Idea for universal decoupled aim hack

[Ziggurat]

I have an idea for decoupling aim with a hack that is at the graphics card driver level. I did post this on Reddit as a comment in a short conversation with ralph, but he stopped responding then (not saying he is consciously deciding to not answer that) And I would like to get feedback on the plausibility of the idea. Also I like Vireio better, just because its opensource (I sometimes pay for OpenSource stuff) NB: I have not payed for VorpX, I intend to try it out with a trial later, or when I get a new computer.

First:
Don't render the main (original) view port. This viewport is controlled by mouse/hydra and naturally is for aiming your weapon.

Second
Render two (for stereoscopy) viewports, one for each eye. Apply the pitch/roll/yaw from the Oculus Rift to this viewport, similar to how I believe roll is applied to the viewport.

Is this possible? No of course its possible, is it plausible is the real question?

[WiredEarp]

This sounds a lot like what has been talked about before (I think perhaps by CyberReality, when he was developing Vireio) - changing the rendering parameters to adjust the view of what is displayed. Not sure if Vireio actually supports this in games currently however... perhaps someone with some Vireio experience can answer.

I think the problem with that method was that the viewports have already been clipped, or at least do not have the full world geometry sent to them, or something like that, so when you do this, you end up with stuff that you cannot see, as the engine considered it unviewable and hence did not even attempt to draw it. I believe this meant it works best for roll, but not so well for looking around.

[Neil]

First, thank you for sharing your input. We are very proud to be working on an open source project like this.

There are definitely issues when working with a projection matrix because even if you force a wider field of view, the geometry (the objects) get clipped prematurely - there isn't enough material there to cover the space!

Part of Vireio's development is experimental in that we are trying things that haven't been done before in 3D drivers for a future release. I don't want to discuss it for obvious reasons, but this might open the door for new rendering opportunities - we won't know for awhile yet.

Regards,
Neil

[cybereality]

I was originally trying to do something like this but it didn't work out. The main issue is the the game engine itself usually hides (culls) objects that are outside of the camera's view. This is done before the polygons even reach DirectX. So you could try to rotate the camera after the fact, but you will just be looking at nothing.

[Ziggurat]

Thank you very much for the information! I appreciate it.

At what level is it decided where you look in respects to what to render? Is it perhaps different in every game? Or is there a de facto standard when it comes to DirectX? Or is it maybe possible to recognize this in the ram anyhow? It might not be possible with a one size fits all at all?

I understand if this is not information that is appropriate to discuss

[virror]

The culling is handled by the game engine, and when it has decided what to render, that data then gets pushed to the rendering stage, works like this in pretty much all engines i guess.

[Hypercube]

Just an idea: Would it be possible to increase the game FOV to a quite high value so the game tries to render more geometry than you actually need, the driver then reduces the fov and displays the fraction of the image you want to see, and then you have at least some freedom to look around until you reach the clipped area?

Also, I'm not sure how much independency between the mouse and the "viewer" is actually needed; e.g. I don't see the need to look behind you and still aim to the front. If the "viewing center" and the mouse target diverge too far, one could then make the mouse target follow the viewer; so you have some independency between mouse aiming and viewing, but might be able to avoid looking at clipped geometry.

[Ziggurat]

Just an idea: Would it be possible to increase the game FOV to a quite high value so the game tries to render more geometry than you actually need, the driver then reduces the fov and displays the fraction of the image you want to see, and then you have at least some freedom to look around until you reach the clipped area?

Also, I'm not sure how much independency between the mouse and the "viewer" is actually needed; e.g. I don't see the need to look behind you and still aim to the front. If the "viewing center" and the mouse target diverge too far, one could then make the mouse target follow the viewer; so you have some independency between mouse aiming and viewing, but might be able to avoid looking at clipped geometry.

Great idea, but I think this would make an impact on your graphics card

[cybereality]

Yes, you can mess with the FOV if the game allows it. I did try this, and it did help.

[Lilwolf]

If you allow your head to drag the aim when you move too far with your head, it could work. But you would be limited to how far you could move the cursor to 1/2 the game FOV to the displayed FOV. (so if it was 120 degrees and 90 displayed fov. The 40 extra fov would be on the area the cursor could move around in)