Meant to be Seen

Has been mentioned many times that because nature of VR cinematics squences are pretty incompatible with it (because of the unnatural sensation that becomes into nause).
Well I got the solution... and the idea is really straight:
question: what do you see in cinematic sequences in games?
answer: two black bars, one upper one at the bottom of the screen. That is!

when in a VR game you (as a game developer) need to put a cinematic what you have to do is change the head tracking "inside" game to head tracking "outside", how is this "outside"?? is like in vr cinema or vr player! (reduce fov show scene as a big screen) AND PROBLEM SOLVED! (got the idea?)

yeah, critics will say it'd break inmersivity but... well I cannot imagine games like Metal Gear Solid without cinematics...

and remember, you read it first here at MTBS's

(and sorry for my tarzan style english..)

I think you're right. It's really the only way to do it. I can't remember if I read this idea elsewhere or came to the same conclusion myself... but cinematics that appear on a virtual screen in front of you should work- though they will be less immersive.

xhonzi wrote: I can't remember if I read this idea elsewhere

show me the source of that, my reputation is at stake

xhonzi wrote:...or came to the same conclusion myself...

sorry, I put it in writing first

I've thought this was know already. Yeah, any cutscenes and events will have to be displayed on a virtual screen(like TV, computer display), in-game holographic display, projected onto in-game surfaces, audio transmissions(radio, phone, intercom/speaker) npc character communication/storytelling, teleporting player to different locations. Many non-VR games have implemented these already so you can find examples.

Menus and loadscenes should also be in-game or at least another scene I think too.

in-game holographic display, that's pretty cool.

Holographic displays in VR could be used for cutscenes, inventory, menus, or even mini games. Think like holographic tabletop games on a holographic display inside you VR world. You and a friend play a holographic fighting game(instead of rockemsockem robots you have mortal kombat or street fighter) or holographic RTS games but in your VR game world. That's the cool thing about VR, you could do things in VR that we might not see for years in real life, if ever. You could even give your character AR glasses and make AR games, HUD's, etc... in your VR world.

In iRacing this has been done already, the loading screen floats in front and all menus are floating too, so you don't get any sudden stops to head tracking.

I was thinking about this, and I don't think it's totally impossible to keep head-tracking and a first-person view enabled during a cinematic. Crysis comes to mind actually - I'm pretty sure that stays in first-person mode throughout the whole game, but your character is taken control of during the cut-scenes. Ok, so that introduces a problem if you have head tracking enabled, because it would be disorientating - unless you implemented a way to "guide" the player to look in the right direction. This could be as subtle as small movements at the edges of the screen to catch your attention so you turn your head, or as a obvious as an arrow or gradient colour at the edge of the screen, as a sort of "cue" to turn your head in the right direction. For cut-scenes where you need to cut away from the character, yeah, I like your idea, but it will end up detracting from the immersion, which is a bit counter-productive. To be honest, I think it's just up to developers to come up with clever ways to get around having to do that though - perhaps like cutting to another character's point of view, or bringing up displays to show what you want as viewable objects actually in the game - like a television or a tablet that gets passed to you.

Besides visual cues(flying/dropping debris, light, hud elements) you could also use sound to get the player looking to the right direction for in-game events.

That is the correct idea for 2D pre-rendered cutscenes. But maybe brilliant is an exageration. It is sort of obvious, and many of us already thought of it.

It solves the problem of the user turning their head and their view not changing. It probably doesn't solve the problem of the camera moving in the cutscene when the user doesn't turn their head... unless you make the virtual screen smaller or add non-moving objects around the screen.

What I'd like to see is the virtual screen moving to match the camera movements. I also want to do this in VR movie players. Someone (or a computer program) would tag all the camera movements and FOV changes in the video, and then those values would be used to move the virtual screen to closely follow the camera.

@2EyeGuy
I didnt mean 2d I was talking 3d stereo (pre or realtime)

And for the "non moving objects" that's the black borders would be enough, is not perfect but well..

2EyeGuy wrote:That is the correct idea for 2D pre-rendered cutscenes. But maybe brilliant is an exageration. It is sort of obvious, and many of us already thought of it.

It solves the problem of the user turning their head and their view not changing. It probably doesn't solve the problem of the camera moving in the cutscene when the user doesn't turn their head... unless you make the virtual screen smaller or add non-moving objects around the screen.

What I'd like to see is the virtual screen moving to match the camera movements. I also want to do this in VR movie players. Someone (or a computer program) would tag all the camera movements and FOV changes in the video, and then those values would be used to move the virtual screen to closely follow the camera.

Actually, you want the edge components of the cinematic cut scene to be motional and tied to the tracker exactly. this provides the connection to head motion and peripheral that drops nausea toward zero. the cut scene in the middle can 'float' against this moving backdrop.

As an example, Sam Rami tied the camera to the gun in some shots in the film 'The Quick and the Dead'. the backdrop was rotating around the gun which was locked to the camera.

In the cinematic shots, the user holds their head ALMOST perfectly still and then has the outer 15-20 degrees of peripheral view tracker connected motion to keep the body vestibular connections happy. Then they view the centered cut scene. The slight nausea created by moving their head, the conflict between the two aspects of the proffered view... will encourage them to hold their head still.

This was part of the underlying logic points that surround what i was talking about months ago, with the bar on the side that increases in size, intensity and opacity, in the direction of head motion, or opposite that motion, in FPS shooters (also to integrate directional threat indicators). It provides reference for the mind and body that would cut nausea in fast paced FPS games.