Hi Thomas,
I certainly can't picture my room as a whole like that. I have never seen
pictures as I've been blind since birth, so picturing the room that way is
quite impossible. I can just picture the items in relation to each other. I
too have spacial orientation issues. in fact I'm not good at mobility at
all. I don't know why this is, and I'm very curious since I know friends
that have been totally blind their entire lives and have no problems. for me
to learn a new area it takes a lot of memorization and practice.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Thomas Ward" <[email protected]>
To: "Gamers Discussion list" <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, October 31, 2009 4:56 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] 3D navigation
Hi Dark,
Yes, I do understand. Although, it seams to me that quite a few gamers on
this list do have serious difficulties with spacial orientation especially
in games like Shades of Doom. As I don't seam to have this problem I can't
help but wonder what is the cause. Why do they have difficulty when I do
not?
I'm sure there is a root cause, and as a game developer it may help to
discover what that issue is. Is it because I had sight for a long time and
maybe many of them did not? Were they perhaps born with some inability to
perceive spacial orientation such as yourself? Is there yet some other
cause I haven't figured out yet?
I don't know what the answer is, but all i do know is how I am able to
construct the world in my minds eye. Seeing as I did have sight for many
years i generally know what things look like, and if someone describes
something to me I can construct a rough aproximation of it in my mind with
color, shape, and size. EVen if it doesn't look exactly as it is in real
life I can put it in its context in the real world. Take my living room
for example.
As I stand at the end of the hallway leading into the living room my mind
is able to imagine mental a image of a room in 3d that is about 20 by 20
feet with a ceiling 8 feet high. Off to my left is the doorway leading
into the kitchen. Ahead of me is the front door, and to the right of that
is the couch. Above the couch are shelves containing miscelanious items.
Immediately to my right, directly in front of the couch, is an
entertainment set with a dvd player, our cable box, and on top of that is
our tv. Beside that is a telephone stand and a coat closet. To Further to
my right, along the far wall are windows, and below them is a desk,
shelves, and so on.
All of this I can see in my mind as one single image. I don't think of
each item in the room as a single landmark or part of a whole, but i see
the whole of it in my mind. I don't know if someone born blind would be
able to do that or not. They certainly wouldn't be able to add color as I
can if they have never seen colors before. Regardless of the answer I'm
able to use that same mental image and apply it to games and see the
levels the same way I can mentally see my living room.
dark wrote:
Hi tom.
do not judge perception of blind people in general by me at all, sinse my
spacial awareness is actually worse than most people's, ----
possibly due to some brain damage I suffered at birth.
I have absolutely no idea how to spacially relate one place I am in to
another, construct any sort of map, or even basically understand
rotational exercises.
Frequently when walking around I will perceive an object either by
vision, touch or something else, and stil walk into it because my ability
to judge distance is so extremely terrible.
I've learnt to get around this by use of memory, and synaesthesic
representations of land marks in various senses from visual to auditory
to tactile, ---- even smell.
In a game like Shades, I'll simply attempt to remember familiar land
marks around the maze, useful sfx etc, ---- I also make use of the block
graphics display.
My spacial difficulties are also why I cannot play games with a spacial
overview involved, such as solitare, the scrabble style word puzles, and
find battleships and mine sweeper tremendously difficult.
I certainly could not play chess without a physical board in front of me
on which to constantly check the pieces, ---- by touch and vision.
all this being said though, these problemts are uniquely mine. i've met
people with literally no working vision who have amazing sense of
space, ---- take for example the blind painter, who could paint entirely
by mental representation!
I am in no way an average model for spacial awareness, as when I was born
I did suffer brain damage from oxygen starvation, ---- and after living
for quite some time believe this is the area of my brain which was
damaged.
All this being said though, i totally agree with you about the Gma
engine, and find myself quite able to use land mark systems in games like
Shades or Gma tank commander, ---- and if your engine works on a similar
principle I'm confident I'll be able to make use of it as well.
Beware the grue!
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