[MUD-Dev] Neverwinter Nights

[rayzam]

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Buehler" <johnbue at msn.com>
To: <mud-dev at kanga.nu>
Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2001 2:35 PM
Subject: RE: [MUD-Dev] Neverwinter Nights

> And as for seeing things that you shouldn't be able to see, that's
> just a matter of applying some rendering code.  Figure out what
> the character perceptions should be delivering to the character -
> and thus, to the player - and render as appropriate.  Draw the
> area beyond the character's peripheral vision in grey and put in
> grey lumps to indicate sound-generating objects.  In the
> peripheral vision, use lower level of detail objects and/or leave
> out color information.  

Unfair and unreal. Yes, your vision degrades in the periphery, with
lower acuity, loss of color information, etc. However, this implies
one thing, that you keep your eyes *still*. The human visual system
is amazing because it continuously makes eye movements darting all
around [around every few hundred milliseconds]. This allows for the
region of highest acuity and best color vision to process the visual
field. And then the visual system builds up an internal
representation of your environment. You know that cup in the corner
of your eye is blue because you've fixated on or near it. Once you
determine it's blue, it retains that blueness even when it moves
back into the periphery: object persistence.

If you grey out/lower details/leave out color except for the central
area, you're working against the player. Not only that, you're doing
the opposite of modelling vision, because you're not modelling the
character's eyes darting around, presenting a richer view of the
environment. Thus, in this model, you expect the player to
mouse-look or whatnot, all around. This won't be as fast as the
normal saccadic eye movements. And it won't include the inherent
internal processing that makes the stable world view.

Try what you propose. It'll feel like looking through wraparound
glasses that are horribly smudges/coated except for the center
region. You'll have to move your head around to see whats going
on. It's not easy, it's not fun, it's far from automatic, it's not
natural.

It's not a viable design.

    rayzam

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