Peripheral vision queues, good, bad or just ugly?

[Additives]

So, without being too long winded, are you, as a developer/designer, going to use the peripheral vision area granted by the Rift to add visual queues to your game, and do you, as a video game consumer/connoisseur, want to see that space used for such?

Now, being slightly more long winded, I am referring to things like flashing health indicators, fixing visual objects (like the scary monster) into the periphery or possibly using it for progress bars etc. Basically, taking advantage of the fact that you can 'see' things in your peripheral vision without having to focus on that space, while respecting that it is basically no good for colour vision or detail vision.

The other side is that these things could take from the advantage of having all that space in the first place, and I can see a tonne of scenarios where it would be inappropriate.

I'm excited by the possibilities, what do you want to do with it?

[geekmaster]

No offense intended -- just clarification: I was confused at first by your thread title. In "normal" English usage:
queue = line of people
cue = hint or suggestion (or "line of people").
So "Peripheral vision cues" would be the correct choice of words.

Back on topic, I would not put critical information in the peripheral vision areas because it can be blurred, or even outside the FoV if wearing glasses or using incorrect IPD adjustment.

That said, it may be useful to add ambient lighting to any off-lens shroud area with colored LEDs shining on it, ambilight-style. Changing color and brightness that matches the screen edges could add to the immersivity.

So, off-lens peripheral content can aid immersion, but software should not depend on it.

[DannyO]

I don't think it could be used for storing specific information like numbers for ammo, health etc, but I think it could be used in other ways to indicate varies things.

For example.
A boxing game from a first person perspective, being hit dead center lights up the peripheral vision in the lower right hand corner for left eye and lower left hand corner for the right eye to simulate being hit in the nose, now we don't see that in real life, but I think it could be used effectively, and without going too off topic, you could also have the left or right eyes vision either go blurry or even completely black to show different types of damage you are receiving, would be interesting to lose half your vision while in the middle of some games.

A first person shooter, instead of FPS games using the center of the screen to display direction that you are taking fire/damage, you just light up the peripheral vision area of that direction, example, left peripheral of left eye only for the left direction.

It could also be used to have say a flashing dot in the top corner to indicate you need to reload or health/armor is getting low.

I don't know if any of this could even work without seeing how much of your peripheral is used up in the Rift, and how well it can be detected without being distracting in some ways.

[PasticheDonkey]

i think with the increased FoV some of the currently used screen effects for damage can be used more towards the fringes of your vision giving you a clearer view to the centre still.

[Randomoneh]

Current peripheral vision (up to 90 or 100 degrees from center) is not "that" peripheral vision which you cannot look at. That would be beyond 90 or 100 degrees.

Therefore, with HMD that has a FOV of, let's say 120 degrees - you could lower the resolution of the area beyond 100 degrees because that area will never be projected on fovea or foveola and will never have a chance to be seen in its full glory. In that area you could also use more primitive shadows, shaders, reflections.

With current version of Rift, I think there is not much space for this kind of controlled degradation.

[geekmaster]

With my fresnel lens stack, I have think I am getting 150 degrees horizontal FoV (including seeing video where the nose should be. I do not think it necessary to render a virtual nose occlusion. In fact, my nose distracts from immersion in the real world after taking OFF my VR viewer. Small critical details near the edges would not be good, but even blurred motion there is a huge help for immersion. After this experience, I think that including an "ambilight" for peripheral vision beyond the FoV in the Rift would aid immersion. Unless you are emulating an HMD/HUD, there should be no text or indicators fixed time the screen. They should be on a virtual vehicle dashboard, or HUD on the windshield, or on your avatar wristwatch, IMHO.

To maintain the best immersion, we must remember to emulate reality even for our status displays.

EDIT: I just did a little experiment that made me change my opinion about fixed text or status indicators on the display. On my Nexus 7 (with IPS display), I scrolled some text (web page here) by holding my finger still and sliding my tablet, to simulate head tracking. The text got blurry while it was fixed on my FoV but the pixels were moving under it. So small text would require getting your avatar close to it to make it readable. Until we get 4K displays and faster pixel switching time, we may still need status info locked to the screen, but I think that should be avoided if possible. Fixed text is fine for config menus though...

[Additives]

@geekmaster No offence taken, my spelling in general is terrible, and I have started posting from work, where my brain is about as switched off as it can get.

I never really envisioned using the space for text based indicators, personally it seems that they would be way to hard to read. Perhaps some sort of symbolic format, using easy to distinguish shapes?

Also, just a note for people thinking of using colour indicators, humans don't really have much colour vision in our peripheral. If you want proof, get a friend to stand behind you with a red pen and a blue pen, and while you look fixed forward, get them to move one of them from behind your head into your peripheral. As soon as you can see it, get them to stop, and tell them what colour you think it is.

Bummed me right out, was hoping to use the 'taking damage' style of visual indicator and use varied colour to indicate different status effects.

[Dycus]

This XKCD has a very useful vision chart (click the comic for a large image): http://xkcd.com/1080/

[DannyO]

That's very interesting, I was not aware just how poor our peripheral vision is. When I tried the coloured pen being brought in from my peripheral I was not able to accurately tell what colour it was, but after actually looking at the colour, once I put it back into the same area of my peripheral, I was able to notice the colour, I think the brain is doing a lot of "filling in the blank" so to speak regarding our vision.

I see in the corner of my eye what the end of my desk looks like with its smooth rounded corners, but I wonder if it would appear that way if I was not aware of what my desk looks like in the first place.

This makes me think that maybe you could still use some colour in our peripheral vision if we knew that flashes towards the center of our display (nose area) could still represent something if we know that the colour that flashes is supposed to be red.

Hey Dycus, when I looked at that image you posted and did the experiment, I noticed I could see the pixels on my display quite easy, but it was only within about a 1" to 1.5" circle, beyond that, even though I know the other pixels are in viewing distance, I could not see them, is this maybe the same with the current Rift? I expect to see the screen door effect on the dev kit with its current display, but is this screen door image limited to the center of where you are looking? leaving the peripheral part of your vision without this screen door?

One other thing I'll just add, is I wonder if games could take advantage of the blindspot everyone has, like in a horror game having something appear from within your blindspot to scare you.

[geekmaster]

This XKCD has a very useful vision chart (click the comic for a large image): http://xkcd.com/1080/

That chart does not show self-induced blind spots some of us have from playing with high power lasers.

[Randomoneh]

This XKCD has a very useful vision chart (click the comic for a large image): http://xkcd.com/1080/

Great, I've seen it before. I just hope XKCD (or any other "popular" chart, graph) is not the guide you're using when designing Rift.

[Dycus]

This XKCD has a very useful vision chart (click the comic for a large image): http://xkcd.com/1080/

Great, I've seen it before. I just hope XKCD (or any other "popular" chart, graph) is not the guide you're using when designing Rift.

*facepalm* Oh great, I was afraid of people saying things like that.

No, I'm just participating in the forums and giving you guys a helpful chart that helps you visualize how our eyes see things. We're not designing a product based on a webcomic.

[Additives]

This XKCD has a very useful vision chart (click the comic for a large image): http://xkcd.com/1080/

Great, I've seen it before. I just hope XKCD (or any other "popular" chart, graph) is not the guide you're using when designing Rift.

*facepalm* Oh great, I was afraid of people saying things like that.

No, I'm just participating in the forums and giving you guys a helpful chart that helps you visualize how our eyes see things. We're not designing a product based on a webcomic.

You might not be, but I am Kinda kidding, but I have been using that chart as a slight reference when thinking of UI considerations with the Rift. It seems to be a more holistic picture than most other diagrams.

Hey, speaking of colour, has anyone tried any greyscale/sepia type filters with a Rift/rift like device? Always wondered what it might be like to live in a black and white world.

[PalmerTech]

This XKCD has a very useful vision chart (click the comic for a large image): http://xkcd.com/1080/

That chart does not show self-induced blind spots some of us have from playing with high power lasers.

I have a few of those myself. Your brain fills in the blanks over time, though, I can't tell where they are anymore.

[Randomoneh]

We're not designing a product based on a webcomic.

Great, good to know. Online, I've seen all kinds of information about human body being shared without any questioning. Facepalm not needed.

[geekmaster]

This XKCD has a very useful vision chart (click the comic for a large image): http://xkcd.com/1080/

While on the subtopic of useful XKCD charts, I think that the forumulas in this XKCD approximations chart are fascinating:
http://xkcd.com/1047/

[TheHolyChicken]

We're not designing a product based on a webcomic.

Great, good to know. Online, I've seen all kinds of information about human body being shared without any questioning. Facepalm not needed.

I think facepalming was absolutely justified. They're professionals making a precision optical device - give them a little more credit than that.