Why i think Oculus should be careful about its final FOV
Posted: Wed Mar 11, 2015 11:28 pm
With all the news about the competition Oculus is going to be up against, especially Valve's with its 110 FOV, i've been thinking about the Rift a lot recently and something came to mind. I have not tried the Rift yet, so take this with a grain of salt. I have 2500 hours of 3D gaming now on a 46" 3DTV viewed from close up ( <1 meter) giving me a large FOV and i feel like i've learned a lot about the subtleties of stereo 3D. I really love the TV and I tried using a 27" 3D monitor to get out from under the HDMI resolution limitation, but the look of the 3D world was so much better on the big TV, even at 720p using a dim 1st gen 3DTV, that i passed on the 1080 monitor which had lightboost. However, could i have been somewhat accustomed to the larger screen, making the small one too hard to get used to in the amount of time i gave it? Perhaps, im not exactly sure.
The main reason I passed on the 27" was that the size of objects in the world looked so much bigger and real and thus impressive on the TV. The size of the 46" TV also allowed me to increase the in-game FOV in some games a tad while maintaining the relatively large size of the scene. But i also found that I sometimes liked playing games with the default narrow default FOV setting which increased the size of objects), like the console influenced Metro 2033, despite being a massive wide-FOV advocate, solely because of the realistic size the world took on, making it seem very large and real. Metro 2033 had many highly detailed 3D objects that were fascinating to see up close, as if they were real.
I have come to believe that the main aspect of amazing 3D is the depth cue matching the size cue. By size cue, i mean the way we use the size of something in our vision to determine its proximity, such as how a person's silhouette gets smaller as they get farther away or how train tracks appear to narrow into the distance.
On a "small" 27" monitor, the stereo effect can place the objects in the correct 3rd dimension location, but it does not match the size cue very well and large objects do not cover the FOV in your vision anywhere close to what they would in real life. Conversely, just for example, when watching Gravity and seeing a close up of Sandra Bullock on a massive IMAX screen in 3D, her head covers the FOV in your vision it would only if you were kissing her, yet the stereo depth cue says her head is on the screen making for a 3D experience that doesn't jive with what we know about experiencing the real world on a daily basis -greatly reducing the feeling of presence and immersion in my opinion.
I worry that the FOV may be underestimated in its importance by Oculus given that they were willing to go down in FOV for the DK2. The DK1 had a ton of positive response. But i wonder if any negative feelings towards the reduced FOV for of the DK2 were not voiced since it was just a sample and also a small % change thus perhaps hard to notice amid the possibility of so many other factors being at fault, not to mention the short review times many had with it. Also, how attuned is the average joe towards 3D dimensionality? I don't know.
The DK1 was not reviewed very well on the 3D Vision forums in comparison to 3D Vision, several times. Too be fair, a lot of the complaints were of course of the pixelation, motion clarity, etc. However, several times the amount of 3D depth available in the Rift was described as being less than the reviewers 3D Vision setup. Many of the regular members of that forum also use 3DTVs and projectors for 3D gaming giving a large FOV. Perhaps a 3D Vision forum member can summarize further as i missed a few in-depth discussions. Im assuming that a greater FOV in the Rift will allow for larger in-game FOV settings, but also keep object somewhat large. Overall, this makes me wonder how much better the Rift would be received and experienced with a wider FOV supporting large object size. For those that haven't tried it, as i understand it, the FOV is a diagonal measurement, which makes the Rift pretty narrow horizontally i guess?
The narrow FOV seen in some games of the last 7 years or so i assume was influenced by consoles, in that players sitting back on their couches need things to be bigger on the screen so they could see whats happening and the narrow FOV also fit that viewing distance. When building a game to support VR, i assume wide in-game FOVs will be used as a standard, which will reduce the object size the higher it is. Anyway, I hope Oculus reviews its final decision on FOV, testing different FOVs.
Any thoughts?
Edit: for a bit more clarity after seeing Dillip's response
The main reason I passed on the 27" was that the size of objects in the world looked so much bigger and real and thus impressive on the TV. The size of the 46" TV also allowed me to increase the in-game FOV in some games a tad while maintaining the relatively large size of the scene. But i also found that I sometimes liked playing games with the default narrow default FOV setting which increased the size of objects), like the console influenced Metro 2033, despite being a massive wide-FOV advocate, solely because of the realistic size the world took on, making it seem very large and real. Metro 2033 had many highly detailed 3D objects that were fascinating to see up close, as if they were real.
I have come to believe that the main aspect of amazing 3D is the depth cue matching the size cue. By size cue, i mean the way we use the size of something in our vision to determine its proximity, such as how a person's silhouette gets smaller as they get farther away or how train tracks appear to narrow into the distance.
On a "small" 27" monitor, the stereo effect can place the objects in the correct 3rd dimension location, but it does not match the size cue very well and large objects do not cover the FOV in your vision anywhere close to what they would in real life. Conversely, just for example, when watching Gravity and seeing a close up of Sandra Bullock on a massive IMAX screen in 3D, her head covers the FOV in your vision it would only if you were kissing her, yet the stereo depth cue says her head is on the screen making for a 3D experience that doesn't jive with what we know about experiencing the real world on a daily basis -greatly reducing the feeling of presence and immersion in my opinion.
I worry that the FOV may be underestimated in its importance by Oculus given that they were willing to go down in FOV for the DK2. The DK1 had a ton of positive response. But i wonder if any negative feelings towards the reduced FOV for of the DK2 were not voiced since it was just a sample and also a small % change thus perhaps hard to notice amid the possibility of so many other factors being at fault, not to mention the short review times many had with it. Also, how attuned is the average joe towards 3D dimensionality? I don't know.
The DK1 was not reviewed very well on the 3D Vision forums in comparison to 3D Vision, several times. Too be fair, a lot of the complaints were of course of the pixelation, motion clarity, etc. However, several times the amount of 3D depth available in the Rift was described as being less than the reviewers 3D Vision setup. Many of the regular members of that forum also use 3DTVs and projectors for 3D gaming giving a large FOV. Perhaps a 3D Vision forum member can summarize further as i missed a few in-depth discussions. Im assuming that a greater FOV in the Rift will allow for larger in-game FOV settings, but also keep object somewhat large. Overall, this makes me wonder how much better the Rift would be received and experienced with a wider FOV supporting large object size. For those that haven't tried it, as i understand it, the FOV is a diagonal measurement, which makes the Rift pretty narrow horizontally i guess?
The narrow FOV seen in some games of the last 7 years or so i assume was influenced by consoles, in that players sitting back on their couches need things to be bigger on the screen so they could see whats happening and the narrow FOV also fit that viewing distance. When building a game to support VR, i assume wide in-game FOVs will be used as a standard, which will reduce the object size the higher it is. Anyway, I hope Oculus reviews its final decision on FOV, testing different FOVs.
Any thoughts?
Edit: for a bit more clarity after seeing Dillip's response