The next 3D revolution?
- 22 Feb 08, 04:30 GMT
This year's Consumer Electronics Show had a number of 3D TV technologies on show. And now similar technology has turned up at GDC.
Graphics giant Nvidia has developed technology than can give games a true 3D perspective using polarising glasses and stereoscopic display systems.
Nvidia's system uses software drivers which split the video output into two views, which are slightly out of alignment.
The demo system I was shown had a 46inch television, which had a passive polarising filter over the screen. It takes each scan line from the images and selects it either for the left or right eye.
The glasses map those views to the appropriate eye. Without the glasses you see the two views.
Nvidia say developers don't have to do any extra work for their games to work with the system - but do have to follow some rules.
About 80 games will work with the system at launch, which comes in a few weeks.
So how effective is it? From the demo I was shown, very.
But what I was shown was pretty limited - a menu screen for Age of Empires III, which rendered a townscape into an impressive diorama which felt like you could reach in and touch roof tops and people at the back of the view.
The other demo was a flight simulator and that proved very effective. A sense of depth when flying is very valuable and it definitely aided the experience.
The TV it was being demonstrated on cost more than $6,000 but I'm told there are compatible displays for under $1,000.
Quite who is willing to pay out for such an embryonic technology remains to be seen.
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Rory Cellan-Jones is the 大象传媒's technology correspondent.
Maggie Shiels is the 大象传媒's tech reporter based in Silicon Valley.
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Comments
This looks incredible, but how much is it going to bump up the cost of games production? Smaller companies are already struggling to cope with the power of the new consoles, and this surely won't make it any easier. The gap between the major games software developers and the smaller firms is growing ever larger.
I remember Virtual Reality being hailed as the next big step in games over a decade back but it never emerged, why? because the systems cost a small fortune and weren't supported by developers.
If the Nvidia system can be down-sized to allow the average gamer to buy and use it it would be fantastic and give developer tha incentive to make games compatible, but just like with VR I won't be holding my breath...
What about people who are blind in one eye, is there a way of letting them enjoy the experience?
This does look good, but it doesn't actually look a lot different to what was achieved with an Atari ST almost 20 years ago with LCD glasses!
I'd have thought we'd have come a bit further by now...
This technology has been around for years but has never taken off due to those horrible glasses you must wear.
Philips & Sharp have showcased true 3D displays last year, look out for such large companies pushing these innovations in the next movie & game era markets over the next 3-5 years.
A Playsation 4 with 3D capabilities anyone? It helped Blu-Ray...
This great stuff.....can't wait to get into some battles online.
wow a huge leap backwards in tech. i recall the sega mega drive having a pair of goggles, lcd things that closed 1 eyes view then the other. it was synced to the tv display, so you got a basic 3d view. i can timagine this beng much more advanced, and reallyu foe the money??? there was a set of lcd glasses fora 3d accelraror cared a few years back, but good luck getting drivers for em
guess now they found a system they can slug you %6k for theyre gonna support it
If you look at past technologies unless everyone a big player adopts it and there is a high take up they often don't work out.
Look at motion sensitive controllers for games consoles. They had been a few around for a little time but not until Nintendo made it the primary interface to their consoles developers took the time to write for them.
This stuff has been availible to nvidia card owners for years. There is a plugin-type driver from their website which allows you to enable 3d, via special monitors or if you are poor like me, through the old red and blue glasses. Doesnt work with a lot of games, but it means if you own anything from a 5 series geforce card to a 7 series (8 doesnt seem to work yet) you can experience the effect and only have to fork out the few quid required to buy the glasses! (most sites seem to sell them in bulk) It is pretty amazing, the test demo that comes with the driver shows an nvidia logo that spins in and out of the screen; feels like you can touch it!!!
This is not really that new. I bought a pair of wirless stereoscopic 3D glasses from e-dimensional about 4 years ago. They are brilliant. The 3D is amazing. They work on all 3D enhanced games not just the 80 this system will have at launch. I have got them to work on games that are 8 years old. My glasses cost me 拢70. They may be cheaper nowadays.
WRT the comment on whether people blind in one eye can use the technology, surely those blind in one eye cannot see stereoscopically anyway, so the technology is worthless to them....
I've been using 3D shutter-glasses for games for years. I even remember when Magic Carpet (or was it the sequel?) had a red/blue 3D option. That was 1994/5. Get with it, 大象传媒.
And FYI, if a 3D game is properly coded (so that there is no forced perspective for the 2D), then the 3D-view works straight away, very well, at no extra cost to the designers.
I Had a Sgea Master system when i was a Child and with it I had Outrun 3D which required the user to don Sega 3d glasses. i thought this was a gr8 idea at the time and looked forward to other games coming out in 3d. but it never happened and i think , sega and the developers brushed it to one side as a bad idea. im pretty sure this will be another case of History repeating itself!
Yawn, wow, this was news back in the 80's. Same thing happens with every 3D advance, it doesn't pan out for a variety of reasons (cost, support, glasses). Anyone remember the 3D Gameboy?
If you have to wear glasses, why not use the ones that have the monitor built in? Cheaper and you get a bigger viewing area.
The reason VR disappeared was not its expense but the problem of simulator sickness. Games have generally escaped this precisely because they are not 3D and wrap-around panoramic. But as soon as this happens, game designers will have to deal with all the problems of simulators.
The reason VR disappeared was not its expense, but the problem of simulator sickness. Games have generally escaped this problem precisely because they are on relatively small sized screens and not 3D and wrap-around panoramic. But as soon as this happens, game designers will have to deal with all the problems of simulators that the military and VR people have been dealing with since the 1950s
nVidia have had this tech out for years. As for pricing, you can spend from a couple of pounds (red/blue glasses) to a 拢12k head-mounted-display with headtracking. It can work with projectors, LCD screens, CRT screens, just about anything!
Personally, I use a headset with built in headtracker; it gives a great 3D effect and lets you stand in a game and look round like you were actually there- far more immersive (and less likely to cause motion sickness) than a static 3D display!
As for games supported, pretty much any DirectX or OpenGL game will support it- Half Life gets a new lease of life, Oblivion's Cyrodiil looks even more beautiful and so on.
It's faded in and out of existance because none of the big corporations really put their weight behind it- now nVidia's multi-billion dollar frame is giving it a push!
I agree with James Hughes who wrote "WRT the comment on whether people blind in one eye can use the technology, surely those blind in one eye cannot see stereoscopically anyway, so the technology is worthless to them....".
I would go further and say it was like asking "Will a dog notice that his master is watching a colour television".
Personally I would love to play 3d games. Either on my iMac or my PS3. The iMac would probably be marginally better because its screen is smaller than my 43" Pioneer plasma TV, so that polarising filter for the screen should be easier to fit. On the other hand, the 43" plasma could be fantastic.
My wife won't like it though. Like someone else pointed out, she won't like the glasses. She already has problems at the iMax wearing the 3d glasses over her own prescription glasses.
Shhh! Let's not tell her, eh?
I have often thought where does the future of Nintendo go from the wii?
3D gaming combined with the nunchuck and wii remote!
It will add a new innovation, maintain interaction, maintain the unique feature, maintain the family's interest, maintain the fitness angle...we would have the huge sales all over again.
Should i call Nintendo now?
:-)
I have often thought where does the future of Nintendo go from the wii?
3D gaming combined with the nunchuck and wii remote!
It will add a new innovation, maintain interaction, maintain the unique feature, maintain the family's interest, maintain the fitness angle...we would have the huge sales all over again.
Should i call Nintendo now?
:-)
Certainly history repeating itself, not anything new and something that can be added at very little cost (no more than 5 lines of code [out of hundreds of thousands for those unaware]). Most of the cost will be in testing.
The important factor is a story that was on 大象传媒 tech a few months ago: Now that more and more cinemas have digital projectors and silver screens, it is easier for them to show 3D films. If this becomes the norm, people will expect it from their video games and technology like this will come to the fore.