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You should always see your body from the chest down in first person games.

M

Maligna

Banned
#IMMERSION
:p

Maybe this is just me, but I'm pretty sure the goal of first person games as opposed to third person or isometric ones is to be a more immersive experience and at this point FP games have been around for a long time. Don't you think it's high time that looking down and seeing your in game body was considered standard? More often than not, when I look down in a FP game I see nothing. I'm just a gun floating in the air. Occasionally I'll see some legs (Destiny), but if you stand up right now and look down... do you just see your legs? Can you ever crane your neck forward enough to see only your legs? No, in real life you see everything below your neck, and I move that this should be the standard in games too.

Some games recently have done it well, like Outlast. That game in addition to letting you see your whole body also made everything feel more grounded by having the player character touch a lot of things such as door frames when peeking and the ground itself when sneaking. It really put you into the environment. Going forward with VR games, I can't see them even working as a true virtual experience if this isn't done more often.

Does anyone agree with me? And does anyone know why the player character's body doesn't show up more often in FP games? Is it laziness? Is it too stressful on the engine? What?

I know some people are going to mock me for taking issue with this, but it truly enhances my experience. I don't make mocking comments when you complain about 30fps vs 60fps, so you guys leave me alone in return. :p
 
Jawmuncher

Jawmuncher

Member
I agree. Being able to see your lower body always add to the FPS experience to me.
tresmain.bmp
 
A

antitrop

Member
The Darkness did some cool things with full body awareness from a first-person perspective, which made it all the more disappointing that Wolfenstein: The New Order fell prey to "floating gun syndrome".
 
S

Some Nobody

Junior Member
If I'm being honest first-person will never offer any sort of immersion for me until we get to Oculus Rift. Spinning a mouse or analog stick around like an idiot will never match just being able to swivel my neck. But yeah, I do agree with your premise OP.
 
E

Eusis

Member
We could definitely do with more of it, especially as technology raises and other areas are developed further so it shouldn't be as problematic to include as it arguably could have been on PS1/N64, PS2/Xbox/GC(/Wii) or even PS3/360/Wii U. Though I guess when RAM's tight it'll still be one of the first casualties.

At a minimum though they really need to consider when you should be seeing other parts of the body and animate them as is appropriate. At a minimum seeing this in anything that isn't a low budget indie title shouldn't be happening.
 
sakipon

sakipon

Member
It never bothered me. Sure, in a perfect world the character's body would exist in the game among other nice details. If I had to choose though, I'd prefer the resources used on environments and other stuff I'm actually supposed to look at.
 
K

Krusenstern

Banned
I agree. Seeing the lower torso and legs of my character in a FPS makes me actually feel like a person instead of a camera with arms. I don't mind if it's missing but I would prefer to see it.
 
D

DMiz

Member
It's not in the base game, but a recently updated mod for Skyrim permits you to view your third person body with first person arms in game, while playing in first person view.

It never used to bother me much, but having that installed basically let me realize just how important it really is in more ways than just being able to look down. The most relevant example I can think of was when my third person-body was actually casting a shadow on a cave wall while dungeon-clearing... that doesn't happen in 'regular' first person mode, and it all clicked for me as to why that was so important.
 
C

Crossing Eden

Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
Maligna said:
#IMMERSION
:p

Maybe this is just me, but I'm pretty sure the goal of first person games as opposed to third person or isometric ones is to be a more immersive experience and at this point FP games have been around for a long time. Don't you think it's high time that looking down and seeing your in game body was considered standard? More often than not, when I look down in a FP game I see nothing. I'm just a gun floating in the air. Occasionally I'll see some legs (Destiny), but if you stand up right now and look down... do you just see your legs? Can you ever crane your neck forward enough to see only your legs? No, in real life you see everything below your neck, and I move that this should be the standard in games too.

Some games recently have done it well, like Outlast. That game in addition to letting you see your whole body also made everything feel more grounded by having the player character touch a lot of things such as door frames when peeking and the ground itself when sneaking. It really put you into the environment. Going forward with VR games, I can't see them even working as a true virtual experience if this isn't done more often.

Does anyone agree with me? And does anyone know why the player character's body doesn't show up more often in FP games? Is it laziness? Is it too stressful on the engine? What?

I know some people are going to mock me for taking issue with this, but it truly enhances my experience. I don't make mocking comments when you complain about 30fps vs 60fps, so you guys leave me alone in return. :p
Click to expand...

In alot of first person games, you're literally just a pair of floating arms. Because if a game is solely first person, there is absolutely no point in fully animating a character if the player will never see it without mods. If the character has a full model, then most of the time the camera is instead the chest of the character instead of where the head is.

An example of this being mirror's edge. Concept art depicts this.
contrarian-corner-mirrors-edge-20081216035308496.jpg


while the actual game=

MirrorsEdge-2010-12-23-12-26-37-90.png


The body is also animated in an extremely strange way to take advantage of the head camera.
ZyPkG8.gif


Some things can look quite odd when the camera is inside the head, for example, look to the side while climbing a ladder in BF4, looks so awkward and actually ruins the immersion. Awful lot of tech related things to consider.
 
N

nico1982

Member
Jawmuncher said:
I agree. Being able to see your lower body always add to the FPS experience to me.
tresmain.bmp
Click to expand...
First post, etc.

On a more serious note, I was impressed by GRAW (the PC version at least) back in the day. The slide animation was quite cool. Too bad the game wouldn't let you climb a 60 cm wall.
 
C

Cizeta-Moroder

Banned
I strongly disagree. Fuck immersion. First person camera control complementing character control is a game mechanic like any other. Being inspired by real life doesn't mean it should mimic real life.
 
S

Starwolf_UK

Member
I remember using cheats to reverse the zoom on the sniper rife in GoldenEye on N64 and got really disappointed when all there was to James Bond was a gun and an arm floating in the air. I know now there was no point rendering a body you can't see. It just seems odd nearly 20 years and we are still in the same place for the most part.
 
M

maxcriden

Member
Crossing Eden said:
In alot of first person games, you're literally just a pair of floating arms. Other times, the camera is instead the chest of the character instead of where the head is. An example of this being mirror's edge. Concept art depicts this.
contrarian-corner-mirrors-edge-20081216035308496.jpg

while the actual game=
MirrorsEdge-2010-12-23-12-26-37-90.png

Some things can look quite odd when the camera is inside the head, for example, look to the side while climbing a ladder in BF4, looks so awkward. Awful lot of tech related things to consider.
Click to expand...

Makes sense in this case though. Do we really need another game about staring down a woman's chest? One big plus about Mirror's Edge is that the protag's design is not your typical sexualized imagery.
 
G

grosvenor_92

Member
I agree with you OP I'd much prefer being able to see my characters body while playing.

As to why more devs don't bother with it could be they don't feel it needs to be included plus it's easier just having a floating gun/camera
 
D

direct_quote

Member
Maligna said:
That's just gross. The man is steering via telepathy.
Click to expand...
That's from 2004... Plus who want's your view to be obscured in a video game.. But anyway OP it's not a necessity for me. I felt pretty immersed in HL2 despite the fact that I couldn't see my lower body. I think they added an actual model in the later episodes though(never played them though).
 
N

Noogy

Member
I never want to see the body in first person. It's not so bad for a slow, methodical story based game, but I can't imagine playing something like Quake with so much of my screen obstructed.
 
M

mantidor

Member
Cizeta-Moroder said:
I strongly disagree. Fuck immersion. First person camera control complementing character control is a game mechanic like any other. Being inspired by real life doesn't mean it should mimic real life.
Click to expand...

Yeah I have to agree.

And unless you are using VR immersion is broken already by seeing through a rectangular window that hides more than half of your normal field of vision.
 
P

ProfessorMoran

Member
maxcriden said:
Makes sense in this case though. Do we really need another game about staring down a woman's chest? One big plus about Mirror's Edge is that the protag's design is not your typical sexualized imagery.
Click to expand...
If I'm supposed to play as a woman then I should be empowered to be able to admire my own chest and be proud of my body.
 
J

jelly

Member
Half Life 2 for example seems a bit wrong without seeing your body and nothing when in vehicles or gun turrets is just horrible.
 
I

Inuhanyou

Believes Dragon Quest is a franchise managed by Sony
Metro redux felt very off to me because of that. You cant see your body or your feet at all, they literally arent there, only yourr arm and the gun...i suspect its some crysis 2 like nightmare where Artryom is a mutant himself but never noticed
 
F

flaxknuckles

Member
It very much diminishes my enjoyment when I can't see my full body in an FPS. I don't care about being immersed, I just want to not be a goddamn floating gun.
 
E

Eusis

Member
direct_quote said:
That's from 2004... Plus who want's your view to be obscured in a video game.. But anyway OP it's not a necessity for me. I felt pretty immersed in HL2 despite the fact that I couldn't see my lower body. I think they added an actual model in the later episodes though(never played them though).
Click to expand...
Pulling the year card does not work here. The OP's game came from 1998 from a developer that was either less competent or badly rushed, neither of which applied to Valve (notoriously for the latter), that was just one year before the release of the 360 and two before the PS3, and that year not only had Doom3/FarCry being long lasting graphical darlings but had this game come out for Xbox. Hell, 2004 to 2014 isn't even as big of a jump in regards to what could be done with games as 1994 to 2004 or 1984 to 1994 were, this just seems more like one area where Valve has a weird hangup with, and it was more glaring there because it wasn't even a "well you'd rarely look down anyway and actually care" but a situation straight up where you are staring at a wheel that turns on its own. And not really in an area where your view would be significantly blocked unless they really screwed things up.
GoldandBlue said:
I remember it being a thing in L4D1.

http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t98/jbm0592/Untitled-9.png

In L4D2 though, it was removed for whatever reason.
Click to expand...
This is why I wonder if it's a weird hang up. Hell, I think the Xbox version originally had it but not the PC version, though maybe it's vice versa?
 
T

The_Hitcher89

Member
Hands are enough for me. Just doesn't quite look right, in terms of perspective and animation when you can see the body/legs, from what I've played anyway
 
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