Examining a Game Character's Physical Presence 29
GameSetWatch is running a feature about the evolution of game characters' physical presence. In many games, you can look down and not see your feet, or pass right through other players or NPCs. Other games rely on a believable model that can animate and collide with its surroundings. Tom Cross examines some of those scenarios, and also games that raise the bar for having a physical presence, such as the new Alone in the Dark.
"Edward Carnby's body is a distinct factor in everything that the player does. Your inventory is carried inside Carnby's leather jacket. To use, drop, or combine items, you must open it wide and look down at your own chest. The healing mechanic, too, reinforces the oft-forgotten fact that you have a body. To heal yourself, you must look at the parts of your body (arms, leg, chest) that are wounded, and then spray them with first-aid liquid. Likewise, when you equip an item, Edward reaches for it, palming it and then switching back to the stock third or first person view."
Decent article... (Score:1, Interesting)
But leaves out the explanation, as suggested in the article comments. See Partial Identification [wikipedia.org].
I prefer not to see the body (Score:3, Interesting)
Besides, work on getting the NPCs to move their mouth properly when talking. That will enhance thing more than being able to see my guy's shoes.
Re:Haptics? (Score:1, Interesting)
Sure, the first rule of IFR is your body can be fooled. But being a "better pilot" is not germane here, game realism is. Whether you think feeling the plane helps or hinders just isn't relevant, what's relevant is it is a huge portion of the actual experience.
To drag back to the actual topic, the cool thing is the body can be fooled: you can make remarkably convincing motion platforms by feeding in small clever motions & angles that /with/ the visuals are interpreted as the imitated large motions and angles.
Re:Haptics? (Score:1, Interesting)
I understand how when flying you need to turn off senses other than sight. However, when driving, feeling can be very important feedback. In one driving simulator I used for training, people kept rolling the vehicles (virtually) because you couldn't get good "feedback" from the steering wheel and brake pedal, and couldn't feel when you were going around corners.