Guide to convergence/depth
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Longer answer... (I got some time tonight)

Depth: How much depth to put into the image. If you have your depth set very low, even the most distant object will appear to be just a little further away than your monitor. As you pump the depth up, the more distant objects appear to be further and further away. So why not just crank it all the way to the max? Two reasons.

An object that is extremely far away will ideally have its left and right images drawn just as far apart as the distance between your two eyes. If the images are a bit closer then the object will appear closer than it really should. However, if the images get further apart than your eyeballs, the image must be 'more than infinitely far away'. Whatever your own opinion of math is, the optical imaging portions of your brain are not going to stand for this mathematical oxymoron and will tell you that what you have in front of you is a mangled image. So thin head means don't max out the depth.

The second thing is focus. Even with one eye shut, if you look back and forth between a close image and a far image, it takes a half second to focus. Now along comes stereoscopic 3D. The triangulation between your two eyes is telling you that the object is very far away. However, the object is actually on your monitor so your eyes are focusing like the object is two feet away - because it is. Lucky for us, our brains believe the triangulation more than the focus so the object appears to be far away but it is still a bit... wrong. For people who are new to 3D, it's best to keep the depth pretty low to reduce this jarring difference. At least until they get "used to it" (read: train themselves to believe the lies triangulation is telling them instead of the more accurate but less fun focus information /wink.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=';)' />).

Convergence: This is the popout thing. Control-F5 will decrease convergence, which has the effect of pushing the world out away from you. Control-F6 goes the other way and gives you more things popping out of the screen. So why not sit on the control-F6 until you max it out? Two reasons again...

If the object's right image is on the left edge of the screen and the object's left image is on the right edge of the screen, that image is going to appear to be just past the tip of your nose. Assuming you can even go crosseyed enough to see that, you aren't going to want to do so for very long no matter how cool it looks.

The bigger problem is the 2D elements - they always render at screen depth. Even if there is no HUD of any sort, the edges of the monitor will always be there. So what happens if there's a rifle pointed out of the screen while being covered by some part of your hit point bar? Or if that gun isn't pointed quite at your nose so the very tip of the gun is off screen for one of your eyes? Brain fart, that's what. Triangulation is telling you that the gun is much closer to you than the edge of the screen so it should be covering up the edge of your screen. Instead, the edge of the screen is covering up the gun!

In my experience, the edges of the screen aren't too bothersome, but 2D interface elements can be pretty bad. If the game you are playing has a lot of interface on it, you're better off keeping the convergence and pop-out down. Pop-out may be cool but, when it gets screwed up by the interface most of the time, it's just a distraction. (Of course, if you just got the glasses, you might be a lot more interested in seeing the pop-out than playing the game. Go ahead and crank it up! You can push it back down again when you're ready to actually play the game again.)
Longer answer... (I got some time tonight)



Depth: How much depth to put into the image. If you have your depth set very low, even the most distant object will appear to be just a little further away than your monitor. As you pump the depth up, the more distant objects appear to be further and further away. So why not just crank it all the way to the max? Two reasons.



An object that is extremely far away will ideally have its left and right images drawn just as far apart as the distance between your two eyes. If the images are a bit closer then the object will appear closer than it really should. However, if the images get further apart than your eyeballs, the image must be 'more than infinitely far away'. Whatever your own opinion of math is, the optical imaging portions of your brain are not going to stand for this mathematical oxymoron and will tell you that what you have in front of you is a mangled image. So thin head means don't max out the depth.



The second thing is focus. Even with one eye shut, if you look back and forth between a close image and a far image, it takes a half second to focus. Now along comes stereoscopic 3D. The triangulation between your two eyes is telling you that the object is very far away. However, the object is actually on your monitor so your eyes are focusing like the object is two feet away - because it is. Lucky for us, our brains believe the triangulation more than the focus so the object appears to be far away but it is still a bit... wrong. For people who are new to 3D, it's best to keep the depth pretty low to reduce this jarring difference. At least until they get "used to it" (read: train themselves to believe the lies triangulation is telling them instead of the more accurate but less fun focus information /wink.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=';)' />).



Convergence: This is the popout thing. Control-F5 will decrease convergence, which has the effect of pushing the world out away from you. Control-F6 goes the other way and gives you more things popping out of the screen. So why not sit on the control-F6 until you max it out? Two reasons again...



If the object's right image is on the left edge of the screen and the object's left image is on the right edge of the screen, that image is going to appear to be just past the tip of your nose. Assuming you can even go crosseyed enough to see that, you aren't going to want to do so for very long no matter how cool it looks.



The bigger problem is the 2D elements - they always render at screen depth. Even if there is no HUD of any sort, the edges of the monitor will always be there. So what happens if there's a rifle pointed out of the screen while being covered by some part of your hit point bar? Or if that gun isn't pointed quite at your nose so the very tip of the gun is off screen for one of your eyes? Brain fart, that's what. Triangulation is telling you that the gun is much closer to you than the edge of the screen so it should be covering up the edge of your screen. Instead, the edge of the screen is covering up the gun!



In my experience, the edges of the screen aren't too bothersome, but 2D interface elements can be pretty bad. If the game you are playing has a lot of interface on it, you're better off keeping the convergence and pop-out down. Pop-out may be cool but, when it gets screwed up by the interface most of the time, it's just a distraction. (Of course, if you just got the glasses, you might be a lot more interested in seeing the pop-out than playing the game. Go ahead and crank it up! You can push it back down again when you're ready to actually play the game again.)

#16
Posted 11/09/2010 05:16 AM   
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