A Tree! A Rock! A Bush! 20 Answers on the misconceptions of distance in games

Hi Guys,


In my journey of understanding.. learning much more about pixel counts and how much of a gaff I made about how many pixels my TV could *actually* do.. I learned this:

1.the measurement for textures vs distance in 1080 is wildly wrong.
2. the closer you get to a rock/object the sharper, NOT vaguer, the object should be.
3. Downsampling exists, even though I found it by accident. innocently.
4. Downsampling 'corrects' the 'error of view' in many ways.
5. 3k textures at a sample of 3200x1800, but only have 1920x1080 active pixels, adds three times the 'Perspective Of Correct Distance' (POCD) to coin a phrase.
6 There is still a very long way to go before we fill 1080 correctly in games. but even by then, we will have moved on to 4k/8k by the time we have 'accidently' corrected it.

but by then the 4k and 8k distances will be even more incorrect and.. its backward to human nature, the closer we come to an object the more we see.. not less.

at 4k and 8k you need to load 12k and 24k textures to hope to correct the POCD.. hmmm.. downsampling screen + sophisticated drivers + high textures = POCD.

I feel it should be a standard expectation on the part of the games maker to provide much higher textures to consumers than even the consumers think they need.

Did anyone see the original Bioshock 2 assets in the unreal 4 engine? Feb. 2010.. over 4 years ago. nice huh?

An open modular engine, would be able to adapt to the things i mentioned here, it would not need to have a lifespan, much like an API, if someone used a tool, we as consumers have the plugin tool as part of the initial install.

7. time constraints for devs made me feel cheated but I knew I was just being a baby and should suck it up.

8. DEVS ARE being crappy using DX9. period.

9. To understand distance Rene Magritte is a great example, he is using the thin stick of reality as a counterpoint of distance.. and making it an illusion.. devs need to reverse this process and make an illusion become distance and 'prose a reality'.

10. .. ten does not exist. I think I made my point.


oohw needed that off my chest playing a lot of Skyrim.. kept thinking the trees and rocks and paper christmas trees were awful.. and I already got the super high texture pack too.

and... thanks for reading my rant :)

have a great day!

Dava