Do a better height scaling mechanic

[JustACup]

I'm not a huge fan of how height scaling works in this game (and pretty much all VR games at this point). When you make yourself taller, all that happens is you get raised up a few inches. Sure, maybe I'll now be able to see enemies face to face, but it doesn't feel like I'm their height, it just feels like I'm standing on a step stool. It would be great if instead of being moved up and down, you actually got bigger and smaller. If you want to be 1.5x your normal height, the world gets scaled down by a factor of 1.5. Now all the enemies match your height, but your feet are still on the ground and you actually feel like a taller person. Posting here instead of other games because the developers seem to listen to user input. This game is already getting popular, and if one of the top VR games does height correctly, maybe ones that follow will do it too.

[Major_Troubles]

Originally posted by Caldor:

Whether you see it as scaling up the player, or scaling down the game world does not really make any difference here.

I can only repeat myself: The difference is how big the world looks to the player. If you scale up the player, the world looks as usual; if you scale down the world, it looks small unfamiliarly small.

[Caldor]

Originally posted by Major_Troubles:

Originally posted by Caldor:

Whether you see it as scaling up the player, or scaling down the game world does not really make any difference here.

I can only repeat myself: The difference is how big the world looks to the player. If you scale up the player, the world looks as usual; if you scale down the world, it looks small unfamiliarly small.

That is not he case though, I already showed this in my video.

I also tried explaining several times why that is not the case, and why it should not be the case.

[Major_Troubles]

Originally posted by Caldor:

Originally posted by Major_Troubles:

I can only repeat myself: The difference is how big the world looks to the player. If you scale up the player, the world looks as usual; if you scale down the world, it looks small unfamiliarly small.

That is not he case though, I already showed this in my video.

I also tried explaining several times why that is not the case, and why it should not be the case.

It IS the case unless you scale IPD 1:1, which we already agreed is a bad idea. (#45)

[Caldor]

Originally posted by Major_Troubles:

Originally posted by Caldor:

That is not he case though, I already showed this in my video.

I also tried explaining several times why that is not the case, and why it should not be the case.

It IS the case unless you scale IPD 1:1, which we already agreed is a bad idea. (#45)

No, that is not what I agreed. I said it makes sense for the players IPD to scale to be the avatars IPD. That is, the player has a certain IPD in the headset, but the avatar has a different IPD. So when you scale the VR rig, you also scale the IPD.

As it should, otherwise the whole thing just would not make sense, or work.

I tried to use the controllers as an example. When you scale up the player / the VR rig, you get a controller that is bigger than the hands of the avatar than it was before you scaled up the player. Vice versa if you scale down the player / VR rig.

The controllers are still the same size as seen by the player both in and outside of VR.

[Caldor]

What I have said is that it might not scale 1:1. If you make a player twice as tall, it might not mean you end up having twice the IPD.

But when you scale the player to the game, you also have to scale the IPD, whether its 1:1 or not. From what I can tell, the VR rig takes care of it for you though. So what I was saying, is that we should not begin changing the IPD, we should let the VR rig do what it does.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pupillary_distance

[Major_Troubles]

... and if you increase the IPD less than the avatar's height, there is a difference between scaling up the player and scaling down the world.

[Caldor]

Originally posted by Major_Troubles:

... and if you increase the IPD less than the avatar's height, there is a difference between scaling up the player and scaling down the world.

No, the VR Rig takes care of the IPD. The IPD is wrong to begin with in this regard. A player with a short / small body has the wrong IPD to begin with. So fearing that the scale will be wrong is not making much sense. The problem is already there to begin with. If you scale the VR rig wrong, all you got is something that is probably still less off than it was to begin with.

Only if you begin to mess with the IPD directly will you get the problem you are on about, by scaling the player / the VR rig and the game world in different ratios. Well, or if the VR rig does not scale the right way when it comes to its IPD to scale ratio.

[Caldor]

Originally posted by Caldor:

Finally done making an example video :)
https://youtu.be/ztxO3Drxl9w

Also uploaded the example project:
http://dionysus.dk/devstuff/unity3d/ScaleExample.rar

The second link I shared here is the example project itself. You can try playing around with the different scales.

[Major_Troubles]

Originally posted by Caldor:

Originally posted by Major_Troubles:

... and if you increase the IPD less than the avatar's height, there is a difference between scaling up the player and scaling down the world.

No, the VR Rig takes care of the IPD.

Let me rephrase: "if the IPD is increased less than the avatar's height..."

So, if the IPD is scaled 1:1 with the avatar (by the dev, automatically, by whatever,...) the world and every object in it looks smaller which is undesirable according to a previous comment.

I still think that scaling down the guards (and leaving everything else as it is) is the better option. I don't know the exact value but let's say they are 1.9 m by default. I'd scale them to
min(default size, player height * 1.12)
That way, a player that is 1.9 m tall will have guards that are 1.9 m.
A player that is 1.8 m tall will still have 1.9 m guards.
A player that is 1.7 m tall will still have 1.9 m guards, but it starts to decrease from this point.
A player that is 1.6 m tall will have 1.79 m guards.
A player that is 1.5 m tall will have 1.68 m guards.
A player that is 1.4 m tall will have 1.57 m guards.

They should still be big enough to look dangerous (they are taller than the player) but they are killable.

[Caldor]

Originally posted by Major_Troubles:

Originally posted by Caldor:

No, the VR Rig takes care of the IPD.

Let me rephrase: "if the IPD is increased less than the avatar's height..."

So, if the IPD is scaled 1:1 with the avatar (by the dev, automatically, by whatever,...) the world and every object in it looks smaller which is undesirable according to a previous comment.

I still think that scaling down the guards (and leaving everything else as it is) is the better option. I don't know the exact value but let's say they are 1.9 m by default. I'd scale them to
min(default size, player height * 1.12)
That way, a player that is 1.9 m tall will have guards that are 1.9 m.
A player that is 1.8 m tall will still have 1.9 m guards.
A player that is 1.7 m tall will still have 1.9 m guards, but it starts to decrease from this point.
A player that is 1.6 m tall will have 1.79 m guards.
A player that is 1.5 m tall will have 1.68 m guards.
A player that is 1.4 m tall will have 1.57 m guards.

They should still be big enough to look dangerous (they are taller than the player) but they are killable.

I still see that is a pretty bad solution, as this way you make the player have to climb more if the player is smaller... or less if the player is higher, mainly because of a problem I do not see to be there. The VR rig should already have taken this into account. You are scaling the size of the player, not the height.

So there should not be some wrongful scaling. The IPD is the distance between the eyes. It has a ratio to the size of the body. If you scale the players size by 1.5 the IPD will also scale 1.5... as it should. Just like the arm length is a certain ratio of a persons height, and the leg length. There are a few where its a bit off the average, but that does not really change anything, those off cases will always be there, and that off case problem will be there either way.

The game is about more than just backstabbing guards, so trying to only scale the guards is taking one symptom of the problem and dealing with that on its own, rather than actually dealing with the problem.

The problem we previously got into as being undesirable, is still there. You just do not seem to agree that the problem is solved by resizing the player to fit the avatar, now you want to resize the avatar instead, to fit the height of the player, and all of the guards. Making the game world too big for the player.

[Major_Troubles]

Originally posted by Caldor:

IPD ... has a ratio to the size of the body.

It does not. As in: that ratio is different for everyone.

Originally posted by Caldor:

If you scale the players size by 1.5 the IPD will also scale 1.5... as it should.

You wrote previously that it should not.

Originally posted by Caldor:

The game is about more than just backstabbing guards, so trying to only scale the guards is taking one symptom of the problem and dealing with that on its own, rather than actually dealing with the problem.

We obviously disagree what the problem is. The whole thing was triggered by a player being too short to assassinate guards properly. So yes, the game is about a lot more, but there is no other problem!

Originally posted by Caldor:

You just do not seem to agree that the problem is solved by resizing the player to fit the avatar, now you want to resize the avatar instead, to fit the height of the player, and all of the guards. Making the game world too big for the player.

Originally posted by Caldor:

...you make the player have to climb more if the player is smaller.

No, I don't. When a person half my size is walking next to me, we are walking the same distance. The shorter person will have to take more steps but the distance is the same.

VR is about you being transported into a virtual world. Yourself. No need to change your body. There is no fixed size avatar. By default, in VR it is the player's body. And no, when the game world remains unchanged and the player isn't scaled either, the world is not too big. It is normal-sized, as it should be. If I program a 2 m high door, everyone who puts on the VR goggles will see a 2 m high door, as they expect. A 1.5 m high person would find it odd if the door was only 1.6 m high.
A shorter person is used to a normal sized world. They EXPECT a normal sized world and they should get that. That's why the 1.6 m high door is undesirable.

In VR you don't give everyone the exact same experience. You give everyone the same world to experience from their point of view.
If some things don't work out in extreme cases, some adjustments need to be made to maintain playability. But the world should remain as unchanged as possible.

That's my opinion. I don't think I can add anything new to that. The devs will have to figure out which way they prefer or pick something completely different.

[Caldor]

Originally posted by Major_Troubles:

Originally posted by Caldor:

IPD ... has a ratio to the size of the body.

It does not. As in: that ratio is different for everyone.

Originally posted by Caldor:

If you scale the players size by 1.5 the IPD will also scale 1.5... as it should.

You wrote previously that it should not.

Originally posted by Caldor:

The game is about more than just backstabbing guards, so trying to only scale the guards is taking one symptom of the problem and dealing with that on its own, rather than actually dealing with the problem.

We obviously disagree what the problem is. The whole thing was triggered by a player being too short to assassinate guards properly. So yes, the game is about a lot more, but there is no other problem!

Originally posted by Caldor:

You just do not seem to agree that the problem is solved by resizing the player to fit the avatar, now you want to resize the avatar instead, to fit the height of the player, and all of the guards. Making the game world too big for the player.

Originally posted by Caldor:

...you make the player have to climb more if the player is smaller.

No, I don't. When a person half my size is walking next to me, we are walking the same distance. The shorter person will have to take more steps but the distance is the same.

VR is about you being transported into a virtual world. Yourself. No need to change your body. There is no fixed size avatar. By default, in VR it is the player's body. And no, when the game world remains unchanged and the player isn't scaled either, the world is not too big. It is normal-sized, as it should be. If I program a 2 m high door, everyone who puts on the VR goggles will see a 2 m high door, as they expect. A 1.5 m high person would find it odd if the door was only 1.6 m high.
A shorter person is used to a normal sized world. They EXPECT a normal sized world and they should get that. That's why the 1.6 m high door is undesirable.

In VR you don't give everyone the exact same experience. You give everyone the same world to experience from their point of view.
If some things don't work out in extreme cases, some adjustments need to be made to maintain playability. But the world should remain as unchanged as possible.

That's my opinion. I don't think I can add anything new to that. The devs will have to figure out which way they prefer or pick something completely different.

That is just it, the distance is not the same then. The shorter person sees one meter as longer than you see one meter, which is why the shorter person has to take more steps.

That is not how it is supposed to be in the game.

A persons IPD is different... but you have to remember that part of the HMD is that you set your IPD. So unless its set wrong, changing the scale should not be an issue, and if it is, its no more of an issue than it was to begin with.

In VR you can give everyone the same experience. What a shorter person is used to is not really what we are on about here. Its not a problem for a person to suddenly have the world shrink or grow. Its not something that causes nausea. Not sure where this idea comes from.

Dwarfs often have to get a specially designed home or at least furniture. A shorter person expects what exactly? There are several VR games where you play a city wrecking monster. Size is not that important in VR. What is important is that the VR experience fits your physical body. The simplest solution is to just scale the size of the VR rig, which scales the person playing in relation to the game world.

If you do not do this, well then you should scale the games avatar to fit the player, or give a range of options to adjust where the belt is to be and so on. But in games where you are to f.ex. climb or do melee combat, its simply just most fair to scale the player to give all players the same experience regardless of their size.

Scaling all the guards / only the height / only length of the arms is simply just over-complicating things

[Major_Troubles]

Originally posted by Caldor:

In VR you can give everyone the same experience. What a shorter person is used to is not really what we are on about here.

Yes, we are. It's supposed to be a realistic world. That's why it should have realistic dimensions.

Originally posted by Caldor:

Its not a problem for a person to suddenly have the world shrink or grow. Its not something that causes nausea. Not sure where this idea comes from.

It is a problem because it goes against expectations. In a fantasy world that would be fine. Not here.
I never said anything about nausea with this regard.

[Caldor]

Originally posted by Major_Troubles:

Originally posted by Caldor:

In VR you can give everyone the same experience. What a shorter person is used to is not really what we are on about here.

Yes, we are. It's supposed to be a realistic world. That's why it should have realistic dimensions.

Originally posted by Caldor:

Its not a problem for a person to suddenly have the world shrink or grow. Its not something that causes nausea. Not sure where this idea comes from.

It is a problem because it goes against expectations. In a fantasy world that would be fine. Not here.
I never said anything about nausea with this regard.

Well, it is a fantasy world, you are playing a fantasy character. Not sure why you think people who are short would prefer to stay short in a game playing a character in a story who is not supposed to be short.

I am just not seeing what your argument here is anymore. It stops being realistic because in the game you are 1.8 instead of 1.5? Or 1.5 instead of 1.5? Why is it people have expectations that the game world is having the same dimensions as the real world? That was never an argument for first person games before VR, that if a smaller person played the game, the game world should adhere to it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAVa_9ilIEQ

Here another person goes into the exact same argument I do. Its not like we are going to double the size of a player. They wont suddenly be seeing objects that are twice as big as they would normally be, or half the size they would usually be. He also goes into how to set it all automatically.

[Caldor]

Here is a post by a person who is an actual dwarf, and he argues its a problem SteamVR should solve on their end... which would make sense, since its possible. Just like how they solved being able to remap all the controls in Steam, rather than having to do it in each and every game.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/7fh2oj/adjusting_player_scale_for_short_people/

But other than that, a person who really has this problem, and the solution he wants to see... that he is not made small in the game, just because he is small in real life.