FOV

So... I kinda got curious not too long ago in playing with my FOV. I had forgotten how bad FOV can be on a console FPS since it had been quite a while since I had played one. Although it was really only Borderlands (first played in 2009 on the X360). That game had a locked FOV of 70 on consoles. Since it had been quite a while since I had touched it on console, it was jarring playing it while also on splitscreen with a 16:9 ratio (this was on Halloween). It felt like I couldn't see a damn thing. Also didn't help that the splitscreen was vertical of all things. Horizontal would've worked a lot better.

So this is what FOV of 1 looks like:


And this is an FOV of 360 (which is capped at 180):


I normally play with an FOV of 110, which can be seen in all of the BL2 shots I've taken (you'll have to find me first!). I forget which FOV I used in Skyrim, but it was around there. Probably around 100. Now that the new generation has started, let's see if they include an FOV slider. There's really no reason why there shouldn't be one in the first place since a fair number should be playing on 16:9 screens.

As for what this actually means. It seems that whenever anyone talks about FOV, they're referring to the horizontal FOV. This makes sense since we're usually looking left-right, and around the peripheral. I don't remember what the vertical FOV is locked to, but that can be changed around as well, although I don't normally see options for that. Finding the FOV that works with the player is tricky though. How big is the screen? How far away is the player sitting? How much stuff do we need to display? Is it possible to display the stuff without it being distorted? At what point would a player not feel sick looking at the screen? This last point is something I'm pretty sure I've felt before, but long before I started getting comfortable with playing things in FP perspective.

With an FOV of 1, assuming that the player has a square screen, they're seeing 0.5 degrees left and 0.5 degrees right. FOV 360 is 180 left and 180 right, so you technically can see behind you if you move the camera just right. I tried... and kinda felt a little bit disoriented from just that, even though it was capped at 180 (as far as I can tell). Probably would've felt sick if I continued to move.


I don't feel like going into the math right now since it can be a little bit messy. Does involve tangents and the like, because how the angles are viewed.



By the way, I'm supposed to be studying for a test, but this was far more interesting. Priorities!



ETA:

Here's the calculation, also translated to radians because that's what the computer needs:

VerticalFOV = (180 ÷ π) × arctan(tan((π ÷ 180) × HorizontalFOV ÷ 2) ÷ (ScreenWidth ÷ ScreenHeight)) × 2
HorizontalFOV = (180 ÷ π) × arctan(tan((π ÷ 180) × VerticalFOV ÷ 2) × (ScreenWidth ÷ ScreenHeight)) × 2

(I grabbed it from here. Highly suggest going through some of the "Inside the Box" posts because they are quite interesting, even though practically all of them pertain to Borderlands 2. Spoilers may be present, so tread with caution.)

Kinda messy, huh?