About convergence values:
When convergence values are zero (default) the optical infinity, or the background of the image, will be perceived to be at the same distance as the display device and all objects closer than optical infinity will appear to hover in the space between viewer and monitor device.
With positive convergence values, the perceived distance to everything in the game is decreased - in other words, positive convergence brings objects "closer" to viewer.
This results in a situation where the viewer has to be more cross-eyed, and the objects in the game - such as aircraft - will appear to "hover" in the space between the monitor surface and the viewer's eyes. And since we judge sizes by the perceived distance, this causes the aircraft in the game to look approximately sized like a 1:72 model aircraft that's flying in front of a background canvas held behind it, in front of the monitor as well.
Some may like this "pop-up" effect; I personally find it untenable.
On the other hand, negative convergence values have the opposite effect. Negative convergence pushes the perceived distance of background FURTHER than the distance from your eyes to the monitor.
In other words, negative convergence will enable you to look at the image with a more "wall-eyed" or relaxed convergence of your eyes. Considering the fact that when you ACTUALLY look at something distant such as mountain or cloud, your eyes are looking at almost parallel direction, negative convergence values result in a more natural perception of the distance.
Since the perceived background distance is now further than the display device, objects in the game can also appear further than that! This means that you can feel as though you were actually looking at an aircraft that is flying some distance away, and I for one find that this improves my depth perception and sense of scale immensely.
As an analogy: If convergence values greater or equal to zero result in scale models hovering in front of your display, negative convergence turns your monitor into a window through which you peer into the game world. It will be up to everyone to decide which way they prefer.
My view on the matter is that convergence values greater than zero should never be used, with the exception of playing the game in a full-sized film theatre silver screen. With a very large and reasonably distant projected image, it would probably be feasible to use zero convergence. But with table-top monitors sitting at 60 cm away from your nose, it will probably feel strange when you perceive the background clouds, mountains, sky and ground to be at 60 cm distance, and the objects closer than that (ie. everything in the game) will practically be right on your nose!
Myself, I use the following values:
Eye Separation: 6.5 (for cockpit and external camera), 0 for Aim (tube- and bombsight) option.
Convergence: -3.00 for internal cockpit, external camera, and gun positions; -1.5 for Aim.
These convergence/separation values may seem extreme for you, and I don't really think any one set of values is "The Correct One". Everyone should experiment with the values, to find the settings they are personally comfortable with.
However if I may say, when you set the eye distance to something closely resembling human eye distance (which 65 mm is quite close to), you will gain a wonderful appreciation of certain aircraft, since your right eye naturally falls nearly perfectly in line with the gunsight in planes such as Bf-109, FW-190, Ki-84, A6M, P-47 "Birdcage" Razorback variants, and many others.
In addition, if your eye separation value is bigger than cockpit struts are wide,
you'll be able to see past them in 3D view. I cannot sufficiently emphasize the effect this has on the cockpit visibility from many, many planes. Even if you don't fully see around some of the struts, the blockage area will still dramatically decrease, and you will truly experience how the cockpit visibility would be if you actually sat in the cockpit.
This video demonstrates the effect of improved visibility and perception of distance on attacks on bombers... although I have to warn, the video compression does not accurately present the 3D quality, and I have no way to record the red and green/blue streams separately. But you should still see the general idea even with the ghost images...
Pablo: I'm sorry that I haven't been able to finish the documentation/read-me. School and currently work got the better of me, and I didn't have sufficient motivation to put aside enough free time to complete it. But I still hope I will be able to compile it at some point.
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Topic: New RealFollow 6DOF for VisualMOD (Stereo 3D + Features) V7 (Read 74664 times)
