given glasses that would turn everything upside down. The experimental design was to measure how long it would take for the subject's brains to adjust to the new view and when that happened, the people would see everything right side up again. As long as they wore the glasses, after the brain adjusted, they "saw" normally. But when they drew pictures or wrote something, it was upside down for normal people (who weren't adjusted to upside down glasses).

Now, a designer wearing such glasses would see the world differently, but not know it. He would design in an upside down way and all would look normal for him. My question, and conjecture is that perhaps a person who perceives things abnormally in a (for better words) blurry way may design in a way that for him looks sharp and normal. Such a design may appear fuzzy and nauseous by others. The question: Given that the upside down scenario is true and can be duplicated, does graphic art equipment and display equipment permit a "fuzzy" designer to produce a comparable art product?

 

[LordDrago]

When I was in college, we studied an experiment where people were given glasses that would turn everything upside down. The experimental design was to measure how long it would take for the subject's brains to adjust to the new view and when that happened, the people would see everything right side up again. As long as they wore the glasses, after the brain adjusted, they "saw" normally. But when they drew pictures or wrote something, it was upside down for normal people (who weren't adjusted to upside down glasses).

Now, a designer wearing such glasses would see the world differently, but not know it. He would design in an upside down way and all would look normal for him. My question, and conjecture is that perhaps a person who perceives things abnormally in a (for better words) blurry way may design in a way that for him looks sharp and normal. Such a design may appear fuzzy and nauseous by others. The question: Given that the upside down scenario is true and can be duplicated, does graphic art equipment and display equipment permit a "fuzzy" designer to produce a comparable art product?

 

[Conrad]

The question: Given that the upside down scenario is true and can be duplicated, does graphic art equipment and display equipment permit a "fuzzy" designer to produce a comparable art product?

I think so.

If the vision of an art developer is fudged enough that two slightly different perspectives look the same, and are thus used in the same environment, then you have two different perspectives that are visually apparent to people that do not have the same visual flaws as the developer.

Think of 3D movies and such--they give some people blinding headaches (I'm one of them). The problem stems from the fact that the 3D product is "averaged" to match the depth perception of the greatest possible amount of people, but it is also impossible to accommodate everyone perfectly. As a result, the 3D product is far from perfect for people that stray too far from this "average", to the point of causing headaches. I'm not saying this is what is happening in UO, just a similar effect. Again, I think it is related to the hodge-podge of artwork perspective--one object is telling the brain "You're looking at everything from this angle", but another object is telling you're brain you're looking at it from a slightly different angle.

Seasickness is caused by a very similar situation--you're eyes tell you the horizon is moving, but the inner ear tells you that you are moving. The other cause is when you cannot see the horizon and all you see is a room, but the brain senses movement. Both situations cause seasickness, and both are the result of conflicting sensory input.

 

[Sevin0oo0]

Seasickness is caused by a very similar situation--you're eyes tell you the horizon is moving, but the inner ear tells you that you are moving. The other cause is when you cannot see the horizon and all you see is a room, but the brain senses movement. Both situations cause seasickness, and both are the result of conflicting sensory input.

Activity in a 'real' flight simulator is similar, relying on the not immediately self-correcting fluid movement in the ear, combined with the loss of reference, changes perceived attitude and motion. Perceived depth and focal point do not cross that i know of on a flat surface (monitor). Eyes also often change focal points with age, from far to near for example