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The Undergate: Induced sea-sickness (no joke)

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  • The Undergate: Induced sea-sickness (no joke)

    Hey Baker, I finally tried the undergate map since we got DSL some time ago and I now have extended download freedom :-)

    Today, using it the second or third time, I experienced something that can only be described as motion sickness while walking around between the cubes with the screenshots on them. I had to stop playing and quit the game.

    I never get sea-sick in the real world, I have years of sailing experience and own a boat myself. The only other time I got this was when playing Descent II, I suppose because that game is "real" 3D without even a horizon where up, down etc are all relative.

    I suspect it has to do with loss of orientation; the map is very bare, technical, like some kind of cyberspace matrix. It's hard to judge distances, and once between the rows of cubes which all look the same, just cubes of relatively gigantic screenshots, it's very easy to get totally lost. There's no way to tell which row you're in, where you came from etc. Nothing that catches the eye. No visual grouping of the maps either. The screenshots seem very randomly distributed.

    It's unplayable for me. :-/ It induces physical pain. The idea is good, but I need something to orient myself in cyberspace.

    It would be better if it was a normal Quake textured map, like a building complex with distinctly themed areas, maybe colored lines on the floor, signs, that sort of thing... and a place from where you can see the whole thing at once. Like the various start maps of mission packs etc.

    The second factor was the effect of the oversized screenshots. It's like back in school, standing in front of the blackboard and having problems reading your own handwriting because it's relatively much too big. You have no problem to read it from the last row, but standing directly in front of it is disorienting.

    This was rather radical, a little scary actually. :-/ Anyone else ever experience motion sickness while gaming? If so, what game/level etc?

    When I had a playstation, there used to be warnings about this printed on the games packages. I never took them seriously until recently. They do seem to have a point.
    Scout's Journey
    Rune of Earth Magic

  • #2


    Originally posted by golden_boy View Post
    Today, using it the second or third time, I experienced something that can only be described as motion sickness while walking around between the cubes with the screenshots on them.
    Well, you can always swap out that texture with a map tool from QuakeTerminus.

    There's no way to tell which row you're in, where you came from etc. Nothing that catches the eye. No visual grouping of the maps either. The screenshots seem very randomly distributed.
    They are in alphabetical order in 3 sections.

    1: Underworldfan Hall of Fame (down towards the end)
    2: Underworldfan Reviewed maps (Left side)
    3: Underworldfan Recommended maps (right side)

    Although I think the map is perfectly functional, I could have done a better job on the map, that's for sure. I was trying to keep entities to a minimum.

    It was hard enough to make as it was. I felt like throwing up a couple of times due to the extreme monotony, ugh. That was nearly unbearable. Every image was text captioned by hand at precise pixel coordinates and so forth, etc. etc.

    I always favor "done" over "not done, maybe I'll finish it someday".

    As it was, between the QuakeC, making all the images, testing and even making a Quakeworld supporting progs.dat, it was enough work as it was and truly is was surprising that it was ever completed.

    But I agree, the map could have been better, but after scrapping numerous attempts I made something very utilitarian.

    I had dreamy ideas for an ultimate single player gateway map, especially after making the Rocket Arena selector map.



    But in the end, most of my ideas didn't pan out for one reason or another.

    If I hadn't made the map with cubes, the complexity of the map would have risen dramatically because it would have exceeded the default Quake farclip limit of 4096, which I viewed as out of the question. So it would have had to have been made with rooms and such.

    Short story: I did the best I could with the time I had available.

    It would be better if it was a normal Quake textured map, like a building complex with distinctly themed areas, maybe colored lines on the floor, signs, that sort of thing... and a place from where you can see the whole thing at once. Like the various start maps of mission packs etc.
    No arguments here.

    The second factor was the effect of the oversized screenshots. It's like back in school, standing in front of the blackboard and having problems reading your own handwriting because it's relatively much too big. You have no problem to read it from the last row, but standing directly in front of it is disorienting.
    Yeah, but at least you get a great idea of what the map looks like. Remember, Quake's standard texture resolution sucks so if the pictures were not large, they would be smudgy and not crisp.

    Unless I used replacement textures (.tga, .png) and then it wouldn't have been universal.

    Tradeoffs! Sometimes you have to do something because it works universally rather than it being ideal.
    Last edited by Baker; 02-20-2008, 07:24 PM.
    Quakeone.com - Being exactly one-half good and one-half evil has advantages. When a portal opens to the antimatter universe, my opposite is just me with a goatee.

    So while you guys all have to fight your anti-matter counterparts, me and my evil twin will be drinking a beer laughing at you guys ...

    Comment


    • #3
      Heh, I'm not complaining about the mapping quality here, obviously it's a utilitarian design and it technically works.

      I was just trying to explain how it could give me motion sickness/disorientation sickness, whatever you call it. Wobbly feeling in the head.

      It's clear that there is a plan behind the layout, but once you are between the cubes and have turned around a few times to look at the screenshots, you can no longer tell where left and right, or front and back was.

      I wasn't trying to apply normal mapping quality measures to this. It really made me feel physically ill very suddenly and I wanted to understand why.

      Very strange feeling.

      /shrug

      Exchanging the floor texture wouldn't work, because it would still look the same everywhere and thus give no orientation. Brushes might work, geometrical shapes, like a pyramid on one side, a cube on another and so forth. So I could see "oh, I'm at the cube and there's the pyramid." Like an artificial horizon. A psychological thing.

      I can't touch this map again with a ten foot pole. Not because of the visuals, just because of the psychological effect. Weird, huh. I appreciate the effort it took to make it of course. I was looking forward to spend a few hours with it when that phenomenon occurred.
      Scout's Journey
      Rune of Earth Magic

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by golden_boy View Post
        Heh, I'm not complaining about the mapping quality here, obviously it's a utilitarian design and it technically works.

        I was just trying to explain how it could give me motion sickness/disorientation sickness, whatever you call it. Wobbly feeling in the head.

        It's clear that there is a plan behind the layout, but once you are between the cubes and have turned around a few times to look at the screenshots, you can no longer tell where left and right, or front and back was.

        I wasn't trying to apply normal mapping quality measures to this. It really made me feel physically ill very suddenly and I wanted to understand why.

        Very strange feeling.

        /shrug

        Exchanging the floor texture wouldn't work, because it would still look the same everywhere and thus give no orientation. Brushes might work, geometrical shapes, like a pyramid on one side, a cube on another and so forth. So I could see "oh, I'm at the cube and there's the pyramid." Like an artificial horizon. A psychological thing.

        I can't touch this map again with a ten foot pole. Not because of the visuals, just because of the psychological effect. Weird, huh. I appreciate the effort it took to make it of course. I was looking forward to spend a few hours with it when that phenomenon occurred.
        Must be like those Japanese kids that had reactions to watching colorful pattern in cartoons and got seizures

        Really, that's scary stuff!
        Quakeone.com - Being exactly one-half good and one-half evil has advantages. When a portal opens to the antimatter universe, my opposite is just me with a goatee.

        So while you guys all have to fight your anti-matter counterparts, me and my evil twin will be drinking a beer laughing at you guys ...

        Comment


        • #5
          How about cl_bob 0

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          • #6
            and cl_rollangle 0

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