Can closing your eyes enrich visual media? It seems to fly in the face of the very concept, but freelance designer Fabian Hemmert proves otherwise In his masters thesis entitled, "Those who want to see must close their eyes". Among the more interesting examples Hemmert came up with is a sniper scope for Quake III that functions much like a real one...by closing one eye.

While such a game mechanic would potentially be quite disorienting, you cannot argue with the added realism of having to close on eye to sight down the barrel of your weapon. I suspect it would also really piss off pirates.

The whole thesis is quite an interesting read, presenting several more or less practical methods for integrating eye closing into visual media, such as using closed eyes as a mental display, closing eyes to activate text-to-speech software, and my personal favorite, creating winking emoticons by actually winking. Check it out. Michael Fahey

Those who want to see must close their eyes

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