FEATURE REQUEST: adjustable FOV

[terrorizer]

Hi there, another very important detail is requested:

Possibility to adjust FOV by slider somewhere in configuration.

I think many of old school hardcore players will kiss your boots for such an important feauture of a 3D game!

Thanks a lot for the Rebirth!

[zico]

I still run a poll in the Rebirth forums on how to deal with FOV. I myself would like to see an automatic adjustment based on the aspect ratio. Then there's a suggestion for having a FOV slider or just leave it as it is. All three poll options currently have more or less the same amount of votes. So right now I keep it as is - also since it's just the most "realistic" way of displaying the game.

[terrorizer]

Hi, thanks for paying an attention.

There is one important fact. In time of original descent, <14'' was the most common monitor size. In recent times, there si nothing special to have 19'' display, or even widescreen 22''. These bigger monitors, especialy widescreens, wants bigger FOV. You will gain better immerse in the game. Imagine you are sitting in the cockpit. I think you have good view from it, not like looking through the window of 14'' monitor. For me the question of "to fov or not to fov" sounds like "opengl vs. 320x200 software rendering", if you know what I mean Its not a change of gameplay or rules, its just reflection to better hardware.

Thanks again for your work.

Fero

[Krom]

That is a good point, when I first started playing Descent it was on a 13" monitor, shortly after that I played it for a while on my brothers computer which featured a "gigantic" 17" monitor that ran as high as 1280x1024 resolution which we thought was huge. Today I'm using a 24" 1920x1200 LCD monitor, and in games that support adjusting the FOV I usually take it up to the upper limit (usually around 90 degrees).

[zico]

Right now DXX already adjusts the FOV automatically for widescreen resolutions. Means that you "see more" on the left and right sizes of the screen. However when using 4/3 monitors you still get the same FOV - no matter the size of the screen - that's right. Of course that means that in Multiplayer some players might have advantages over others. Still I am not the Multiplayer guy and by far not good enough to judge the actual advantage you get be this.

This is why I initially suggested a change in the FOV calculation. My idea was that the game re-adjusts the FOV depending on the aspect automatically. Instead of just increasing it horizontally, it should decrease it vertically by the same amount. However this feature didn't get more votes than the FOV slider option.

Having adjustable FOV slider would be fine by me but honestly - I am really not a fan of that fisheye effect. I am seeing this from the cockpit perspective, where the field you see should always be the same due to the restrictions of the actual cockpit. I've played some Quake-engine-based shooters from time to time and I saw players playing with this immense FOV setting where you could almost see 360°... I have to say I really don't like that.

I think that what you can see on the screen should not be bigger than wat you can see with your eyes - no matter how big the monitor is. Of course that's just my opinion. As said, I'd implement any of these options if I could just decide for what I would feel right about this whole topic.

[terrorizer]

Nice

I cite wikipedia, but you can check this just by looking around

"Humans have an almost 180-degree forward-facing horizontal field of view"

When you want to controll multiplayer advantage, there can be option "maximum fov for multiplayer". Its always better to give a player possibility.

Of course we can have som extra thinkink, if we like philosophy, which is for me: When you are constructing a device, you 1) want good armor (tanks), which have radically limited view, simply because you cant use fragile glass. Or 2) you want to maximize orientation as much as possible and you have realy huge view of where you are. This is case of a normal automobile, helicopter or flying machines in general. When I am looking through the descent game cockpit, its not look like first variant, simply because you are geting major damage to the front side, sooo ... And yes, there is some kind of energy field around the ship?

Remember that cockpits and static-graphics is a good friend of a software rendering programmer. Its a "easy trick" to reduct of rendering needed.

Shield & energy

Fero

[zico]

I am also not a real friend to restrict user-set features/options via Multiplayer host-setup. So whatever option should be put in there should be suitable for ALL Multiplayer matches. If a possible FOV option would be considered too much of an advantage - hostly I don't think it should be in the game at all.

Again thisis just my opinion and I'll consider and re-consider all options again and again... for a very long time already. All of them. Even tho I still think that an extreme fisheye option won't be something I'll put into the game. If I put a flexible FOV option in there I'll probably restrict it to some sane values.

[Sirius]

I don't believe there are often people who want > 90 degrees, so there'd probably be few complaints if it were hard-capped to that. Personally I need much less - even though my screen is 24", it's only about 60 deg of my view since I sit 2-3 feet back (kind of like an equilateral triangle), so even 90 looks pretty weird for me.