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Picture Imperfect – Introduction
By Corvus | September 8, 2008
The universe seems to be conspiring to get me to talk about the use of cameras in video games. It all started during a conversation last Friday evening with Jon and Phil about the use of strong visual presentation in video games (or the lack thereof). Then Ben posted a follow up to my video game perspective meme. Immediately after reading Ben’s post, and its excellent attending comments, I found an article at Game Set Watch on physical presence, a concept that’s very tied to the use of camera.
So who am I to argue with the universe? This week I’m going to focus… well, I’m going to focus on my impending move, quite honestly. But I’m also going to post short(ish) musings on the use of camera in video games–including cinematic cameras vs. chase cams, the representation of physical presence, the impact of targeting reticules on our perception of the game space, and probably a bit on UI as well. But before I move on to all that, I want to set the stage a bit…
The first commercially viable photographic process was the daguerreotype. Previous photographic processes required hours of sunlight exposure to record an image, which made them unsuitable for photographic human subjects. The daguerreotype improved upon its predecessors significantly and allowed for portraiture. Daguerreotypes still required the subject to sit very still, and the end result was a one-of-a-kind photograph that could not be duplicated. Daguerreotype seems to have been the process that broke the photography technology barrier and it was rapidly succeeded by other technologies, including ferrotype, each of which were significantly faster than their predecessors. In the early 1900′s, The Eastman Kodak Company introduced the first cameras fit for consumer use. These cameras used a gelatin-based process to record images on film.
With it’s ability to capture a single moment in time with absolute clarity, photography became an important art form and still holds a great cultural significance. The art of photography, while somewhat based on many of the same principles as painting, has an advanced lexicon of its very own. Shutter speed, focal length, exposure, and grain are just a few of the concepts a truly qualified photographer must bend to their will.
Somewhat simultaneous to the evolution of photography, the film industry began by adding the element of time to the photographic process. The world’s earliest film, The Roundhay Garden Scene (shown above), was shot at 12 frames per second by inventor Louis Le Prince on Kodak film. Before long, the film industry began adding more than just the element of time to photography and began adding story and, eventually, special effects, such as those seen in Georges Méliès’ Le Voyage dans la Lune.
Over time the use of the camera in film became it’s own distinct art form, called cinematography (as if any of you weren’t already aware of the term). Cinematography expands upon the art of photography and, in conjunction with editing, adds movement to the mix–pans, zooms, pulls, and cuts. It’s an art that, like photography, is constantly developing and shaping the audience’s expectations.
This brings us to the use of cameras in video games. To my awareness, it was not until games utilized virtual 3D spaces that we began to use the term camera to describe the frame through which the audience viewed a game’s events. Even then, the term is rarely used excepting in games that have have a perspective external to your character, i.e. 3rd person perspective games. Discussion of first person and 2D games does not typically refer to the camera. I contend, however, that we ought to treat all view-ports into our games as cameras, whether the game is on a two dimensional fixed plane (such as Tetris), or a VR experience where the player is fully immersed in the world via goggles or helmet.
Unlike photography and cinematography, where the camera is an invisible entity, a seamless window into another world, video game cameras often seem to have a physical presence in the world. This is partly because the camera’s placement is dictated by players’ actions and therefore may seem to be making conscious decisions about its location and orientation. This turns the camera into a secondary character that the player may, or may not, be able to exert control over. Many games also have the camera collide with world geometry, giving it an even more physical presence.
Regardless, if we consider photography a two dimensional art (height * width), and film a three (and-a-half) dimensional art (height * width * illusion-of-depth (that’s the half) * time), then we can consider video games to be a four dimensional art (height * width * depth * time). But while most video games seem to take a very bare-bones practical approach to using the camera to meet the new challenges of user agency, they don’t draw as much from their humble camera origins in the terms of art.
And that sets the stage for this week’s posts. Tomorrow I will take a quick look at Cinematic Cameras vs. Chase Cams.
Tagged:camera, video games. | 13 Comments »
September 8th, 2008 at 11:26 am
This ought to be interesting. Unless the camera does something particularly innovative or annoying in a videogame, it’s often something about which I forget, yet which I know I should examine more closely for some games (images of playing Bioshock came as I read this post). In fact, I once attended a colloquium held by Abbott that very well illustrated the illusion of camera usage as such, including lens flare, the tracking camera that bobs as you run, et cetera. It was particularly intriguing because at least half of the audience were academes who probably were not very well versed in the language of videogames, and this aspect seemed to be an epiphany. If I recall correctly, the example was from a Splinter Cell, or some such similar title, which many of us would take for granted.
September 8th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
I have two things to say whenever the topic of game cameras comes up:
1. Lens flare. It makes sense if you treat the viewport as an actual camera, but human vision doesn’t include lens flare. That is, I wish developers would make up their minds about what the viewport represents.
2. Camera controls. Why is it that in first-person view, you move the controls in the direction you want to look, but with a 3rd-person view, you move the controls in the opposite direction from where you want the camera?
September 8th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
@Alan Au: Isn’t 2 because you are really steering the camera around a pivot on the character’s head. So you move the camera itself to the right which moves it’s field of view to the left; or vice verse.
Corvus are you going to be touching on games that place the camera within a physical body, so that you can pan down and see your legs and arms, such as Thief 3? There’s something strangely powerful about that even though it’s clearly not your own arms and legs, it’s almost like the distance between you and the screen is nullified in those circumstances. You’re no longer looking into a scene, but looking out into the world.
Also what about first person camera’s where there’s an explicit helmet or vision in front of the camera, such as in Metroid Prime, where you can actually see a reflection of Samus’ eyes during a bright explosion?
When I think of the camera as a physical presence in the world those are the two examples I immediately jump to.
September 8th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Alan, I’ll talk about #2 tomorrow and #1 at some point as well.
…and Justin has just cut Thursday morning’s post on physical presence effectively in half. Which, as Thursday is clean up the house and get everything ready for Friday morning’s departure, probably isn’t such a bad thing at all. (-_0)
But, seriously? You played Thief 3 in first person?
September 8th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Yes. My first experiences with stealth gameplay were through Thief 2 and Deus Ex, so it felt strange to attempt Thief 3 in third person. I think I find the informational limitations of the first person viewpoint more compelling, it’s difficult to explain.
I can happily play Splinter Cell or other stealth titles in third person, but for Thief 3 it was never a consideration. I would stop and look at Garrett in third person but the moment I wanted to do anything I had to be in first person.
Being able to see my character feels both visually and conceptually distancing. Doing so moves your sense of engagement from “I don’t want to get caught” to “I don’t want him to get caught”, there’s something more organic about the first person perspective. It feels like the difference between guiding a character and controlling a character. I wish I could explain it better, I don’t think it’s a simple case of first person being more immersive as I have some issues with the use of that particular word.
September 8th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
I think there’s an empathy component to the preference.
I find it easier to engage and think, “I don’t want to get caught,” when I see my character on screen. In first person, I find myself thinking, “how can they expect me not to get caught when I can’t see anything?”
September 8th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
I can honestly say I’ve never had that problem. It may be down to how you were introduced to stealth gameplay, my introduction was Deus Ex and later Thief 2, so I’d learn to play stealth titles from a first person perspective and with limited information.
Playing stealth games in third person now feels much more game like and mechanical as I generally have much greater situational awareness.
September 8th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
My first sneaker was Thief 1, which I loved–excepting for the burricks and zombies.
It honestly isn’t as big a problem as I typically make it out to be, but I do tend to feel more constrained and less attached to the world in a FPS environment. Part of it is that I tend to empathize more with characters I can see in front of me and part of it, I suspect, has to do with my own body awareness when I’m AFK.
And this sort of conversation is exactly why I want to put together a comprehensive survey that tests empathy, body awareness and FPS/TPS preferences.
September 9th, 2008 at 1:06 am
Oh no, and here I was thinking was remotely original or eloquent in my own musings about camera and its presence in games. However, you, sir, are far more eloquent on the subject matter than I could ever be.
Can’t wait for part 2!
September 9th, 2008 at 5:35 am
Jules, I’m falling behind in my feeds thanks to the move and I hadn’t read your post yet.
I’m eager to see where you’re going with the idea that the camera might actually be a tool used against the player (if I’m reading that right).
September 9th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
The discussion of playing Thief in 1st person reminds me about the whole discussion of peripheral vision and the workarounds used to convey situational information to the player. That is, I still haven’t discovered a satisfactory (to me) system for modeling peripheral vision. Really, the part I’m curious about is whether that information can be conveyed visually instead of relying on other interface contrivances (like threat indicators, etc.).
September 9th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
One of my pro 3rd person camera arguments is based on how it does a better job at compensating for peripheral vision.
October 11th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
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