Ask questions to The Digital Bits team (Bill Hunt, Jeff Kleist et.al.)

[Jeff Kleist]

This whole Infinity Ward mass exodus thing really has Activision looking bad, but I do really wonder if West and Zampella ended up getting greedy.

I'm not privvy to those details, but given activision's typical behavior of late, I believe the IW guys first. There's been power fights with activision for a long time, and the sad part is that piles of people will buy MW3 thinking it'll be like the first 2, not knowing that none of the same people worked on it

[garyrc]

To Jeff, and all 3D experts:


What are the cues to depth that are not stereoscopic, and is there any way to use them to increase the sense of depth in ordinary Blu-ray? There is one I'm particularly interested in:

• WHen looking at flat, non stereoscopic images through a powerful magnifying glass, there is sometimes an illusion of depth. This often seems to happen when one has red on black or black on red. Sometimes, though, it happens when those colors are not present. You can see it today, on AOL, in a photo of three people sitting in a car that accompanies the article "How to Test Drive a Car the Right Way" ... look at that with a magnifying glass, and there is depth. Get your eyes very close to the mag glass, then move your head and the magnifier back and forth as a unit to focus. Interestingly, the depth vanishes when you close one eye, so some simulation of stereoscopy must be present.

• Could this effect somehow be built into the large front screen Home Theater systems without going to full stereoscopy that requires glasses?

I am aware that there are other cues to depth that photographers have long used

• Wide angle camera lenses show a greater sense of depth than normal or telephoto lenses, for the same screen width.
• Objects moving at a different rate, either in a dolly in or out (but not a zoom) or even lateral movement, as from a train window straight out to the side, increase the sense of depth.
• Color temperature contrast between near and far objects may increase depth

• Some people maintain that larger screens &/or finer grain may increase depth

[Mr. Cinema]

Jeff,

What is up with Finding Nemo? Is this the year the US version is released? I haven't heard any new info on this. I remember Disney had even printed up inserts with the May date last year that was found in some of their titles. Usually printed materials with dates is a sign that the movie is arriving, but Disney loves to delay stuff.

Is this the next candidate to debut with Toy Story 3?

[Jeff Kleist]

Hypothetically it's coming with Toy Story 3

[MerrickG]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Hypothetically it's coming with Toy Story 3

Id rather get The Incredibles

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by merrick97

Id rather get The Incredibles

And you are not at all alone.

[SpaceDog]

I think all the Pixar films are good enough that I'm happy to get any of them.
Of course I still haven't gotten to the end of my CARS bd.

[MerrickG]

Hey Jeff,

I know your sick of answering Mass Effect questions, but Im about to finish my first run through of the first game and I have a few questions.

Do you think its better to do a second playthrough to get my character leveled up to 60 or just go ahead and start the 2nd one after my first play through of the first one?

Also, can you elaborate on what benefits there are to character importing from the first one? Does it give you an advantage in the 2nd one?

Is the 2nd one a completely different experience if you start with a fresh character and what not?

[Jeff Kleist]

Reaching lvl60 takes 3 playthroughs and approx 60 hours. You get levels, money and items depending on how far you were I'm the first one, and there's something like 50 different plot points that depend on your actions in the first game

[MerrickG]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Reaching lvl60 takes 3 playthroughs and approx 60 hours. You get levels, money and items depending on how far you were I'm the first one, and there's something like 50 different plot points that depend on your actions in the first game

3 playthroughs. Im not sure I have the stomach for that. I guess I will have to just settle for one playthrough.


In a few years or so I might come back to the first ME and play as a renegade and import my character from there.

[Jeff Kleist]

Well, you can import your character as many times as you want, so just import that into ME 2

[jaaguir]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Ability to resolve the image in the first place is a big difference. That's why you see people complaining about how 80s films look on Blu.

Thanks for the answer. I must say I love how 80's movies look on blu. I wish more people would appreciate how natural the image looks. I think it's just beautiful. Nowadays every movie gets a DI (wonder how they made movies for 100 years without it), and often times the final result is just weird or ugly (usually consisting of boosted contrast and strange hues creeping on the image).

[Jeff Kleist]

Nowadays every movie gets a DI (wonder how they made movies for 100 years without it), and often times the final result is just weird or ugly (usually consisting of boosted contrast and strange hues creeping on the image).

Well, that's a style thing. Just like in the 80s they liked to use all those soft filters and went for that color palette.

[Monkey]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

I'm not privvy to those details, but given activision's typical behavior of late, I believe the IW guys first. There's been power fights with activision for a long time, and the sad part is that piles of people will buy MW3 thinking it'll be like the first 2, not knowing that none of the same people worked on it

I actually might be interested in MW3 Having played COD2, COD3, COD4, COD5, and never being able to force myself far in the campaigns. Other FPS's have been more deserving of my money.

[wallendo]

Originally Posted by garyrc

To Jeff, and all 3D experts:


What are the cues to depth that are not stereoscopic, and is there any way to use them to increase the sense of depth in ordinary Blu-ray? There is one I'm particularly interested in:

• WHen looking at flat, non stereoscopic images through a powerful magnifying glass, there is sometimes an illusion of depth. This often seems to happen when one has red on black or black on red. Sometimes, though, it happens when those colors are not present. You can see it today, on AOL, in a photo of three people sitting in a car that accompanies the article "How to Test Drive a Car the Right Way" ... look at that with a magnifying glass, and there is depth. Get your eyes very close to the mag glass, then move your head and the magnifier back and forth as a unit to focus. Interestingly, the depth vanishes when you close one eye, so some simulation of stereoscopy must be present.

• Could this effect somehow be built into the large front screen Home Theater systems without going to full stereoscopy that requires glasses?

I am aware that there are other cues to depth that photographers have long used

• Wide angle camera lenses show a greater sense of depth than normal or telephoto lenses, for the same screen width.
• Objects moving at a different rate, either in a dolly in or out (but not a zoom) or even lateral movement, as from a train window straight out to the side, increase the sense of depth.
• Color temperature contrast between near and far objects may increase depth

• Some people maintain that larger screens &/or finer grain may increase depth

I think you are describing a prism effect. Light of different wavelengths is not defracted the same when passing through a lens, the example of a prism is well known. This is what gives you the sense of different colors and a fake sense of depth. This phenomenon is also one of the causes of 3D headaches with red/green or red/blue anaglyph 3D. Light from the two images is not refracted identically passing through the colored lenses.

I doubt this could be used to create a sense of depth with a display, as I suspect it would be annoying to many viewers.

[Jeff Kleist]

Yeah, it's an optical illusion

I've never been able to stand the multiplayer, too many kiddees who do nothing but play COD made MW2 multi last under 10 matches for me. Spec Ops was fun co-op, albeit frustrating on the highest difficulty (but we did it!). I always enjoyed the campaign, but I only ever played the IW ones given how lame even the demos were. I have zero faith that MW3 will be any good at this point, sadly

[MerrickG]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Yeah, it's an optical illusion

I've never been able to stand the multiplayer, too many kiddees who do nothing but play COD made MW2 multi last under 10 matches for me. Spec Ops was fun co-op, albeit frustrating on the highest difficulty (but we did it!). I always enjoyed the campaign, but I only ever played the IW ones given how lame even the demos were. I have zero faith that MW3 will be any good at this point, sadly

Oh god Im with you on that one. I like the occasional coop multiplayer, but I cant stand deathmatch multiplayer since I always end up competing against guys who spend their whole life on xbox live and have probably never seen a woman in their life. I just cant have any fun with those guys, cuz frankly I have no chance against them and it gets old fast. Im a decent gamer. Ive beaten both Modern Warfare games on veteran. As well as both Gears of War games on insanity. So Id call myself decent, but I feel helpless when I go online to test my skills against the people with no life.

Thats why I absolutely hate achievements/trophies that require ridiculous online multiplayer achievements (Gears of War, Killzone 2) for people who basically have no life.

[MerrickG]

I would also like to add that Im disappointed with how little respect Treyarch gets when I would argue that their Call of Duty games are absolutely fantastic as well. Maybe even better than IW's offerings.

They at least attempt some degree of character development.

Call of Duty WaW might actually be the best one. It does lose some points for me because of the ridiculousness cheapness of veteran mode in that game, but its a well done game.

Call of Duty 3 was pretty damn entertaining as well.

In short, its not like Call of Duty doesnt have any talent behind it anymore.

[Jeff Kleist]

It's not their writing, its the way the game plays and flows, and the level design

[MerrickG]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

It's not their writing, its the way the game plays and flows, and the level design

Aside from ridiculously stupid veteran mode, I dont see that when I play WaW.
I find the flow and design to be fantastic.

Unless you consider being stuck in a place where you can somehow have 1000 grenades land at your feet!