An individual still rendering of a 3D virtual scene is flawed by one or several types of distortion, that skew the perception of space conveyed by the rendering. What is more, movies, videos and computer graphics animations are made up of a quick succession of still images also designated as frames. Frame rate, expressed in frames per second or fps, is the frequency rate at which consecutive still images appear on a display.
The term “Visual Whiplash” designates the exacerbated discomfort that arises in animations, especially interactive ones, as result of a tenfold increase of the negative effects related to distortions. It stems from the succession at a high space of distorted individual images, in conjunction with a character moving and rotating in the three x.y,z-directions freely and fast inside the virtual space. Aside the skewing of the perception of the space, the most vicious of those negative effects is a dramatic acceleration of movements.
The eyes of gamers are often properly bombarded by a whirl of several objects in the scene moving and rotating unrealistically fast, as well as incredible changes of the camera’s view direction, in the manner of a roller coaster. How the “Visual Whiplash develops” is described in animation-specific distortions.
Watching an animation flawed by the a Visual Whiplash may prove tough and disconcerting for the human brain. The Visual Whiplash is the greatest cause for the arise of the virtually induced motion sickness (VIMS). Metaphorically speaking, it can be considered like the "Thorn in the eyes of gamers". This constitutes a big concern in the gaming industry since the Visual Whiplash leads to a disaffection of a great portion of gamers from certain types of games, happening to be the ones for which game developers and editors allot the highest development budgets.
The solutions we have developed, remedy the skewing of the perception of the space and moreover cut off the harmful acceleration of movements. The EPRAT Algorithms get the flow of movements inside the virtual world back to smooth and natural.
Videos are comprised of excerpts from various video games trailers. Due to the very fast movements of the characters and the camera as well as the rapid changes of view direction of the latter, the animations let viewers feel the discomfort that we denote as visual whiplash.
