Trigger Happy
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relative size. Most of these are self-explanatory, apart
from the term “aerial perspective.” This was coined by
Leonardo da Vinci; it has nothing to do with geometry
but describes the effect of distance upon color. Because
light of different wavelengths is scattered in different
ratios by traveling through the atmosphere, distant
objects appear blue (bright distant objects, on the other
hand, appear red, because more light from the blue end
of the spectrum is lost—hence the spectacular colors of
sunsets). It is also, familiarly, the case that distant
objects do not appear so sharply defined in outline.
Once videogames, then, had learned to render
distant mountain ranges, castles, bridges and so on in a
bluish fuzz, as is done so expertly in Goldeneye, the
illusion of distance within the game-world was
immediately enhanced. Sony’s PlayStation2 console
now automatically computes such blurrings if desired,
to provide a spectacular illusion of “depth of field,”
allowing the videogame designer to introduce many
pleasing effects of focus.
Fuzzy blue things are less processor-hungry than
sharp multicolored things, too. With finite processing
resources, videogames also have the option of
shrouding the playing area in fog so that the player’s
