Proof that Bioshock's FOV was no ... design decision ... ?

Post by **Paddy the Wak** » 26 Aug 2007, 18:03

Bioshock ...

Medal of Honor: Airborne ...

Same game engine ... same widescreen implementation ... 2 different game developers ... BUT ... they seem to have had the same "artistic decision" ... yeah right !

What I'm trying to point out here is that in my investigations show that the seemingly default implementation of WS in the
Unreal III engine is Vert- instead of Horz +.
Either the engine needs to be modified or every developer will have to take specific pains to do this or this will be a re-occurring problem for all games using this engine when in widescreen.
After all the commotion over Bioshock's bad widescreen implementation I thought we should all try to get this sorted ... please tell epic what you think ...
Please post your displeasure in this thread over at their forums ... http://forums.epicgames.com/showthread.php?p=24976601&posted=1#post24976601
Please make your posts civil ...

Are games like Unreal Tournament III and Gears of War going to have the same bad widescreen implementation ?

I'm sure there will be many more ...

::TrueWS ... and ... :WWTH2Go

EDIT: ...

From here ... http://www.joystiq.com/2007/08/24/joystiq-interviews-bioshocks-ken-levine-about-success-and-harve/

We started the game widescreen. We primarily designed it for widescreen. Then we had to ask, "How do we make it full screen." Your options are to put black bars at the top and bottom, keep same width perspective. Or you allow to ... add pixels to the top and the bottom if you can afford the frame rate -- we could. So the call was made to show those few more pixels.

The above seems to indicate otherwise ... it is the way game engine works and 2K didn't bother with the widescreen just as the designers of Medal of Honor: Airborne haven't.

greylantern · Post by **greylantern** » 26 Aug 2007, 21:26

holy ****... I wonder if anyone could still deny it?

Badmagic · Post by **Badmagic** » 26 Aug 2007, 21:32

Sorry, I am too tired to write out a thoughtful and meanful responce to this other than oh ff sake.

I will join that forum tomorrow, I really, really hope this is not a sign of how things are going to be as the rule rather than the exception.

aggies11 · Post by **aggies11** » 26 Aug 2007, 22:02

I think 2 games is a bit small of a sample size, to make any real revelations about "defaults" ;)

If you want to give WS and 4:3 users the same horizontal viewing area,
then it's either black borders for 4:3 or Vert- for WS. I doubt black borders would be very popular with developers, so it would seem "Vert-" is the way to go.

I think it's conceivable that another game wouldn't want to sacrifice horizontal viewing area for 4:3 gamers, and this is how you would go about doing it.

So it very well may still be a design decision, the very decision above (in italics).

Obviously it's too early to know either way though. As more games come out we should get a better idea, for better or worse.

Aggies

greylantern · Post by **greylantern** » 26 Aug 2007, 22:28

aggies, the problem is 2k stated that they tried 'loads' of different FOV options before 'settling' on the specific one (in WS not 4:3) that they felt artisticaly and immersively enhanced their game in the way they envisioned it.

What are the chances of that FOV number being exactly the same as the standard UE3 4:3 changed to WS without adjustment numbers (as shown in Medal Of Honour)

The whole statement looked like BS anyway and was full of technical faults ( it says 'we tried loads of aspect ratios before settling on the one....' when they should have said 'field of view settings').

We went through dozens of iterations and finally settled upon a widescreen aspect ratio that best suited the gameplay experience.

Could be a typo in the heat of the moment or it could have been a damage limitation BS post knocked up by Liz2k based on some remote producer telling her what to write!

They may have intended to just go with the default 'hack' and felt it was good enough but it makes their statement seem mostly fictional (just like the lack of WS monitors in their office picture does).

Post by **Paddy the Wak** » 26 Aug 2007, 22:30

@ aggies11 ...

I think 2 games is a bit small of a sample size, to make any real revelations about "defaults" ;)

First off ... I did say ... ...

seemingly default implementation of WS ...

... :wink:

No widescreen user wants to sacrifice anything for 4:3 users ... :wink:
What we would like is for the game to feel right when we play it in widescreen ... the way it is with vert- in widescreen just feels wrong.
That is why this forum has 11644 users all looking to find solutions to get their games to feel right ... and why the Bioshock FOV commotion ensued ... :wink:
The Unreal III engine is perfectly capable of getting the FOV right for both 4:3 and widescreen users ... if only the devs would think about it just a little harder.

If you want to give WS and 4:3 users the same horizontal viewing area

Is not a good design decision ... as clearly widescreen users aren't happy with it ... :wink:

greylantern · Post by **greylantern** » 26 Aug 2007, 22:38

Yeah, apart from competitive games the whole point of this debate is that you can't realistically EVERY give 4:3 and WS users the same horizontal FOV because you are working against the physical aspect ratio of the end display device, in a word, trying to cheat science.

They try to bend it (if it is intentional) and they wonder why eagled eyed players noticed something is wrong, you can't cheat the facts: a widescreen display is a wider ratio that a 4:3 display so you HAVE to go with it if you want to do it right.

They should have used anything else they could to retain their 'vision' except restricting that which they have no real control over (the AR of the players screen).

Sweetz · Post by **Sweetz** » 26 Aug 2007, 23:55

The Unreal engine definitely seems like the culprit to me.

As far as I can tell, every older Unreal engine game we have on the list is also vert-. Luckily they also happened to have editable FOVs, BUT the FOV setting doesn't apply to the in view weapon. E.g. you could see the right vertical space compared to 4:3 with respect to the environment, but the player's weapon would still be cutoff.

We should be contacting someone at Epic. Perhaps Ken or Elizabeth might help us in this respect. If their implementation was really a result of using UE3's default I bet their none too pleased with Epic due to the all the hubbub over the issue.

Post by **Paddy the Wak** » 27 Aug 2007, 00:01

Some good points ... Stevedroid ...
BTW ... the FOV stuff is there in the game engine ... it just needs the devs to use it correctly ... or not lock it so the users can't customize to their liking as with the older unreal games.

For example ... in MoHA ... I have been able to change the size of the player and his weapon quite easily in the configs ... I got him so he was small in the center of my TripleHead setup ... but the FOV doesn't change ...

That said ... I can change the FOV when sprinting to whatever I like ... again easily in the config files.

But I cant change the main FOV for the player view it is locked.

Sweetz · Post by **Sweetz** » 27 Aug 2007, 00:08

Some good points ... Stevedroid ...
BTW ... the FOV stuff is there ... it just needs the devs to use it ... or not lock it so the users can't customize to their liking as with the older unreal games.

I'm concerned if they do make the FOV editable it will work like it does in the older Unreal games and not affect the weapon. I'm not sure why it works like that; when you adjust the FOV in every other FPS engine I know of it affects the weapon and the environment.

Seriously though, I don't remember if it was you or Ibrin was was talking directly to Ken, but we should ask him if he wouldn't mind passing our concerns onto Epic (maybe give him a couple days to elax and catch his breath first). I'm totally unqualified to make this guess, but I'd still be willing to bet that the engine doesn't have anything built-in to automatically recalculate the FOV based on aspect - they're probably relying on the end-user developers to manually change the FOV based on the selected res.

Post by **Paddy the Wak** » 27 Aug 2007, 00:10

That is why I mentioned ...

For example ... in MoHA ... I have been able to change the size of the player and his weapon quite easily in the configs ... I got him so he was small in the center of my TripleHead setup ... but the FOV doesn't change ...

It is possible for them to separate the FOV and the player model/weapon and make them both user editable/customizable.

Sweetz · Post by **Sweetz** » 27 Aug 2007, 00:19

That is why I mentioned ...

For example ... in MoHA ... I have been able to change the size of the player and his weapon quite easily in the configs ... I got him so he was small in the center of my TripleHead setup ... but the FOV doesn't change ...

It is possible for them to separate the FOV and the player model/weapon and make them both user editable/customizable.

D'oh! I glossed over that. That bodes well; now if developers just stick with making the FOVs editable instead of locking them off like 2K we should be good even if they don't use hor+ by default.

Apple · Post by **Apple** » 27 Aug 2007, 07:35

I just tested Gears of War on the 360...... Its Vert-!

Using VGA, I tried it in 1920x1080(1080p) then in 640x480(480p) normal mode(4:3).

It was definately Vert-, you can see more of Marcus in 4:3. I also lined up some stuff when entering a level without moving. Exactly the same Horizontal FOV in both 4:3 and 16:9.

Unreal engine 3... is it time to worry?

BlueMak · Post by **BlueMak** » 27 Aug 2007, 07:51

As the racer guy here has already proven, it is not an issue with Unreal 3 engine. It is an issue with lazy useless programmers that take one code and just copy and paste it. (simplification, but you get it).
Don't blame the engine, blame the programmers/developers of the games. The engine CAN do it, the developers CAN'T.

greylantern · Post by **greylantern** » 27 Aug 2007, 07:56

Yeah, having played gears through 3 times on the 360 I can say all of this could stem from trying to be more 'cinematic'. While I think Gears manages to get away with it (because the camera is following you rather than 'being' you) when it's in a first person shooter it's more than apparent because you are the camera.

And I can only assume if it does that in Gears then Epic intended it to do that (after all this is EPIC we are talking about).

That doesn't excuse, however, that other devs should take it for granted that any game regardless of genre can just lazily switch aspect ratio without considering the problems to the end users. Especially in a first person shooter.

The fact that Racer_s could find the locations of the FOV/Projection Matrix variables and change them on the fly shows it's not a technical problem. In some cases it' may be a valid choice but in most cases it will be a poor design decision or an oversight.

Either way that crap doesn't belong on PC games because we are not sitting 4 - 10 feet away from our displays!

Any news from Epic on this? They must know about what went down with Bioshock by now and have some opinion to offer.

Post by **Paddy the Wak** » 27 Aug 2007, 08:39

@ Apple ... any chance of a couple of comparison photos of your 360 showing the Vert -

Frag Maniac · Post by **Frag Maniac** » 27 Aug 2007, 13:49

I used a WS hack prog for STALKER once when making some WS videos on my 4:3 CRT in 16:10. STALKER doesn't seem to support it properly either. ALL the FOV hack did was make the view farther away though, I could see more laterally, but at the expense of everything not appearing as close. As far as I know, this method of supporting WS FOV is not correct either right?

Post by **Paddy the Wak** » 27 Aug 2007, 13:59

ALL the FOV hack did was make the view farther way though.i could see more laterally, but at the expense of everything not appearing as close.

I don't think you could have set it up properly ... everything is the same distance for me using the hack ... :wink:

Post by **skipclarke** » 27 Aug 2007, 14:19

I just tested Gears of War on the 360...... Its Vert-!

Using VGA, I tried it in 1920x1080(1080p) then in 640x480(480p) normal mode(4:3).

It was definately Vert-, you can see more of Marcus in 4:3. I also lined up some stuff when entering a level without moving. Exactly the same Horizontal FOV in both 4:3 and 16:9.

Unreal engine 3... is it time to worry?

PLEASE break out a digital camera, and take a couple of pictures.

Apple · Post by **Apple** » 27 Aug 2007, 16:00

PLEASE break out a digital camera, and take a couple of pictures.

On it.

Widescreen Gaming Forum