Stereoscopic 3D in Dark Mod ever?

[VanBurenPhilips]

I don't know if Doom3 BFG edition has any bearing at all on The Dark Mod's development, or if any of the team have the remotest interest in stereo 3D. Just wondering

 

I love Thief & The Dark Mod and I love 3D gaming (currently doing second run through Dishonored, with flawless 3D thanks to Helix). For a long time I've been meaning to build a rig for old games using Nvidia's old 3D drivers (before 3D Vision - they supported OpenGL, as well as directx pre-dx9) in order to play Dark Engine games and to try The Dark Mod in 3D. I've got most of the bits to build the best machine compatible with those old drivers - I know it'll handle Thief no problem, but I'm not sure about TDM - I'm guessing Doom3 system requirements and then some, and such a system might not have a lot of overhead beyond Doom3. Anyway... I for one would be over the moon if TDM got modern 3D support.

[Obsttorte]

I don't know how it's about the others, but as far as I know most people have their problems with 3D (for example headache, nausea ... I'm one of those ) so I'm not sure it would be worth the effort if only a few people would benefit from this

[demagogue]

I think it'd be awesome. As for whether it's worth it, it comes down to if someone wants to jump in and work to give it 3D support, particularly if it's somebody outside the team (who all have their hands full maintaining the game itself), so it's not like other work isn't getting done if 3D is worked on. Then I think that's a question of motivation & skill as much as anything else.

[VanBurenPhilips]

Yeah, I see what you mean - I'd love it, but it's hard to imagine it ever taking a higher priority than anything else the team has to do. Times like this, I wish I'd learned some coding so I could volunteer. I'm way out of my depth here, but was reading the thread about Doom 3 BFG edition - in fact I see it was your comment I had in mind, demagogue: "It would be much better to import snippets from BFG into our own code & shoot for standalone TDM." Hypothetically, do you think that would be the way to go to get s3D into TDM? It seems the BFG edition has quite extensive options to work on any 3D TV or 3D Vision monitor. So (when the BFG source is available) you'd just... take 'em and put 'em in TDM? See, I really know nothing about coding

[demagogue]

If BFG goes open source, that doesn't necessarily mean the 3D code will go open source too. I don't know, but it may be proprietary (somebody owns it), in which case we wouldn't get the code. But if it does go open source then that'd probably be great for us, as it comes in a form already fitted for much of the id4 engine and we'd have less work to do retooling it.

[STiFU]

Implementing S3D shouldn't be too much of a hassle. After all, you just have to offset the playerview in successive frames and sync the framebuffers with your shutter glasses or alternatively even just render the views at half the vertical resolution and interlace the views to be compatible with polarization glasses.

 

However, I can't do it myself either, since I have no experience with open GL and furthermore I am not a supporter of s3d gaming. I love s3d (after all I am in IT doing research on s3d Displays) but I genuinely dislike it in gaming. The reason for that is that every 3d displays induces certain conflicts to the human visual system. In movies, directors and stereographers take care that these conflicts aren't too big¹. This is not possible in gaming though. There is no such thing as a director, hence massive conflicts are generated. This has the potential of damaging or degrading the human visual system on long term use, especially so for children, since it is a proven fact that the visual system of children develops over time and wrong stimuli offered by s3d displays may alter this development. This is also the reason why I think that the Nintendo 3DS should be illegal.

 

__________________________

¹ Assuming they are good at what they are doing. Counter example: The Avengers.

[Partol]

VanBurenPhilips,

Let us know if you are able to play TDM in stereo 3D.

I also considered assembling an antiquated PC to play TDM in 3D.

There were two reasons that I choose not to.

1. TDM has enhanced graphics compared to original doom 3. A 7900 GTX seems underpowered for TDM at 1920x1080.

Of course, you can play at lower resolution or lower graphics settings or lower frame rate but that is unappealing to me.

2. Who knows if original Doom 3 looks good in 3D? Yes, Doom 3 BFG looks perfect in 3D but that's because id software made sure that 3D looks perfect.

Before you spend any money, I suggest confirming whether the original doom 3 looks good in 3D with an antiquated 3D system.

 

If and when id software releases the source code for Doom 3 BFG, I highly doubt any stereoscopic 3D code will be included.

Stereoscopic openGL code is valuable and (my guess) will be used to increase Oculus Rift sales.

If we are very lucky, the drivers for the Oculus Rift will support 3D for various openGL games such as the original doom 3.

 

When I started playing in 3D, I also had headaches and eye strain.

Reason is because I was playing Mafia 2 with fixed convergence (separation) and huge depth.

Properly adjusted 3D looks incredible and should not cause headaches or serious eye strain.

 

Since patch v1.19 for Thief 1/2, stereo 3D looks perfect with modern 3D hardware.

No need to build an antiquated PC to play Thief 1/2 in 3D.

 

In regards to children, I agree with STiFU that 3D may be harmful to childrens' eyes.

I also think reading may be harmful to children's eyes.

I am not a doctor. I could be wrong.

Edited November 21, 2012 by Partol

[VanBurenPhilips]

I think STiFU has a good point regarding children, and I too have my doubts about 3DS since using one, not in agreement with some other points but I see no need to get into that debate. I respect his opinions.

 

Properly adjusted 3D looks incredible and should not cause headaches or serious eye strain.

That is my view too, acknowledging some exceptions.

 

Anyway...

 

 

Thanks for the input folks. Glad to see there is at least a little interest in this. Partol, are you the chap who posted the IZ3D/3D Vision solution for 'NewDark' over on TTLG? I just saw it & tried it out the other day, I was over the moon to see it working, it does indeed look wonderful. Yes, you are right, now TDM is the only reason for me to keep my old hardware. If I try it out with the legacy Nvidia drivers, I will let you know if/how well it works. I'll also discuss a build before putting the rig together, to give myself the best chance

 

2. Who knows if original Doom 3 looks good in 3D?

Good question. Somebody did post a few years back on the IZ3D or MTBS forum, claiming to have got Doom 3 working but was annoyingly evasive about the exact method. I think someone else eventually confirmed it, and it was extremely hard to do. Bottom line, there are anaglyph screenshots of 'old' Doom3 up on the forum, and they look about as good as you can get with anaglyph.

 

Implementing S3D shouldn't be too much of a hassle. After all, you just have to offset the playerview in successive frames and sync the framebuffers with your shutter glasses or alternatively even just render the views at half the vertical resolution and interlace the views to be compatible with polarization glasses.

So creating the two views (and having convergence & separation controls?) wouldn't be too hard - as for display options, side-by-side/top-bottom would take care of most 3DTVs (albeit with some loss of resolution, but in practice I've found it negligible). But what about monitors & shutter glasses designed to work with 3D Vision or AMD (which I'm guessing must be the most common display type for PC gamers)? How would you get them to activate?

 

Another idea, just for the sake of discussion... what about a Direct3D renderer? Like I say, I'm out of my depth here, for all I know it might be a HUGE amount of work & not worth it. But if not... D3D9 might make TDM 'just work' in Tridef, IZ3D and 3D Vision. Are there any other reasons (besides s3D) why D3D would be more desirable than OpenGL?

 

EDIT: I see from other discussions this would cause cross-platform problems

Edited November 23, 2012 by VanBurenPhilips

[Noisycricket]

However, I can't do it myself either, since I have no experience with open GL and furthermore I am not a supporter of s3d gaming. I love s3d (after all I am in IT doing research on s3d Displays) but I genuinely dislike it in gaming. The reason for that is that every 3d displays induces certain conflicts to the human visual system. In movies, directors and stereographers take care that these conflicts aren't too big¹. This is not possible in gaming though. There is no such thing as a director, hence massive conflicts are generated. This has the potential of damaging or degrading the human visual system on long term use, especially so for children, since it is a proven fact that the visual system of children develops over time and wrong stimuli offered by s3d displays may alter this development. This is also the reason why I think that the Nintendo 3DS should be illegal.

 

Stereo 3D in games IS the epitome of 3D dimensionality - is IS the holodeck viewport, or "window to the world" look, only limited by current graphics technology and resolution. 3D in movies is a huge conglomeration of compromises and calling it 3D in the first place is misleading imo. In movies, they lock the convergence point of the cameras to the focus. So whatever is currently being focused on is placed at screen depth, regardless of its real location from you on the 3rd axis, totally ruining any chance of a "window to the world" look. They do this with the idea that it *might* reduce eye strain/headaches. To illustrate the large difference in 3D depth, between movies and games, consider this: When viewing an object on the horizon, your eyes must stare pretty much straight on right? In a game, you are able to set the depth so that things in the distance cause your eyes to stare straight on, realisticly. With a 6.5cm average gap between the eyes (interocular distance), you might imagine the separation to be near that for objects on the horizon. However, on a 55" screen, the maximum separation between objects in the movie Tron was a 1/2 inch, or 1.27cm. 3D in movies must account for the difference in interocular between children and adults, as well as the potential for children sitting in the front row. In the Tron example, the 1.27cm separation would turn into a much larger, causing a child to potentially diverge their vision, inducing discomfort and possibly causing the effect to break down. So they must stunt the 3D "strength". In the future, i have no doubt they will film with multiple sets of cameras to account for different viewing conditions.

 

As far as discomfort and damage, i've seen no evidence of damage, and definitely no proof of it. According to Steam, I recently hit 700 hours of 3D use. I use full strength 3D, so to say. By that i mean, separation between objects at distance causes my eyes to stare straight on, as they would in real life. When I play games like Mass Effect, or any game with awesome, magnanimous scenery, i actually bump the separation up to 12% greater than my interocular to cause my eyes to diverge, making the scenery feel even larger and even more impressive. I did some some discomfort on the first day of usage, but it was light and went away. I had been viewing cross-eye 3D pictures on youtube in the weeks before getting my 3D setup, making me wonder if I acclimated myself to 3D beforehand. I did in fact used to experience near-sightedness and now i don't with my 3D setup. Perhaps thats because my new screen is just under a meter from me now, being a 46" 3DTV. The only other time i felt some discomfort was while watching a 3D movie using passive glasses. It is a theory of mine that because they focus the main object of each scene at screen depth, that CAUSES headaches -due to the re-dimensionalizing of the scene the brain must recalculate. To help visualise: Imagine filming in a small room. There is a apple on the table in the middle of the room and a painting on the wall on the other side. In movies, they put item, the apple and the painting at screen depth when one is important to the story, yet frequently film from the same location, squshing and/or expanding the the room.

 

Perspective also plays a part in 3D perception, ie, the amount of field of view it takes up in your vision. Like train tracks getting narrower in the distance. This can be controlled easily in a game by adusting for a proper field of view, but thats impossible in a movie, unless you adjust your seating position, which is a little hard to do once the theater is full.

[STiFU]

I disagree with your oppinion on so many levels, that I don't even want to comment on it. ;D It will just turn out as an endless discussion that nobody but us is interested in anyway, so I'll just keep my knowledge to myself! :-P

[VanBurenPhilips]

Yeah I don't think we need to have the whole 3D debate here. Just a chat about if & how it could be implemented in TDM.

 

With the BFG source code release the other day, I saw a document listing a bunch of things not included and I didn't see stereoscopic 3D mentioned. It's not in there is it?

[Noisycricket]

On 11/28/2012 at 10:11 AM, STiFU said:

I disagree with your oppinion on so many levels, that I don't even want to comment on it. ;D It will just turn out as an endless discussion that nobody but us is interested in anyway, so I'll just keep my knowledge to myself!

Not a big deal.

Edited June 25, 2019 by Noisycricket

[STiFU]

Alright then...

 

So, the BFG sourcecode has ALREADY been released??

[VanBurenPhilips]

Yeah, apparently so - https://github.com/id-Software/DOOM-3-BFG

 

I feel like a Scottish highland terrier trying to understand Japanese looking at this stuff, but the fellas here (MTBS forum) mention some stuff regarding the Oculus Rift in the source code. John Carmack on Twitter:

 

"the head tracking code is not included, Oculus doesn't have the SDK sorted out yet. There will be another release later."

 

So if they're going to include head tracking code for a HMD, it would be a bit odd not to have the stereoscopic code too. In my uneducated opinion

[Tels]

Yeah, apparently so - https://github.com/i...ware/DOOM-3-BFG

 

I feel like a Scottish highland terrier trying to understand Japanese looking at this stuff, but the fellas here (MTBS forum) mention some stuff regarding the Oculus Rift in the source code. John Carmack on Twitter:

 

"the head tracking code is not included, Oculus doesn't have the SDK sorted out yet. There will be another release later."

https://twitter.com/...176246605721600

 

So if they're going to include head tracking code for a HMD, it would be a bit odd not to have the stereoscopic code too. In my uneducated opinion

 

Would be cool if TDM would work with an Oculus - but I don't think we will have access to one (they are sold out completely until March 2013).