How do you prevent the Parallax effect?

Hi I’ve got a game featuring a circular walled environment, where I’d like the player to start in one position and find a goal, but then subsequently start in a different position and find the same goal.

However, as the player start angle and distance changes it looks like the location has shifted left or right, when it hasn’t how is this corrected in games, its driving me nuts!

I’m sorry, I’m a bit confused. Could you please share some screenshots of what the game looks like?

Thanks!

Ok if you don’t mind my badly drawn image!

If you look at starting point A (red arrow) it appears the goal (star) is at the base of the mountain,

However from start point B (green arrow) it appears the goal (star) is somewhat further up the mountain.

Is there a way to compensate or correct for this, I’ve got a game that depends on being able to find locations from various different start points (visual perspectives) and its playing hell with the users ability to find the intended locations.

Not really. It works like that in real life as well, which is why navigation is a skill…
Your game may just be accentuating it because of distance and whatever is being used to show the location. (Unless your mountain is 2d and is actually moving on the player)

Without knowing the project is hard to suggest a solution, but generally speaking an actual item that extends up into the sky at the location works better then a widget marker.

Essentially. If you put a temporary scaled monolith as the marker or a skyscraper the player will be better able to figure out where to navigate to.

I understand that game engines try to replicate this aspect of perspective in real life, I’m using a series of mountains as (navigational reference points) within the skysphere that maintain their dimensions regardless of player position in the world.

The actual marker is an NPC mesh.

It can be done, but for that, something has to change its position, either the marker (probably not intended, since this seem to mark the goal in your world), or the mountain. if you google for holographic weaponsights, they deal with exact this problem, they move the eyesight/crossmark to a new position to compensate for head movements during aiming. Don´t ask me, how that helps with aiming, as i would deem this misleading, but it is the same process involved.

I got something like it working in a different program (Cinema 4D), but i am not sure, if that is translatable to UE4.

In your case, you probably want the crosshair fixed and the target plane (your mountains) moved.

I appreciate your input, but how would this look in ue4?

I hoped, someone else could figure it out and recreate a similar blueprint to the shown one ^.^

However, i have to agree with MostHostLA, it would make more sense to let the perspective intact and not compensate for it. Instead why not use it to your advantage? Puzzles that include perspective are way to rare. The last game, i have played, that uses perspective, was “Indiana Jones and the fate of Atlantis” (at one point you have to use survey equipment with a certain piece of a buillding to home on the location of a hidden artifact). And that gameis from the last millenium :confused: Still awesome game.

Also, if you do it right, you can create several marks in your game, that become only visible from a certain point of view. Like this one here with those pillars and their paintings, that, watched from the correct position, reveal Kong. At the 1.10 minute mark:

So you could have big marks for general directions and smaller ones, once you are closer to your treasure area.

I appreciate that but the point of the game is to test human navigation skills

We want a screenshot atleast, even if it is just a few spheres/cubes, instead of playing a guessing game

We got that, but don´t you think, that altering the landscape or the position of a marker is counterproductive in that regard? Taking perspective and their effects into account is part of navigational skills, as already mentioned by MostHost LA.

Whatever, here is a link to a thread about holographic weaponsights, that i had mentioned. Note, that this works within a material (the weaponsight is a plane with that texture altered to match perspective), not sure, how you have to do it with actual objects.

https://forums.unrealengine.com/community/community-content-tools-and-tutorials/12431-holographic-sight-material-no-textures-needed

Get a video recording of the in-engine issue described above. And, yeah, a screenshot or two would help. This is an easily misunderstood concept when not having enough information to comprehend the exact goal.

Sorry for the lenth of time to respond its gotten a bit mad hectic atm,

Ok have a look at these 2 images, can you see how it looks like the object in the ring looks like its moved slightly, its the same for much closer objects, like triggers in my map that are 3/4 metres from the player ​​​​​​​

Not a problem. I see the crosshair is offset inside the ring (photo 1) and offset to outside the targeting ring (photo 2). So that’s what happens when moving / aiming? is it only occurring when aiming at specific triggers / objectives? or always happening while moving the aim around?

My Guess here, the 2 screenshot have different FOV settings.

Hi, It’s always happening when moving around

Nope, their exactly the same

From what I’m seeing the object shows exactly where its supposed to be in both images. Since the player position has changed their perspective is different so the box compared to the mountain is going to be in a different position. If you want the box to stay exactly at the same spot at the base of the mountain, it needs to actually be placed at the bottom position of the mountain. Since its currently placed out in the water away from the mountain its position is going to be relative to where you are standing.

I’ve uploaded a top down view to illustrate what is happening.

I’m not sure I understand, could you please explain, would positioning remedy the sideways parallax?

Ie if the object is always the same distance away but just by changing angle alone?

How does the objective location icon residing over the water produce a parallax effect of it going further up the mountain? That doesn’t make any sense. If that’s what’s happening, then there’s a serious bug or missing link somewhere in the issue experienced by Delta1. And it doesn’t explain or cause that offset occurring with the aim reticle and circle. My guess is there’s something missing and/or something incorrectly set for the blueprint of the aim reticle and circle. The objective icon and its location are separate from the aim reticle, and placing it above an area of water which is closer to the player than where the actual objective is located in the world, (like showing where it’s at somewhat without revealing its exact location…kinda like a hot/cold system) should not cause a problem with the aim reticle. I see how it could appear to be at a different position / location when viewed from a different angle, but it wouldn’t result in it appearing to be far up the mountain or in an extremely different location.

Something is wrong with the BP setup of the reticle that’s causing it to not move in tandem with the circle. It’s a separate issue from the objective icon sliding around in the perspective. Yet it is connected to how the whole thing is intended to work, if I understand @Delta1 correctly.