AOE III

[nathansteinke]

AOE III looks pretty good. One thing I struggle with is, since the cursor is a single image, when I'm focusing on the landscape at that level of depth, the cursor appears with double vision. similar to looking at a picture 2 feet in front of you, focusing on it, holding your thumb 1 foot in front of you. The picture is in focus but your thumb has the effect of double vision, since you're focused on the painting. Do others struggle with this as well? I think this may apply to other strategy games of this type also.
-Nate

[Neil]

Hi Nathan!

We are actually working on certifying this game as we speak.

We will post our formal results in the coming weeks.

However, if you find any solutions or special settings that you think work best, please post them so our testers can confirm your findings.

Regards,
Neil 8)

[Neil]

Hi Nathan,

In your graphics settings, make sure everything is maxed out, and turn the shader level to "HIGH", not "VERY HIGH".

If you haven't done this already, you will see a major improvement in the image quality.

Regards,
Neil 8)

[nathansteinke]

Wow, I changed the resolution to 1024x768, shader level to high, refresh to 85, and it looks great!

I still have the double vision on the cursor, but other than that it's excellent!

I'd like to explore the cursor concern more.

Here is a proposal, I'm curious for thoughts/refinements/critiques:

What if the cursor depth were assigned to the depth of just slightly less than the underlying drawn image. For example, if I am going to select a peasant in AOE III, if the cursor were drawn at the depth of 1 foot above the peasants head (in units of game world) I think that would be about right, and not distracting as it is now. There's always some hesitation when selecting units in the game with stereo3d enabled since the cursor is way above the level of the terrain.

-Nate

[nathansteinke]

Here are some more observations:
I'm using in game units, rough estimates.


If I am zoomed in close and try to select a peasant, my cursor needs to be about 5 feet to the left and 2 feet below the peasant.


If I am zoomed out, my cursor needs to be about 10 feet to the left and 4 feet below the peasant.

In real units, it's about 1/2" to the left and 1/4" below for zoomed in,

and 1" to the left and 1/2" below for zoomed out.

This is distracting having to make my own adjustments.
Any thoughts?
-Nate

[Neil]

I'll have to experiment some more.

I forgot to mention that Bloom should be shut off as well. I am not seeing the doubled cursor.

Regards,
Neil

[Neil]

Hi Nathan,

I'm not getting a doubled cursor or interface at all.

Make sure the Bloom is off, shaders are at HIGH, and everything else is maxed (though lowering AA really helps performance).

It should be perfect stereo.

If that doesn't work, lower ALL advanced settings to minimum and see how that impacts your flexibility.

Regards,
Neil

[nathansteinke]

What I'm experiencing (at least one aspect) is described here:

http://www.vision3d.com/frame.html

Center your nose over the brown eye below.
Focus your eyes on the single brown eye.
Put your free thumb in front of your nose.
Continue to focus on the eye. If both eyes are on, you will see two thumbs framing one eye.



Instead of two thumbs framing the eye, in the corresponding AOE III world, it is Two cursor pointers framing one peasanst.

Doest that make sense?



Another way to ask it is this... (do you have the game yourself so you can test this?)

Try placing four peasants at four corners of your viewing area.
Enable stereo3d. Try to select each peasant, starting with upper left, then upper right, then lower right then lower left (like a clockwise circle).

Do that for, say, 10 times and see how long it takes you to successfully select them.

My claim is, due to this double vision/misalignment, it will take you longer to do that in stereo3d than in non-stereo3d.

This affects the heart of the gameplay.

The scenery itself looks excellent in stereo3d but the mechanics of selecting units and this double vision/misalignment I think will be a big drawback for gamers who play AOE III. I wish it weren't there and hopefully I'm the only one experiencing this, but because of the nature of it, I suspect most everyone experiences what I'm describing.

Let me know if I'm not describing it in a way that's understandable.



My altered proposal for games in the future for stereo3d is that they make the cursor traverse at surface level. For example, when you select a peasant, the colored ring that surrounds the peasant to indicate he's selected, that's the depth the cursor should be displayed at.

-Nate

[Neil]

I'm embarrassed to say this, but even though I can see in 3D, I always fail the eye test.

I was so worried about it, I asked my Optometrist, and he told me not to worry about it.

Let me ask the question a different way.

When you play the game, and you don't have the glasses on, do you see one arrow/cursor or two arrows/cursors?

Regards,
Neil

[Neil]

Hi Nathan,

The problem that you are experiencing, is it throughout the game or only on certain levels.

I just went through two tutorial sequences, and I find the pointer is bang on, and I'm going crazy on the separation and convergence.

Maybe someone else can help confirm this.

Regards,
Neil 8)

[nathansteinke]

Hi Neil,

I see just one arrowhead/cursor.

I have only tried it on the skirmish mode, but suspect it will be the same in all levels.

I notice that separation (F3/F4) makes a difference.
But I don't notice any change with convergence (F5/F6).
What do you see changing when you hit F5/F6?

Am I correctly associating F3/F4 with separation?
And F5/F6 with convergence?
Thanks.
-Nate

[Neil]

Ok - we might be on to something here.

CTRL F3/F4 controls Depth/Separatin
CTR F5/F6 controls pop-out/Convergence

Go to the title screen (it should work here too).

With your naked eye/ Hit ctrl F4 just a bit.

NOW, hold down CTRL-F6 until until the images start to separate. You have to be patient here. Just hold and watch - it takes awhile to get started with this game. Look at the boat along the shore.

What should happen is the images will be split, they will come together, and they will split again.

Now you can hit CTRL-F4 again to split up the images in the distance a bit or to your laking and adjust accordingly.

What I think is happening is when you are zoomed out, everything is split, and when you zoom in, the separation gets closer.

What you want is for everything to be split a bit, and when you zoom in, everything splits MORE (this is where that pop-out effect comes into play).

I think this will also correct your cursor problem.

Give it a go, and let me know.

Regards,
Neil 8)

[nathansteinke]

Yes! That is working, using your F4, then F5/F6 approach.

I need to tweak it to get it just right, but what little I was just able to do helps a lot!

It's awesome seeing the birds fly over the land and the landscape is spilling over the top of the interface at the bottom. Very nice!
-Nate

[Neil]

Excellent! I think you are going to find that all your games are that much more thrilling now that you understand the relationship between Separation and Convergence.

Regards,
Neil 8)