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PC Games (Games) First Person Shooters (Games) Quake Entertainment Games

Quake II In Full Motion Stereogram 3D Engine 85

Posted by simoniker from the i-can-see-the-sailboat dept.
crhylove writes "A guy called Lewey Geselowitz has hacked the GPL Quake II code to display a real time full motion stereogram SIRD 3D environment. Warning, though, it's very hard to play if you aren't excellent at focusing on SIRDS already. He has a download page on his personal site with more information." The page notes: "You finally saw the yacht in the seemingly random bunch of dots! Now use your skills to free yourself from your evil extra-dimensional zombie oppressors! Welcome to Quake II as it was never meant to be."
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Quake II In Full Motion Stereogram 3D Engine

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  • The Trouble with Stereoglyphs (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Crash Culligan ( 227354 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @03:36PM (#8749192) Journal

    I tried the first screenshot, and it actually worked! I could see some detail in the background, I could see jagged pieces and textures in between textures... and then I look to the side and Ker-FUBAR!

    "Okay, who took my focus? I knew I had it here a minute ago..."

    Either people playing Magic-Eye QUAKE 2 use mouselook like their heads have been spot-welded to their shoulders, or whenever they look to the sides of the screen their focus will break like the wind.

    • "I tried the first screenshot, and it actually worked! I could see some detail in the background, I could see jagged pieces and textures in between textures... and then I look to the side and Ker-FUBAR!"

      I lost my focus when I looked down to see how many bullets I had left. Wish they'd addressed that too.
    • You finally saw the yacht in the seemingly random bunch of dots!

      actually it's a schooner
    • Either people playing Magic-Eye QUAKE 2 use mouselook like their heads have been spot-welded to their shoulders
      I think you will find that most advanced FPS players do have their head spot-welded to their shoulders - focusing directly on their crosshair and just using mouselook to 'look around'. Otherwise you waste time using your neck to look at an enemy, then bringing your crosshair to bear.
      • This is a very early alpha people. Check back when we have a custom game with custom content. Or submit some md2s for us, that you think would render health/ammo, in an easily identifiable way.

        The game is playable this way. I've gotten to the hidden level already, but it's just a tech demo, atm, the finished game will be better for this environment. :D
        rhY
        Project Manager

  • Best disclaimer ever (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 02, 2004 @03:37PM (#8749193)
    This software could cause brain damage, kill an epileptic, create pandomonium globally, or cause irreversable damage to your colon.

  • Mild frustration, then... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Portikon ( 765757 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @03:37PM (#8749197)
    cool... a sailboat.
  • 000111010100111010101010100101101010 010110101001001000011101010110101010 101010110101011001010101011010101011 000111110101110101101101110100011101 101010010101101011110101010111010101 111010100001111101010110101011010101 101011010110101010110101010101011010 (If you cross your eyes and stare at that, it says "Fr15T p05T!" I'm currently rendering the "YUO ARE TEH FAILURE!"
  • iirc you would lost the (un)focus if the scene moved(watched a magic eye book just few months ago whilst on skiing vacation).

    so is it just yet another april fools gag day too late?
    • You should be fine as long as you continue to focus on the middle of the screen.

      You see, as each new frame is drawn your eyes are already adjusted to being crossed, the next frame will have roughly the same depth so your eyes won't uncross.

      I imagine the difficult part would be establishing a focus on a moving scene.

      But really, I hated looking left or right and losing it immediately... I'd have to have a large monitor and enormous fov setting to play that way.

  • Magic Carpet (Score:5, Informative)

    by TwistedGreen ( 80055 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @03:45PM (#8749279)
    This isn't exactly new in a game... I remember that Bullfrog's Magic Carpet [3dgamers.com] had this feature way back in 1994. It was virtually impossible to actually play while in this mode, of course, but it was kind of neat for a few seconds. But it was nothing more than a gimmick: certainly not a major feature.

    While Quake II would be even neater, I don't think anything's changed now... Hell, text-mode Quake II [jfedor.org] would be more playable.
  • Go 3 paces north turn right , 15 paces, turn left 4 paces and stare at the wall. My eyes hurt enough but I swear I see a spray of goatse.cx!!

  • Additional Information (Score:5, Informative)

    by TwistedGreen ( 80055 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @03:56PM (#8749434)
    This article [nvnews.net] gives a nice overview of how Single Image Random Dot Stereograms (SIRDS) work and their history.

    Also, check out this Java applet here [ed.ac.uk] which can generate stereograms, with source code.

  • Nifty. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by pragma_x ( 644215 )
    More screenshots [esom.org] on the developer's homepage.

    One problem remains: how the hell are you supposed to read your status (ammo, hp, etc) while you're all crosseyed?!?
    • One problem remains: how the hell are you supposed to read your status (ammo, hp, etc) while you're all crosseyed?!?
      the HUD is displayed normally. didn't you at least look at the screenshots you linked to?

  • My Impressions (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anti_Climax ( 447121 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @04:37PM (#8749954)
    As I have yet to find a stereogram I could not view easily, I decided to take this for a spin. After playing for a few minutes I've noticed some interesting things.

    1) Playability is greatly reduced by the fact that the HUD and crosshair is not put in stereo as well.

    2) If someone is not familiar with the levels already, the lack of textures makes it almost impossible to navigate properly.

    3) After quitting the game, I realize how much I enjoy viewing things in real world color/lighting

    4) This is still pretty wicked awesome, and I have to give props to the creator.
    • After devoting a little more time to this I have also found that the stereogram is limited to discrete levels of depth. As these are random dot stereo images, it may be possible to increase the number of planes until this is no longer distinguishable. Though this would probably make playing next to impossible for all but the best stereogram viewers and increase the complexity of the code exponentially.

      Stiil, as I said before, they've done a great job and I hope they continue development.

    • Re:My Impressions (Score:2, Insightful)

      by jensen404 ( 717086 )
      How about making the 2 crosshairs (needed to make the 3d crosshair) the right distance apart so that the 3d crosshair rests on the 3d surface under it? The two crosshairs would also help you gain or maintain the correct eye divergence for viewing.

  • Works well with the Quake 2 demo too (Score:4, Informative)

    by apocamok ( 196093 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @04:38PM (#8749961) Homepage
    Grab the Quake 2 demo from GamersHell [gamershell.com], install it and replace ref_soft.dll with the AbSIRD one.
  • I am experiencing a strange phenomenon when I view stereograms on my computer. When my eyes cross, I see an intense stroboscopic effect on any white sections of the screen. Obviously, this is the monitor refreshing itself. At my relatively low 60Hz refresh rate, it becomes exceedingly irritating and could, I presume, induce a siezure in a photosensitive person. Be careful with this people . . .it's neat, but it can really be dangerous. Not to mention, it expedites the speed at which your vision is degr
    • Low refresh rates can easily be seen with the "side of your eye" look away from the monitor but still "look" at the monitor and you'll see the effect. I noticed this years ago when i had 60Hz refresh rate on my monitor, and my TV was directly to the left of my monitor.
  • Arrgh. I can never do these things :)
  • You know, if you ever wanted to 'encrypt' your screen so that you're the only one who can really see it, stereogram's the way to do it. It looks like a bunch of noise, but to the guy with his eyes crossed (and right in front of it), the info will appear.

    Can't say it's the biggest whoop-de-doo ever since lots of information melts away, but it would be kinda neat on an airplane. "Oh I'm looking at something super secret here.."

  • Discrimination! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Pred ( 315149 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @05:15PM (#8750381) Homepage Journal
    I can't play it because I only have one eye!

    Actually tried to use this excuse (along with proving it by tapping my proshtetic eye really hard with a fingernail) to get into a 3d ride (the kind with the glasses) for half price. Never worked though.
    • I have a similar issue with such things - I have two eyes, but my brain doesn't 'see' in stereo. Instead, it uses what it sees through my left eye, and then fills in the blanks with the right, resulting in less than stereoscopic vision, and no depth perception.

      That is to say, no hardware-accelerated depth perception. I can still do software depth perception by considering points of reference (trees, shadows, etc.) and estimating accordingly.

      Still, I've never seen a stereoscopic imagine, or the sailboat, o
  • OW! my eyes!
  • April Fool's was yesterday.
    • It's not a joke. You may not have good lateral vision, which is required. See the above posts from lazy eyed people.

      Sorry! This is not for anyone who can't use both of their eyes fully!

      rhY
  • Do stereograms have to have discrete depths? Is there something preventing the depth from varying by the pixel? The chunkiness of this is distracting. It looks like you are walking on a cattle guard.
  • A guy in my cube is playing it in windowed mode. He has some other things open, and it kinda blends in. Someone walking by wouldnt know he was playing video games.
  • The goggle!!!!!! they do nothing!!!
  • I never managed to see them (oh the hours of frustration while staring at static). But Red/Blue anaglyphs are really cool and would make a much more playable game.
  • I'm curious as to why they didn't simply use two images (differing slightly of course) side by side [209.157.64.200], you then go crosseyed (or let your eyes defocus, whichever method is set up), and you would be able to see the 3d image complete with textures etc.
    • This works great if the images are close enough but falls apart if elements in them are further away like the size of a monitor. It would be doable if you sized each half way down.
      I would give you an example but the slashdot "lameness filter was encountered: post aborted: Reason: Please use fewer 'junk' characters."
  • I wrote some code to make SIRDS a while back and you can put these in motion with no more difficulty than puting normal images in motion, but the textured stereograms -the smoother magic-eye like stuff- don't do well in motion, this has to do with the way our brains track motion. Effectively adding meaningfull colors is also something I couldn't get to work.

    I really think someday the graphical component of a computer's output will appear true 3D, without the need for special goggles. I seem to recall s
    • Well I was going to post an Ascii stereogram but it " violated the "postercomment" compression filter. Try less whitespace and/or less repetition. Comment aborted."
  • My friend and I found that running Quake2 at 640x480 in a window, then moving our heads close to the screen made it much easier to see. He claims to have beaten the first level. I can't even get past the first monster. :(
  • However it would be nice if some sort of method were used to provide rudimentry texturing or shading. I don't even know if it's possible, but I'd figure, if you know which dots are going where, then at least shading couldn't be that insane. Besides, it'd REALLY help navigate, going by depth information alone is really tough.
  • Am I the only person who has been exposed to numerous stereograms in print and on the web and doesn't see anything?

    I've tried, and tried and tried, but nothing. All I see is dots and noise.

    Is there just a group of people out there that can't see a stereogram if their life depended on it?

    If I see a black grid with white lines I see the grays in the intersections, but...
    • That happened to me too, initially. I thought I just wasn't focussing on it. Then, when I started moving the mouse around (with +mlook, of course....) I realized that it was just difficult to see anything in it. Also, try just seeing your gun in the bottom right corner.... then try to focus on the whole scene. -ReK
  • Unfortunately I can never see these fancy steregograms because I have a lazy left eye. I remember when I was around 10 or so I could see them but that was before I developed lazy eye. Now I find it is pretty much impossible. Has anyone with lazy eye have had success with seeing these images? If so, what's your technique?

    • Re:Lazy Eye :( (Score:3, Informative)

      by still_sick ( 585332 )
      No dice, guy.

      I've had a lazy eye since long before these things first became popular in the early late 80s/early90s.

      All my friends kept telling me how cool they were, and I literally spent dozens of hours trying every stupid method. Putting it behind glass, buying special "helper glasses", etc...

      There's some things in this world us lazy (eyed) people were never meant to experience.
    • I've managed to capture a glimpse once when not really trying... have not been able to duplicate it though... Forced-dominance of the lazy eye is annoying, and messes up all sorts of stuff. :(
  • I already have headaches... although I can think of some great applications for this... esp with some tweaks... get your brainstorm out now!
  • Try this link http://www.vision3d.com/3views.html [vision3d.com]

    It is not easy to acquire the skill though. It takes quite some time of practising to get it. Me, for example, had to keep trying for a few weeks until I've managed to change my eyes' focus freely to see those stereograms. But once you've "got it", you'll be looking at those two-image stereograms or SIRDs just like every other 3D object in your surroundings.

    Just keep trying and be patient.
  • Even if you are good at static stereograms, you need to give this one a while before your brain & eyes will work well with this. After a while it's pretty playable, but the (neccessary) lack of texture and colored objects makes navigation very difficult. A wall and a door look exactly the same. Enimies are not so bad, since they are more geometircally complex than almost anything else, and they move, even when you don't. Thus the key seems to be whenever you hear an enimy wake up, stop moving and look f

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