FPS and Photorealism=Car sickness

oXYnary

I have been reading and hearing from gamers recently who though can play other FPS (a few not at all), that Half-Life 2 in particular makes them sick to play/watch.

Im not totally familiar with the concept behind this, but its based around the same thing while trying to read when riding in a car. Your eye still catches movement in the background, but you are reading something static thats flat that confuses the brains input. (At least how it was explained to me). With a FPS, its somewhat the opposite. You are looking at a 2d screens persons view moving, but you and your environment are static.

Im wondering if photorealism is getting beyond technology? Meaning that since for the time being we will still be static in space, or not have anything to trick our inner ear or have actual physical movement, that too much realism can reduce the amount of people who can play such games? That maybe FPS should stay somewhat stylized?

*Yes I realize that photorealism isnt the same idea of "eye-realism". However the amount of details and colors may still be effecting the same center.

Thoughts?

KDR_11k

I've heard of motion sickness with all FPS games though some cause it more than others. Never experienced it myself.

jdevin

I've never experienced it before either, but on the same note I read in the car all the time. I've heard of this phenomenon called simulator shock. I remember a lot of people would get nauseous playing the virtual boy, it has some thing to do with how your eye focuses, and when it cant focus on something naturally it stains your eyes and makes you feel sick. I've heard that the military had trouble with it when making their combat simulators, it seems that after 8 minutes or so the soldiers would get nauseous while using the earlier simulators. Maybe in the furture as games become increasingly realistic they will compensate for this. It would be neat if during a fps if as you moved your cursor the focus moved with it, ie. look far away close objects blur slightly, and vise versa.

flaagan

If you pick up the hl2 art book 'Raising the Bar', they talk about how the originally planned jetski was canned cause players were getting disorientated and motion sick from a lack of visual reference. To top that off, when they redesigned it into the water-buggy that's in the game now, they had to keep adding framework to the front of the ride just so the players (and developers) didn't get motion sick on that vehicle (something about having enough stationary objects in view so that the eye doesnt get confused).

Malekyth

I've gotten motion sickness on a few games, consistently, but not all. I could only play Hexen 2 for a couple hours at a stretch or I'd get headachey and sick to my stomach (though I'm not ruling out the game itself as the cause, in retrospect). I also got it with Q3. Still, I played U1, UT99, UT2K3/4, HL, HL2, Deus Ex, SS2, etc. with no trouble. So I dunno what the common ground is.

sonic

I've always gotten motion sickness due to a lot of FPS, but hardly ever have I gotten it to anything else, even when I played GT4. HL2 especially gives me motion sickness.

Daz

"Im wondering if photorealism is getting beyond technology?"

Well, I'm not really sure what that means. However, whilst it uses photosourced textures, HL2 is a looooong way away from 'photoreal' in my understanding of the word. Actually, 'photoreal' is an ill conceived word I think. I assume its origins mean something that looks so real that it looks like a photograph. Which doesn't make much sense in the context of moving imagery. Games are such a long way off from tricking people into thinking that what they are watching is reality. Even If that point ever comes, I don't think the actual 'style' of the visuals is the cause of any motion sickness problem. What I mean is, I've never personally experienced motion sickness from playing a game, but surely it's what the eyes are tracking and the brain is trying to process that causes any motion sickness?
If a gaming experience that induced nausea in some people was stylistically 'photoreal', and then all its textures were swapped for virtua racing style flat colour ones, but the actual experience and motion remained the same, I betcha the motion sickness would still happen.

PaK

I've expierenced it. i think the HL2 player movemnet code (especially in counter-strike) is jittery. When moving down steps i notice this alot. Perhaps its this jittery physics that makes more people who are prone to motion sickness to expierence it.

-R

CheapAlert

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I've expierenced it. i think the HL2 player movemnet code (especially in counter-strike) is jittery. When moving down steps i notice this alot. Perhaps its this jittery physics that makes more people who are prone to motion sickness to expierence it.


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Probably because they're still using the old Quake1 player physics code :P

Thermidor

Funny , ive only ever had it the very first time i played doom ....

i think its somthing to do with rotating sprites ... coz generaly the poeple , (like my mum) who get it , dont suffer as much with full 3d games ...

ElysiumGX

Never had it. I tend to keep a small percentage of concentration on the room that surrounds me and my computer. I noticed at my parent's house, my dad gets dizzy from watching my little brother play Halo2, if only for a few seconds. I assume in the future some FPS games will come packaged with a free sample of Dramamine. As for photorealism, I'm happy with the quality of HL2. From this point on, I'd like more options for what the engine itself is capable of.

KDR_11k

I'd bet on quick movements. Especially with mouselook you can do some very quick and disorienting moves.
I'm not sure but I think Burnout 2 made my parents feel sick just from watching.

Thermidor

i think its always more dizzy making to watch a game ... like those cinima 180 video things you used to get at theme parks ... just watching a sequence of video can make you fall over.

swampbug

In general HL2 did not make me dizzy or give me a headache EXCEPT.... when you have the grav gun and you discharge objects .. or push cars around.. the screen slowly jerks around and after doing that 4-5 times in a row I can barely concentrate on the screen.

ndcv

Weird... I get really really bad motion sickness if I read in the car, but I've never had a problem with any FPS game. I've heard though that the problem with reading in the car isn't focus or anything, it's that when you look down your whole head is tilted, and some part of your inner ear locks up and that's what makes you sick. Could be completely wrong though

snemmy

never got it from reading in a car or many FPS's. but back when the first Turok came oun N64 i could not stand to watch my brother or cousin play it. i would get naseaous really quick and it would last for hours. i think mine came from lack of 'control' of where the view was going. my brother and cousin were fairly erratic and always looking/going in the opposite direction of what i would have done.

Thermidor

Its meant to be somthing to do witth peripheral vision , in a car when you are reading , your peripheral vision tells you you are moving , but your focal vision tells you you arnt... so i guess it affects some ppl differently .. in a video game , your peripheral vision is still while your focal vision is moving ....

MoP

yeah, i get a little ill if i read in the car for a long amount of time (or at least i used to, don't know if i do anymore... it's ok on the train?) ... never had any sort of motion sickness with any games or film though.
My mum gets motion sick at the cinema if there's a lot of big swooping camera moves or fly-throughs, and the same applies to games for her (although I don't know which ones specifically). Different people get affected different ways... weird.

TechSmith

Didn't people say the same thing as this about the game Descent? The original DOS version. Not the photorealism but the motion sickness.

Mishra

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Didn't people say the same thing as this about the game Descent? The original DOS version. Not the photorealism but the motion sickness.

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that's the only game to make me nauseous. flying through the narrow corridors and moving in every axis can be a mind fuck

Moz

I had my 22 inch monitor fall off my desk onto my nuts while playing the original half-life once. I can tell you it's worse than any motion sickness imaginable.

Kevin Albers

I can get motion sickness from playing (or watching) FPS games. It has nothing to do with photo-realism. It's mainly based on camera movement. A game with a constantly moving camera, and jerky camera motion is more likely to cause motion sickness than a game with fewer fast camera movements. In addition to camera movements, frame rates affect this...slower frame rates are more likely to cause motion sickness than smooth fast frame rates.

joolz8000

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Didn't people say the same thing as this about the game Descent? The original DOS version. Not the photorealism but the motion sickness.

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-that would be me. I couldn't play it for more than an hour without getting queasy. But I loved it!

jzero

From what I understand, motion sickness is merely what happens when your eyes and inner ear can't agree on whether you're moving or not. Your inner ear keeps track of motion, but it uses gravity to tell, so it always knows if you're really moving. When you're in a vehicle and your inner ear tells your brain that the body is moving, the eyes may send a conflicting signal, i.e. the interior of an airplane or car, which appears (on a primitively instinctive level) stable and motionless. So if this argument keeps up long enough, your stomach is like the little kid who cries when his parents get in a fight... and you're pukin'.

With video games, the reverse of regular motion sickness happens: the eyes say you're moving, but the inner ear knows perfectly well that your ass is planted securely on the couch. The eyes are fooled so easily! "Lousy visual cortex...!"

For some reason, I don't seem to have these problems.

/jzero

ScoobyDoofus

My older brother can't play or watch any 3d games. He gets instantly nausous. Even 3d strategy titles, like Generals or Emperor Battle for Dune make him sick, just seeing the camera rotate.

He hates them for this. Rather than recognizing that his inner ear is the problem he says "Video games are stupid and pointless. I hate em. They make me sick."

milla

I used to get motion sickness from FPS, but I trained myself out of it with motion sickness pills and persistence. I still get sick watching when I'm not 'driving'.

From what I can tell it stems from conflicting feedback - your eyes tell you you're in motion and your ears and tactile sensors tell you you're stationary, and that messes with your orientation and causes nausea.

RageUnleashed

I have friends who can't play games for more than a few hours because they get headaches, and I've heard from a lot of people who get motion sickness from FPS games and HL2 in particular.

I'd hate to imagine how they'd react to playing the xenomorphs in the Aliens Vs Predator FPS games...