Talk:Field of view in video games

impoverished
this is an article about the field of view in videogames when nearly all the content is about (1) how to calculate angular extent in a visual field, and (2) video display formats.

this reminds me of the article on "canned beef stew" that discussed (1) how to calculate the cylindrical volume of a can, and (2) the different standard sizes of cans. well, "where's the beef?"

the field of view of videogames is either native to the game engine, as the rendered linear perspective, or is dependent on the distance of the viewer from the display. as one point of useful hygiene, the measurements in the viewer's visual field should be in radians (a metric that depends on distance from the screen and the screen size), and the extent of linear perspective of the game (which depends on the software and has nothing to do with the viewing distance or the display) in degrees.

the width of field in the linear perspective of the game has nothing to do with the angular extent of the display? yes. load your videogame and observe it through a paper towel tube. you have restricted the angular extent of the display; you have changed nothing about the perspective rendering of the image.

at the "correct" viewing distance, the extent of the display in the viewer's field of view and the extent of perspective space rendered by the software would be equal, since the viewer's head will be located at the implied viewpoint of the linear perspective. at the "wrong" viewing distance, a videogame that encompasses a 90º field of view in the linear perspective might only occupy a 1/2 radian in the visual field.

the distinction between observer and game perspective is garbled in the article. it's the rendered perspective in the software -- the field of view *in* the videogame -- that matters, and specifically the horizontal dimension (or "vFOV" in the jargon), since all video displays other than a smartphone are horizontally dominant. all the image examples of "Field of view scaling methods" in the article have a constant vertical aspect.

it's also relevant that many games do not render two-point or three-point linear perspective but are either orthographic projections or (most platform games) are "flat field", many users prefer a wider software FOV, some games modify the perspective for both dramatic and esthetic effect, and there can be ergonomic issues with a game FOV that is either too small or too discrepant with the user's viewing distance. my own measurements suggest that "first person" videogames of any era in any display format do not use a horizontal perspective rendering of less than about one circular steradian or 65º. some recent games allow the user to increase the nominal game perspective beyond 90º, although this forces a "fisheye" perspective rendering. all these topics are omitted.

finally, the math is incoherent. angular extent A is A =2*arctan(linear distance/(2*linear width)). the angular width of a 48" display viewed from 10 feet is 0.4 radians (~23º). you cannot, as this article implies, calculate the software perspective view from the angular extent of the display, and it is false that a wider format necessarily gives you a wider perspective view -- it simply gives you an expanded display of the image perspective. (get your paper towel tube, or watch a telephoto wildlife show on a big screen.) however, if you know that the software renders a 65º perspective field of view on your display, then you know that the optimal viewing distance for visual immersion is just a bit more than the width of your display -- assuming the game renders a strict linear perspective. Drollere (talk) 21:09, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Previous discussion
Let Me continue to write this article. This is something that really needs to be explained cause it is difficult to understand.//AT563 (talk) 08:37, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Sounds good, but there's already an unreferenced section on this at Angle of view: please expand and reference that instead, and if it gets big enough for its own article, then it can be split away. Thanks, Mr. Credible (talk) 08:39, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

I will expand it today so just means extra work for me to split it later today. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AT563 (talk • contribs) 08:42, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

needs cleaning

Too much to list. Among my biggest pet peeves, lots of spelling/grammar needs to be cleaned up, and sounds slightly opinionated. 99.149.123.221 (talk) 23:51, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I think it is good. I have taken care of some spelling errors. /QAQUAU (talk) 06:08, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

I think that the reference #14 in the article isn't a very reputable source. Is there anything better we can replace it with? Ss013r (talk) 02:13, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Not a regular user/editer and chances are I'm messing up with this but I came here because of the many clams of the ill effects of low FoV and not seeing a single mention of it is disappointing — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.77.252.19 (talk) 21:29, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Neologism?
Frankly the definitions of FOV used here are nothing like the definitions I've seen used elsewhere in videogames (which are to do with angular FOV). Given that all the terminology in this article comes from a single source, does this constitute a giant sack of neologisms? 137.195.68.169 (talk) 16:08, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

FOV Calculations
There was a discussion whether it is: (1) horizontal FOV = 2 * arc tan ( tan (vertical FOV / 2) * ( w / h ) )

or: (2) horizontal FOV = 2 * arc tan ( tan (vertical FOV / 2) * ( h / w ) )

If vFOV is 70 then hFOV shall be 102 (16:9). http://www.rjdown.co.uk/projects/bfbc2/fovcalculator.php/

vFOV inserted in (1) hFOV = 2* (arctan (tan (70/2) * (16/9))) = 102.447 = 102 = CORRECT!!!!

vFOV inserted in (2)

hFOV = 2* (arctan (tan (70/2) * (9/16))) = 42.996 = FAIL!!!!

Conclusion: (1) is the right equation.

/Innercash (talk) 08:01, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Typical FOVs
I think this article could use a discussion on typical fields of view in different types of games (first and third person, racing, etc.). Sasabune (talk) 00:53, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Original research and analogue filmmaking techniques
The page seems to contain some original research, and several references to analogue filmmaking. These two are somewhat intertwined, so while removing the original research would be trivial, I'm not too sure whether or not the analogue filmmaking references (eg. mentions of pan and scan, open matte, etc.) are relevant to the article or not. I'm rather familiar with the topic of the article, but not familiar with analogue filmmaking at all, so I don't feel very confident in just removing them claiming irrelevancy or something. That, and I've reverted several edits by the user who added some of this information already and I don't really want to come across as being on some sort of a vendetta against them.

There are also some parts of the article that could be cleaned up. They seem written somewhat poorly and are rather difficult to understand. The section Console games would be an example of this, but it is not exclusive to that section. The article may also use excessive jargon (in this case, terms like hor+, vert- etc), for an example of what I mean see this sentence: "Xbox 360 has added 16:10 support but the image will still have a loss in FOV compared to 16:9 as in hor+ scaling, show black bars, vert- scaling or stretch the 16:9 image in games."

As such, I'm flagging the article for original research, tagging the offtopic parts with, and tagging the article for cleanup. If no one else has fixed these issues by the time my nominal disputes with the aforementioned user are resolved I will do it myself, though. --Turdas (talk) 15:19, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Article cleanup, reliance on a single source
I cleaned up the article, rewriting several parts (most of the old "Image scaling methods" section, for instance, which I also renamed since it wasn't actually image scaling), removing some uncited original research etc. I believe the section I rewrote is somewhat easier to understand now, although I feel there might be some room for improvement still. I removed the OR and cleanup tags I added earlier.

Anyway, the article seems to mostly rely on Widescreen Gaming Forum as a source. There are few good and detailed sources on this topic aside from internet gaming communities like this, so it is somewhat understandable, but finding some more sources for the page would be very nice. Especially the terminology (hor+, vert-, etc) seems to mostly come from that single source, and although quick web searches suggest that the terms are somewhat widely used on the internet, it's hard to find any reliable sources for them aside from WSGF. As such, I've tagged the article for relying on a single source. --Turdas (talk) 20:01, 19 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Sources added/Rubinosica2014 (talk) 12:29, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

There is a serious error in the first graphic that is on the top right of the page
Like in rFactor, the Vertical FOV in a game is how wide the view angle is. It is calculated off a vertical axis. The " yaw " axis. A vertical shaft. It is not calculated from the horizontal pitch axis, up and down. The graphic you have on your page show Horizontal FOV at the top and the Vertical FOV on the side... it's the other way around. Pitch and Yaw as axes and FOV in degrees off of those axes. Basic geometry, an angle off of a point. Viewed from the top looking down, the point represent the center of the yaw axis with the field of view opening away from it. Half of the pages out there make the same error. Thank You. HF

I made a "pretty picture" to help visualize this: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vertical_FOV.jpg Netweezurd (talk) 04:49, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

FOV in VR and other graphics
I think the article and topic in general (FOV in computer graphic) is not only about video games. So maybe somebody can add some informations to virtual reality and other graphic uses. --2003:E4:9F19:B500:212B:13E0:FC8:A58C (talk)

Which FoV, vertical or horizontal? (In choice of FoV)
It makes references to 60, 90, and 100 degrees as standard, but no idea if it's talking about vertical or horizontal FOV. I'm a game developer and am struggling to find references on what the standard expected range of FOV should be. Whether we're talking vertical or horizontal is critical! 68.62.231.19 (talk) 23:32, 5 October 2022 (UTC)