Game Look Mechanics. A Comprehensive Breakdown

[toysrme6v0]

Updated information shall be found in this google document's folder:
docs.google.com/open?id=0B3jq3Adc2gXiRExmcncyQ0ZUYXEtOGNwTmxJcm9yUQ

Go start tweeting, emailing & spamming "community bulldoo-dooters", programmers, play testers & home forums in game / suggestion / bug / improvement / feedback sections.

Need to know what you should be talking about? I got you covered.

docs.google.com/document/d/10cQUX_OZrN_hogdnd40t9jEbHEms8DZuqsTXwtTmNKA/edit


COD vs Battlefield vs Halo: Reach vs Portal2 (same as all Valve games) vs UT 3 (representing most Unreal and Quake engine games)

Default Speeds:


Maximum Speeds:




The Master Lists:

Due to the high resolution, it is easiest for you to simply download the image from google documents vs viewing in the forum where you cant see what's going on!
Default Speeds:
docs.google.com/open?id=0B3jq3Adc2gXiVWFBWnc0a3JSQnFoTERXTVkwVlB4QQ

Maximum Speeds:
docs.google.com/open?id=0B3jq3Adc2gXiVWFBWnc0a3JSQnFoTERXTVkwVlB4QQ



Default:





Maximum:




See the @#$% that get's peddled by the five major studios/engines?
(IW/Trey, DI, Bungie, Valve, Epic)


Default Speeds:
docs.google.com/open?id=0B3jq3Adc2gXicWpHSDJkSE1TeTJTMF96ZnB3M19kUQ



Maximum Speeds:
docs.google.com/open?id=0B3jq3Adc2gXiRnl1c1I0TnNSSmEtWlRUSkhfeGhTQQ















There is not ONE game that has the "total package".

• Only super old games have perfectly circular DZ's.
• Most deadzones are TOOOOO BIIIIIG. 17.5% (5734) is GREAT and reclaims a TON of stick area for the vast majority of games out there. NO ONE should be using a deadzone over 7000.
• Only about half of games fix the diagonal bugs (like strafe-running, adding X+Y axis = squareroot of 2 = velocity increases by 40%)
• Too many games have VERY high minimum movement rates that leave you "hunting" (A game should have NO MORE than 3* of rotation at 30% stick throw)
• Too many games have total pissy maximum movement rates. If you aint turning over 600*/second, it's a @#$%'s game
• Too few games include a YX ratio (or dual sliders)
• Too few games include a good range of speed AND OR acceleration sliders
• Too many games sickeningly accelerate the view at 80-100% stick deflection, some even arbitrarlily do it after the view as rotated a set number of degrees, where others do it slowly.

Now let's talk deadzones! Most of them suck. The majority of them suck. Frankly... If The Outfit & Quake IV's dudety circular child @#$% Bioshock's tinyness. The resulting game would be the only game every made for Console that would be great & not require further modification...

Again, if you have not read the primer, you should.
docs.google.com/document/d/10cQUX_OZrN_hogdnd40t9jEbHEms8DZuqsTXwtTmNKA/edit



Prepare to be amazed! And further perplexed at the craptasticness that is console gaming!
The full images may be found in this google documents folder.
docs.google.com/open?id=0B3jq3Adc2gXiRExmcncyQ0ZUYXEtOGNwTmxJcm9yUQ


These images are the plotting for approximately when movement starts upon deflecting the joystick. The HID (Human Interface Device) scale for joysticks is 0-65,535. The joystick is considered at "center" position when both the X and Y axis are at 32,767. The deadzone size noted is listed in how many points you must deflect in each direction before practical movement starts.

Things to note:
*The cheap joysticks do not re-center well. So you must account for this during game development.
*The larger the deadzone, the LESS joystick room is left for your acceleration curve (typically leading to huge steep curves at maximum deflection that are UNCONTROLLABLE)
*Non circular deadzones @#$% up moving in angles. For EX:
A square deadzone game has a 9000 size deadzone on the X and Y axis. (9000 points to the shortest side)
The same square deadzone has a distance of 12600 to the corners!!!!!!!!!!!! This means any angle off the pure, primary N.S.E.W. / U.D.L.R axis are accelerated!
*Non circular deadzones are harder to compensate for X and Y axis adding their movement rates together at the square of the two velocities.




On to the deadzones! (In no order because I'm super lazy)
Wolfenstien

UT3

Timeshift

The Outfit

The Orange Box

Shadowrun

RE5

Quake IV

Portal 2

Perfect Dark Zero

Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising

Medal of Honor: Airborn

Lost Planet 2

Left for Dead 1 & 2

Halo: Reach

GRAW 1 & 2

Ghostbusters

Call of Duty 4+

Bioshock 1 & 2

Battlefield: Bad Company 1+

















I'd also like to add why this is important.
Developers have "gotten away" with this crap for seven straight years.
This generation's consoles have greatly broken the 5 year product cycle & can't even play HD games.

The NEXT generation's consoles will easily be playing 1080p games at 30fps, and with the rate people have upgraded TV types/resolutions in the last 20+ years.



If people don't stop putting up with crap NOW, BEFORE the next gen comes out (which undoubtedly will features even shorter dev cycles with even cheaper chinese crap-sticks) we'll never be rid of it.

[A Unicorn with the Flag]

Dead zone stuff: neat and interesting
The rest: I'm afraid none of this makes sense. Look is non linear because those fine tuning adjustments would be much more difficult. Unless I'm looking at this wrong...

[banana]

Send this to treyarch/ifinity ward ;p

[toysrme6v0]

Apr 8, 2012 16:25:18 GMT -5 banana said:

Send this to treyarch/ifinity ward ;p

You send it. I'm doing the work, but they are an unreceptive bunch to one person.

Tweet them.
Post on their forums.
Link to the main google documents primers...

Post about what general specifications would help all games (Even COD)

Go do what YOU can to help everybody else. It can't just be *my* fight.

Apr 8, 2012 11:00:45 GMT -5 A Unicorn with the Flag said:

Dead zone stuff: neat and interesting
The rest: I'm afraid none of this makes sense. Look is non linear because those fine tuning adjustments would be much more difficult. Unless I'm looking at this wrong...

Correct in that I dont think you understand what you're looking at.

The graphs show the more you push your stick over (Blue line = HORIZONTAL graph) The higher the look speed will be (measured in how many degrees per second the view is moving).

[anthraxx]

This is oh so interesting. It's my biggest problem with other FPS not named CoD. The movements seem "off" (I'm looking at you, Killzone2). CoD's movement might not be perfect, but it's one of the smoothest and more intuitive out there.

I just wish I could understand all the graphs :/

[iw5000]

Not to be rude.....but can someone summarize this for me, before I invest time in trying to understand what the hell it is about?

[Megaqwerty]

Different games use different accelerations for looking with the analog stick (first graphs).

Different games use different shapes and sizes for their dead zones (the area where analog stick movement does not register).

[iw5000]

ok...and how does CoD rank in the mix?

[kirbyderby]

I'd say CoD is pretty great by comparison to the competition in there charts... but given said competition, that's not saying very much. It has a not-massive deadzone that is not quite circular (but not square either). Its "angular velocity" is a smooth exponential curve that doesn't have the steep increase of most of the other games.

Personally, I think it would be nice if all next-gen games had deadzones/velocity at or better than CoD. No more GRAW deadzones.

[Megaqwerty]

I just can't possibly conceive why you would ever use a non-circular dead zone given the nature of analog sticks.

[cmck]

That is a little counter intuitive. Do they just not care about the shape?

[RageHulkSmash]

I don't understand what this deadzone is and why it should be circular. Anyone care to explain?

[cmck]

The deadzone refers to the area around the center of your joystick that doesn't register movement. If you move your joystick as slightly as possible you won't move. Keep moving it slowly until you start moving and that is where the deadzone ends for that particular direction. I say that direction because according to the pictures above the deadzone isn't circular and therefore not all directions you move are equal.

[RageHulkSmash]

Apr 15, 2012 0:29:52 GMT -5 cmck said:

The deadzone refers to the area around the center of your joystick that doesn't register movement. If you move your joystick as slightly as possible you won't move. Keep moving it slowly until you start moving and that is where the deadzone ends for that particular direction. I say that direction because according to the pictures above the deadzone isn't circular and therefore not all directions you move are equal.

Thank you, now it makes a lot more sense.

[llednik]

Can someone please explain to me what in the hell is up with the RE5 dead zone?

[Megaqwerty]

It's a third person horror game made by a Japanese company in which you may not move and shoot at the same time. I think that's enough of an explanation.

[toysrme6v0]

we're all hoping CS:GO is an improvement on console... i don't hold my hopes out for it. Valve has a long track record of terrible look mechanics...

[toysrme]

Guys, we OBVIOUSLY had an impact on Valve. They changed their look mechanic somewhat.
Unfortunately it's not all for the good. One step forward, two steps back!
KEEP REQUESTING THEM CHANGE IT VIA EMAIL, TWITTER & FORUMS.



CS:GO updates.

Deadzone Size:



Updated charts:

COD vs Valve titles Default Speeds:


COD vs Valve titles Max Speeds:





--------------------------------------------------------------------



Most popular Console Franchises Default Speeds:
COD vs BF vs Halo vs UT3 vs Portal 2 (representing Previous Valve Titles) vs CS:GO





Most popular Console Franchises Maximum Speeds:
COD vs BF vs Halo vs UT3 vs Portal 2 (representing Previous Valve Titles) vs CS:GO







--------------------------------------------------------------------




Master List of Games Default Speeds:

(URL for full-res download)
www.flickr.com/photos/30843238@N03/7843124472/sizes/k/in/set-72157629741203997/






Master List of Games Maximum Speeds:

(URL for full-res download)
www.flickr.com/photos/30843238@N03/7843124300/sizes/k/in/set-72157629741203997/


















PC Players, you guys too. Sure, everyone uses a mouse & almost nobody uses a joystick on PC. But there ARE a few, and a large portion being Handi-gamers. So for the two seconds it takes, why not tweet at them?

@csgo_dev @steam_games @steam_Support Fix your console Look Mechanics. #ToyLookMechanics

[toysrme]

please lend your support here

forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2903034



and on twitter
@csgo_dev @steam_games @steam_Support Fix your console Look Mechanics. #fixLookMechanics

[Pegasus Actual]

Jul 19, 2012 10:05:51 GMT -5 Mousey said:

Apr 14, 2012 17:03:08 GMT -5 Megaqwerty said:

I just can't possibly conceive why you would ever use a non-circular dead zone given the nature of analog sticks.

A bit late, but analog sticks measure an x and y value individually. It'd be much easier to program a deadzone just using those than making them dependent on each other.

Even later, but it's not really easier. The math is trivial either way for anyone who is making a living writing code. Square deadzone would be something like

if (abs(x) > threshold || abs(y) > threshold)
{
 //process stick input here
}
else
{
 //dead zone chillax bro
}

Whereas a nice circular deadzone would be:

if (sqrt(x*x + y*y) > threshold)
{
 //process stick input here
}
else
{
 //dead zone chillax bro
}


[probaddie]

Apr 5, 2013 19:21:42 GMT -5 Pegasus Actual said:

Jul 19, 2012 10:05:51 GMT -5 Mousey said:

A bit late, but analog sticks measure an x and y value individually. It'd be much easier to program a deadzone just using those than making them dependent on each other.

Even later, but it's not really easier. The math is trivial either way for anyone who is making a living writing code. Square deadzone would be something like

if (abs(x) > threshold || abs(y) > threshold)
{
 //process stick input here
}
else
{
 //dead zone chillax bro
}

Whereas a nice circular deadzone would be:

if (sqrt(x*x + y*y) > threshold)
{
 //process stick input here
}
else
{
 //dead zone chillax bro
}


Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the issue with circular deadzones isn't that they're difficult to code (see above) but that they're inefficient (because of the repetitive and relatively expensive Sqrt() calls).

[Pegasus Actual]

Square root is computationally expensive compared to simply comparing values, sure. But it's what, dozens of floating point calculations repeated 60 times a second? We're talking about hardware that can compute billions of floating operations per second. It's moot as a performance concern.

I just looked up what the documentation for XInput, Microsoft's API for using Xbox 360 controllers in Windows, had to say on the matter: msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ee417001(v=vs.85).aspx#dead_zone

Seems like a circular deadzone is pretty standard.

As to why a rounded rectangle is popular? Good question. Maybe they argued square vs circle all day and decided to compromise?

Not even sure how to calculate one of those off the top of my head. Maybe something like the 3/2 root of (x^(3/2) + y^(3/2))?

[Pegasus Actual]

Whoops I had that a little backwards, instead of lowering the exponent from 2, you should raise it to get the rounded square effect. 2.5 looks pretty close. Going lower than 2 starts making it look like a diamond.

As for input lag, I don't see why an Xbox controller for example would be inherently laggier than a mouse. Except for maybe the wireless version... I don't know if anyone has ever figured out how much lag wireless adds but it feels negligible to me. I imagine that you can poll Xbox controller states at a pretty high frequency if you wanted to. I'd guess in practice they poll before processing game logic and rendering so that it's tied to the frame rate. And that is also more or less how you'd handle mouse input.

I could be way off, I do write code professionally but I don't write input/game code, so take my speculation for what it is.

XIM3 on a low latency monitor feels very responsive. Back in the day before I had learned how laggy HDTVs were I tried to hook up COD2 from my brand new PC to my brand new circa 2005 50" 720p screen with a wireless Microsoft mouse. It felt really bad and laggy. I blamed the wireless mouse and went back to gaming on my wired mouse and CRT screen. Looking back, I wouldn't be surprised if the mouse was a little laggy but now I'm pretty sure that the horrible lag was mostly the fault of the TV.

[timeitself]

Thank you for this very informative post.

I have a couple questions. Minimum and maximum turn speeds are given in degrees per second. Makes plenty of sense for hipfire but for ADS with different levels of magnification for different weapons/optics making comparisons in degrees per second directly seems a bit odd. Would including the field of view give any addition insight into these numbers?

The info on aim assist is also quite interesting. Do you have any thoughts as to why aim assist sometimes pulls aim even from through cover.

[Pegasus Actual]

Yes the angular velocity of your ADS is related to the FOV.

Quick and dirty test of max stick deflection on max sensitivity

Weapon			FOV	Measured time for 10 rotations	Rotation in degrees per second	Rotation to FOV ratio
Vector			55				12.2			295			5.4
SVU + Variable (Low)	35				20			180			5.1
Crossbow + Thermal	25				28			129			5.1
SVU + Varizable (Low)	15				48			75			5.0