I’ve always been pretty good at Magic Eye posters. I even had one in my room as a kid. It was of dinosaurs, I believe, and I got very good at crossing my eyes just so and making the Tyrannosaurs and the Archaeopteryx come to life.
True to its ’90s setting, there are a couple of Magic Eye posters in the (excellent) new exploration game Gone Home. But for the life of me, I can’t tell what they are. Maybe I’m just getting old? Or maybe it’s just hard to work the same magic when I’m looking at images on a computer monitor.
I thought I’d crowd-source this sucker. What’s going on in these two posters?
And don’t tell me one’s a schooner. Or a sailboat.
(Unless one actually is.)
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16 responses to “Let’s Crowdsource This Video Game’s ‘Magic Eye’ Posters”
The top one is a heart, nearly the whole size of the canvas, while the second is a shark. I’ve never tried these on a screen before. Pretty cool.
A love heart and a shark?
First one is a heart, second one is a shark.
This man is correct.
a schooner IS a sailboat, stupidhead
You know what?
THERE IS NO EASTER BUNNY.
You dumb bastard
I think the second one’s a Jackson Pollock.
can never see these things, but mallrats is fun – fly fatass fly! 😀
T.S. Quint: Haven’t you ever heard the phrase “The customer is always right?”
Shannon Hamilton: Let me tell you something. Let me give you a little secret, okay.
[yells it right in T.S.’ ear]
Shannon Hamilton: The customer is always an asshole!
Pertinent to the gaming industry….
Kirk: The problem is you were crossing your eyes, which is the opposite of how these should be viewed.
Doing that is like seeing an embossed image from behind – it’s all punched in, and won’t make much sense. Traditionally, instructions call the proper way, ‘relaxing’ your eyes, assuming that they’ll naturally shift outward. Realistically though, what you want to do is work the opposite muscles to the ones you do for crossing. Go the other way. If you have trouble with that, the trick is to pretend you’re looking at something in the distance.
This is what your eyes do when you stare at your own reflection on glass – they actually focus past the surface of the glass itself. With a magic eye image, the page is the surface, the image is the ‘reflection’. I’ve always figured that – narcissistic ‘must stare at own reflection at every available opportunity’ handsome bastard that I am – this is why I’ve always found the distance-focus so easy.
I’ve never been able to view them the intended way. Their FAQ makes all these condescending remarks that if you have correct depth perception you should be able to see them normally, but I have perfect depth perception and can’t see them that way. I can force my eyes cross-eyed, but my autofocus completely controls the other direction.
That said, crossing your eyes does still give you the correct image, it just as the depth reversed. You can still see it in full focus and make out the details and everything.
I don’t know why, but crossing eyes is so much easier. The muscles are just that much stronger. Probably because there is absolutely no good reason for your eyes to ever coordinate into diverging any further than straight ahead.
Best way to practice is with carpet or floor tile or something that has patterns. It’s easy enough for something that only requires a small increment. You cross to start with, then let it go back to normal, then sort of ‘catch’ the muscles which are doing that and force them to go a little further. Then further still.
Oh, I have no problem with crossing eyes. It’s the other direction I meant I couldn’t do. I find crossing my eyes super easy. I used to freak out my sister by crossing one eye in, but leaving the other one looking straight ahead.
That’s what I meant. Crossing eyes is easy because we’re more likely to have to focus in past eyes-straight-forward. But forcing them apart to see that far-distance stuff is less natural. 🙂
the back of a volkswagon?