Avatar changed all of that. Mostly. There are still a number of naysayers, but the volume on their scepticism has been turned down. And if I were to hazard a guess, I’d say that it has a lot to do with how Cameron made use of the z-axis. Those of us who watched 3D flicks like My Bloody Valentine or The Final Destination in the PCE (Pre-Cameron Era) were accustomed to it being used in a gimmicky manner, with some object inevitably being propelled towards the audience at great speed. Rather than use 3D to have the screen assault the audience, Cameron uses it to pull us further into the image than we’ve ever been.
It was this that convinced me that this format has a role to play in videogames. And, having seen the movie twice in December alone (once in regular 3D and once in IMAX 3D), I went to CES in Las Vegas with a mind that had been blown open by the possibilities, and curious to see how game developers might take advantage of this new canvas. And since Sony had an array of 3D television sets and PS3s in its booth, I decided to start my investigation there, skipping the 3D movie demos and heading straight for the games.
I’d heard that Housemarque and Sony’s twin-stick shooter Super Stardust HD was in the booth, so I waited my turn, then went glasses-on as the game was being demoed. The first thing that I noticed was that the distance between the planet and the playable surface was more pronounced. Also, the asteroids themselves protruded appropriately from the forcefield surrounding the planets, as did the explosions when the asteroids were being destroyed. Finally, at the end of each sub-stage, when the player’s spacecraft would fly towards the camera and back to the forcefield, it felt like it was coming out of the screen. Nothing too over-the-top; just a simple re-rendering of an already fantastic game in 3D which, thanks to its layers of depth, managed to look fresh and new even though it played identically to the original.
By contrast, the demonstration of the newest instalment in Sony’s pro-baseball franchise showed not only the strengths of 3D, but also some of the pitfalls that will need to be addressed not only by game developers, but TV producers as well. The view from behind the catcher was phenomenal in the way that it communicated a sense of depth – I might have liked a slightly more pronounced depth-of-field effect, but apart from that I was impressed. However, when the batter hit the ball and proceeded to run to base, the wider-angle shot of the entire field didn’t have much depth to it. This, by the way, was not unique to MLB 10: The Show; while watching Avatar, I noticed that there were shots that looked much closer to 2D than 3D. My guess is that a wide view of the field doesn’t compose the shot in a way that will communicate depth as well as having the catcher, batter and pitcher all lined up at various distances from the camera. But I can’t be sure.
The biggest challenge for 3D games – one of them, anyway – is that there isn’t much that can be done when there’s no 3D information at all. That’s what happened with the onscreen graphics in MLB 10, which provided information about the players, score updates, etc. Because these graphics only exist in 2D – as opposed to the 3D models for the players, their equipment and the stadium – and because they’re being laid on top of a game that is being displayed in 3D, the net effect was as if someone had laid ultra-thin stickers on top of the TV screen. It was definitely distracting, and I suspect that for next year’s edition, Sony will either add a bit of depth to MLB’s existing graphics package, or create an entirely new set of onscreen graphics that have been designed for 3D. And expect sports broadcasters to do the same.
My brief experience with 3D at CES was enough to persuade me that this format will have a role to play in videogames. I’m still wondering how developers of first- and thirdperson shooters will handle targeting reticules in games – probably projecting it on to the targets, much like laser targeting in real life – but if TV manufacturers can convince enough of us to buy in, those developers who want their work shown off to best advantage will find it hard to resist opening the Pandora’s box that James Cameron has placed in their path.
N’Gai Croal is a writer and videogame design consultant. You can follow him online at ncroal.tumblr.com.