MAR1D: First-Person Mario • Hacker News Board

Re: MAR1D: First-Person Mario

#31

Post by Bakary » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 4:20 PM UTC

JadoJodo wrote: post #13

Something I've never understood about 2D/Flatland as a "visual" idea: In the case of this Mar1d, if I'm on the X-axis, and can only see the Y-axis, wouldn't any amount of detail in the Z-axis constitute a 3D image? The Y-axis stretched even a single "pixel" along Z would make it 3D, right? Similarly, for Flatlandia: If I'm a 2D square on the X-axis, and can see "around" me on the Z-axis, wouldn't my ability to see an…

In a properly 2D universe, there would be the equivalent of some sort of planck length that is essentially the only length. The equivalent of a string of one-bit messages that shift around. We chose to visualize it through something that has width because we are unable to properly understand the alternative.

Re: MAR1D: First-Person Mario

#32

Post by Bakary » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 4:22 PM UTC

cassianoleal wrote: post #20

ryanisnan wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the width of a pixel along the Z-axis is arbitrary, and you only see one, no, it would not be 3D. It's still 2D, you just have the ability to more easily see. You gain no new information.

I'm with GP on this one. You say "width of a pixel". That width is a dimension. If that dimension exists, along with X and Y, then it should 3D. And that's when talking about video-games or computer graphics. In the Flatland example, there are no pixels. The characters shouldn't be able to see each other or the structures on their 2D plane at all.

They can if you see it as some sort of one-bit messaging as opposed to traditional vision

Re: MAR1D: First-Person Mario

#33

Post by seanmcdirmid » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 4:23 PM UTC

This approach lacks perspective (well duh). It reminds me of the Flatland book, when people from 3D worlds experience 2D ones.

Re: MAR1D: First-Person Mario

#34

Post by bee_rider » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 4:24 PM UTC

cassianoleal wrote: post #20

ryanisnan wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the width of a pixel along the Z-axis is arbitrary, and you only see one, no, it would not be 3D. It's still 2D, you just have the ability to more easily see. You gain no new information.

I'm with GP on this one. You say "width of a pixel". That width is a dimension. If that dimension exists, along with X and Y, then it should 3D. And that's when talking about video-games or computer graphics. In the Flatland example, there are no pixels. The characters shouldn't be able to see each other or the structures on their 2D plane at all.

Characters in a flat universe would have different sensory organs than us, talking about "sight" seems more like a translation for humans. "Sight" is a highly directional, high-resolution, low-latency sense, the physics of it... I mean the characters might not even understand it, we didn't for the vast majority of human history.

All of physics would have to be different anyway, down to really fundamental stuff like how quantities which spread from a source radially operate, since we'd be looking at perimeters rather than surface areas.

Re: MAR1D: First-Person Mario

#35

Post by chc » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 4:29 PM UTC

JadoJodo wrote: post #13

Something I've never understood about 2D/Flatland as a "visual" idea: In the case of this Mar1d, if I'm on the X-axis, and can only see the Y-axis, wouldn't any amount of detail in the Z-axis constitute a 3D image? The Y-axis stretched even a single "pixel" along Z would make it 3D, right? Similarly, for Flatlandia: If I'm a 2D square on the X-axis, and can see "around" me on the Z-axis, wouldn't my ability to see an…

I think you're imagining a projection of a 2D world into three dimensions and correctly observing that it's three-dimensional.

Imagine a 2D world with two squares and a circle. One of the squares pushes the circle and it rolls into the other square, impacting it. This is all plausible in a purely 2D setting, right? Assuming that these objects can't take up the same 2D space, it makes sense that the square would be impacted by the circle. This is how vision works — photons bounce around and our eyes sense them. There wouldn't actually be any Z-axis to what you're seeing, you'd just be registering 2D photon-equivalents moving in two dimensions. But in order to represent it as something our brains can recognize as "seeing," we have to project the input into some non-zero dimension.

A different representation could emphasize this point better. You could have this same basic game, but instead of first-person, have it be third-person but with actual vision simulation, so that you only see the parts of objects that Mario would see and everything else is simply absent.

Re: MAR1D: First-Person Mario

#36

Post by fnordpiglet » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 4:31 PM UTC

JadoJodo wrote: post #13

Something I've never understood about 2D/Flatland as a "visual" idea: In the case of this Mar1d, if I'm on the X-axis, and can only see the Y-axis, wouldn't any amount of detail in the Z-axis constitute a 3D image? The Y-axis stretched even a single "pixel" along Z would make it 3D, right? Similarly, for Flatlandia: If I'm a 2D square on the X-axis, and can see "around" me on the Z-axis, wouldn't my ability to see an…

No. To be a dimension there needs to be freedom. In this case the Y is quantized at one pixel and there’s no independent parameter in that direction, just an invariant quantum.

Re: MAR1D: First-Person Mario

#37

Post by mzs » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 4:33 PM UTC

capableweb wrote: post #14

yissp wrote: post #8

See also, the glEnd() of Zelda http://tom7.org/zelda/

That's 3D though, not nearly as interesting as 1D Mario :)

sort of, start here: https://youtu.be/xDxjbXAqTPg?t=647

Re: MAR1D: First-Person Mario

#38

Post by worewood » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 4:38 PM UTC

Well, we see the world as a 2d projection BUT we (usually) have 2 eyes so we have some amount of 3d-info.

Maybe mario has 2 eyes too, which would give him some amount of 2d-info. (Just like an MRI can construct a 2d slice from 1d info). So the first person game should have maybe a depth info on those pixels.

What I mean, mario does not see only a line. He sees a silhouette of what lies ahead of him.

Re: MAR1D: First-Person Mario

#39

Post by hobo_in_library » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 4:41 PM UTC

an1sotropy wrote: post #16

If you like this, you'll like Planiverse (1984) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Planiverse A bit like the classic Flatland book, this also imagines a 2D world, and also fosters thinking about higher dimensions. But there's a nice shift: if there's an "up" in Flatland, it points out of the world, whereas in Planiverse, the up is in-world, and we visit the world by looking at it from the side, rather than from above.…

> I just learned that the author has turned into a 9/11 truther

I don't get those folks. Personally, I identify as a 9/11 falser.

Re: MAR1D: First-Person Mario

#40

Post by jerf » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 4:43 PM UTC

capableweb wrote: post #15

bitwize wrote: post #6

I get it, but I still prefer these: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBb9wFP7uZM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gf-2Imh6a54

Correct me if I'm wrong, but those seems to be 3d renderings/animations rather than interactive games, different class :)

I think the idea is that just because Mario takes place on a 2D plane doesn't mean we're obligated to assume that Mario is literally a mathematical two dimensional figure. These videos may still be very silly in terms of a real-world situation, but they're no more or less "correct" than the linked video for the original post.