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Saturday, January 2, 2010

Clip Planes and Levels of Detail

Welcome to my first blog post of 2010.

If you’ve ever played a PC on-line game like Everquest II you may be familiar with those terms. What Clip Plane refers to is how far into the distance you can see from your in-game player character’s perspective, and Level of Detail refers to how much detail is present within that field of play/view. So, to translate this a bit for those who might not understand this idea, let’s say you turn your clip plane setting as low as it can go while you are standing out in an open flat lands type field. At this lowest setting, during a day time situation, you might be able to see stuff maybe 200 yards in any direction you look. That is facilitated by the incorporation of a type of “fog” which blocks the grander view. So, at this lowest clip plane setting, you can play the game well, but you may certainly be missing the grander views available to you at higher clip plane settings. Conversely, if you adjust the clip plane to the maximum setting, you will be able to see all the way to the horizon in any direction you look. If your computer doesn’t have the capability to handle the amount of processing that is necessary at that maximum setting level, at worst, the game could lock up, and/or crash.

From a computer point of view, if your computer is not the latest, greatest most powerful computer available, it may be necessary to set your clip plane setting to something below the maximum setting because if you don’t the game doesn’t run well. That is to say, the movements and animations may be progressively halted or stop and go depending on the setting and your computer’s computing power. If any of you have played games which were very graphics intensive with a lot going on at one time, on a computer which wasn’t up to the task, you will understand what I’ve just described. You will also understand the value of being able to set the clip plane to a lower setting too.

Another setting which can be adjusted is Level of Detail.

Like the clip plane setting, it is useful to reduce the level of detail setting so that the game runs more smoothly. The trade off is of course, the game graphics won’t look as great as they could, but you will be able to enjoy the game play with smooth animations and movements through the in-game world.

So, what does all of this have to do with real life? What does this have to do with me right here, right now in my time/space reality experience?

The concepts of clip plane and level of detail come forth from our real life experiencing. Maybe the game designers didn’t really understand that, but it is true. They more likely thought of these methods as a way to facilitate the smooth playing of their games on a wide variety of computers with differing capabilities. The thing is, we each have our own clip plane settings and our own level of detail settings which most of us haven’t messed with ever since we were born in to this world. In other words, we are currently operating using the “default” settings. That is okay if you like the default settings and they are working well for you. Since you have been operating with these settings all of your physical life, you are certainly used to them, and so with that, you may also be comfortable with them remaining the way they are. Some of you, like me, might like to see what’s out there that I/we can’t see or experience because the default settings have limited my/our level of detail and clip plane settings to some set point below maximum.

Reasons to adjust your clip plane and level of detail settings:

Usually, when computer manufacturers and software providers release a product to the market, they have default settings for the hardware and software which will provide the most trouble free, enjoyable experience for their customers. They want you to have a good experience because if you do, you will most likely think of them and buy their products and services again which is beneficial to them and you too. The thing is, most of the time, the default settings are incorporated for every personal computer system regardless of hardware capability. That is to say, the default settings for a top of the line high performance computer may be closer to the settings of the low end computer than you might think because, a generic type default setting gets implemented rather than a special default setting for each grade of computer. Of course, that is not always true, but whether this is true or not depends on the approach the manufacture takes with regard to establishing these default settings for their systems.

At any rate, regardless of how that is handled, the vast majority of computers operate far below their maximum capabilities, and so do we as human beings. Our default settings are far below our maximum capabilities. You can be certain of that. Yes you can!

Consider the difference between your current capabilities and the capabilities of one who has become a “Master.” (This of course is assuming that the majority of us are not at the “Master” setting levels yet.)

In order to move towards the “Master” settings, we might find it useful to adopt a means where we can gradually adjust our clip plane and level of detail settings to enable a grander, more detailed view of our life experiencing. And to that end, I’ve thought of a simple way we can do this, using the concepts applied to computer games of the “Options Control Panel” as a means to adjust these settings in our own life experiencing.

How to:

Everything starts off as an idea, so the control panel I’ve mentioned above is just an idea right now, but as an idea, you can adopt it and bring it into your experience and awareness as a means to adjust your own clip plane and level of detail settings for your own life experiencing.

If you accept this idea, then you can imagine (image in) for yourself what this control panel looks like and how it operates for you. Because of your own preferences, you can choose its appearance and how it functions to suit you.

Using the Matrix Energetics idea of dropping down in to your Heart Space, take a deep breath, exhale and relax. Most of us are usually operating from our head area which is the logical analytical place of operation. Let’s take that logic and analytical ability with us as we move in to the heart space where feelings and multi processing capabilities are found. This is also the place where we can visualize or find our own control panel where we can adjust not only the clip plane and level of details settings, but also other settings as well.

I assume, on some level, you’ve found your control panel and know how to use it. So, for my own functionality, there are slider bars where I can move the knob from lowest setting to highest setting for each option that is available. These settings can be “manually” set to a higher or lower set point. If you choose the manual approach, you might find that a higher setting isn’t always appropriate and useful, so you may have to manually adjust the setting to a lower set point on occasion, or a higher set point on other occasions. For each of the options controls there is also another feature which is most useful and that is the “Auto Set” function. What this does, is it determines the optimal settings for each option and based upon that criteria automatically adjusts all of these options for the optimal experiencing in life as is appropriate for the time, place and circumstances one finds one’s self in.

The “Auto Set” function requires trust. If you don’t have that level of trust, you can certainly manually adjust these settings and see how that works for you, and how that effects your life experiencing. Actually, when learning about these options, it might be useful to take it off Auto Set for awhile so that you can learn what it is like to manually adjust these settings, and find out for yourself what sort of settings do what for you in your life experiencing. If you do choose to use the manual approach, there is still a failsafe feature which will take effect if you adjust these settings beyond your capability to effectively function at those higher settings. What happens is, if you manually adjust any of these settings beyond your capability to effectively function, it will automatically lower the setting to a point where you are able to function effectively, which will be a point at the very edge between being able to function and not being able to function. This insures you will always be able to function and yet also allows for that edge to expand, grow or adjust as you become more able to extend your effective functionality.

You don’t have to adjust any of these settings to the failsafe trip point if you don’t want to. That is to say, if you don’t enjoy the uncomfortable experiencing associated with these much higher settings, (due to your unfamiliarity and inexperience with them,) you don’t need to go to the limit all at once, but it may be useful to take a peek beyond the “fog” to get a glimpse at what awaits you. This can be the impetus you may need to keep you reaching, expanding, and growing your abilities and functionalities.

So to summarize, most of us have been operating in our life experiencing at the “default” settings for our life experiencing. These default settings are not the maximum available settings. They can be adjusted by us once we become aware of, and/or create within our mental construct an “Options Control Panel.” By establishing within our consciousness, an options control panel, we can manually adjust the clip plane and levels of details of our experiencing. We might also find other options settings available and useful to manually be adjusted by us. There is a failsafe which automatically goes into effect when we manually adjust any options settings beyond our effective functional capability. The failsafe setting adjusts to a setting where we are able to effectively function which is right at the fringe of being functional and not being functional. Most of the time, we may choose to activate and or enable the “Auto Set” function which automatically adjusts all of the options settings to their optimal setting depending upon the time, place, circumstance and situation of each moment in life experiencing. To establish the “Auto Set” functionality, we must switch it on by selecting “Auto Set” rather than “Default.”

Take a deep breath, relax and enter your heart space. From here, the simplest thing to do is to press the “Auto Set” button which automatically pops out and disables the “Default” function button. Once you’ve done this, begin to notice the increased level of details within your field of life experiencing as well as how much more you are automatically becoming aware of (expanded field of awareness,) as a result of the “Auto Set” functioning. Enabling the “Auto Set” functionality is the simplest, most effortless approach towards the “Master” experiencing experience. It is very easy because you just press the button, then get on with your life from this new “Auto Set” perspective.

Try it right now. It takes a few seconds to enable, and goes in to effect immediately.

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