Poor man's zoom

[Ganelon]

I will start by saying that I am not sure if this is the best place for this, since it's more of a player-side thing than a suggestion for a change or addition to the game. But it is a suggestion, and it does relate to a request that comes up from time to time, so here goes..

The wish for a zoom function has come up before, and as I recall it'd take a major restructuring of the core code to provide one, so it isn't likely in the near future.

But I recently got a fresnel lens screen magnifier, and I personally think it helps more than a bit with being able to spot ships and cargo. I had expected it would make the image blurry, but it doesn't. It also adds a sort of weird illusion of depth to the screen, making it feel (to me anyway) larger and further away at once.

I found some mentions of the depth effect, mostly quotes from an article I can't seem to find all of:

http://www.vizworld.com/2009/12/stereos ... o3d-cheap/

http://foros.3dgames.com.ar/lavant-gard ... -lens.html

(scroll down to posts 10 and 11 on that thread)

In short, apparently it happens because looking through a lens instead of directly at a monitor, your eyes get to focus further out towards infinity than looking at a screen a couple feet away. I had seen fresnel lens magnifiers recommended for flight sims and other games before, but hadn't tried one.

It does have a bit more of a feeling of looking out a window in a way. Drawbacks are that it is pretty much a one-user device, since anybody not sitting right in front of it won't be able to see what's on the monitor well at all. Also, due to reflections and etc it works much better for a depth illusion in a dim or dark room.

But I find it does make things easier for me to spot way off in the distance in Oolite, and the depth illusion (while I def wouldn't call it 3D) does add some to the enjoyment of the game. It's also a bit less eyestrain on my old eyes after some hours of cruising along the spacelanes. My monitor is a 17 inch, so it is not really tiny, but definitely not "bigscreen" either. But after using the magnifier for a while, if I take it off, the plain monitor seems really small. So I leave it on for pretty much everything. LOL

Some people try screen magnifiers and don't like them, so you might know somebody who already has one that they don't use that you could borrow (probably for an extended period of time). Cheaper than going out and buying a big new monitor, and hey.. even if find you don't like it, you could at least take it outdoors on a sunny day to melt things or set them on fire. LOL

(Disclaimer - If you melt or burn things that you shouldn't, don't come blaming me or the Oolite community for it. I only pointed it out as a possibility for purely educational purposes. LOL)

[Darkbee]

You don't want to know the imagery I have of you now! You don't wear an eye patch per chance do you, or is that only when playing Oolite?

Interesting post though, I had not heard of these lenses before nor their ability to "render" depth. *thumbs up*

[Ganelon]

Hmm. Not sure what in the post might have indicated that, maybe the mention of playing Oolite in the dark?

Sometimes. LOL