How does Bullet Time work?

DarthDodge

There is one thing about the matrix that i'm always wondering about: Bullet time. You've really gotta wonder, how the hell can anyone, even if it's just a simulation, avoid bullets if that simulation is supposed to be in real time. The thing i'm wondering about is this: are machines so in control of this simulation, that time is a more of a controllable variable? Now i'm not talking about time travel, and this is probably a load of boll***s anyway, but is it possible for the machines - or the one, for that matter - to speed up time for everyone else with just a simple thought, so they can move faster and react better, at least for short periods? Evidence of this theory could be seen in the Animatrix short film "World Record", when, in an olymplic race, EVERYTHING stopped, except the Agents, still talking, and able to take control of some of the racers in this zero time.

This is just a theory, and i'm interested if anyone has got any opinions or other theorys in how the hell some geezers in suits can dodge bullets.

Coer

A common misconception is that bullet time is somehow slowing or speeding up time.
Time is not affected.

Agents (and Neo) dodge bullets by moving super-fast. They don't speed up time, they just have inhumanly fast reflexes, and that movement is portrayed as blurring because the eye theoretically doesn't track movement that fast.

It's styled in the movie and the game as slow-downs for pure style, and so we can see what's going on.
A 'bullet timer' might have the perception that time around him has slowed down, but he/she is simply moving faster than everything else around them. It's not that strange - a Formula 1 driver for example can plunge down a straight at 200MPH, slow down, kiss the apex of the first turn of a chicane at 90MPH, readjust course, hit the next apex and be out again onto the rest of the circuit.
To us, it looks crazily fast and almost out of control, but ask any F1 driver and he'll tell you that time has the perception of slowing inside the cockpit, and although they're doing insanely high speeds, they have enough time to rationalise the situation and make decisions as if they were standing still.

Coer

Oops, didn't read the bit about the Animatrix.

I think that Agents DO have the ability to slow or speed up or stop time - but that doesn't constitute bullet time.
The entire Matrix is a program, so there's no reason why they shouldn't have control. But I think that the more it is done, the more potential damage it causes to humans inside it.

There's a comment in one of the comics about an alien attack destroying one of the towers in the real world, and they had to pause time to fix it, then play everybody's life in fast-forward to get them back into sync with the rest of the towers.

**AqueousRei**

It SHOULD work against MA's & GUNS but hey...

r3v0lv3r

Yea I was thinking about this aswell, and started thinking ((out of matrix content )). If a human could raise his eyes frames-per-second, lets say to 48 (( normal human eye catches 24)), he would see things slower, he would also move slower, but still see vertying slower, and it would give him time to think since his eyes are catching everything at doble rate, 2 seconds for him would be 1 for a normal human.
Just some insomnia theory xD.

**MxOElliMann**

Guys.

Are you sure that bullettime is actually something that exists in the matrix and is a thing that happens to people in the matrix?

It's just a way of showing us what happens in a cooler way...

r3v0lv3r

Joakim wrote:

Guys.
Are you sure that bullettime is actually something that exists in the matrix and is a thing that happens to people in the matrix?
It's just a way of showing us what happens in a cooler way...

I know its just a way of showing us things cooler. I was just saying that if a human raised his fps he would be in bullet time...all the time

**zeroone506**

r3v0lv3r wrote:

Yea I was thinking about this aswell, and started thinking ((out of matrix content )). If a human could raise his eyes frames-per-second, lets say to 48 (( normal human eye catches 24)), he would see things slower, he would also move slower, but still see vertying slower, and it would give him time to think since his eyes are catching everything at doble rate, 2 seconds for him would be 1 for a normal human.
Just some insomnia theory xD.

You know the real world isn't a TV screen and there are no frames SMILEY

If a human would raise his perception to 48 per second, he would simply divide his eye inertia (?) by two. Meaning, he would be able to perceive moves double as fast sharply, and concordingly need a 48 FPS format for watching TV, because with 24 FPS, he would be able to see single frames (as we can see them in, let's say, 12 FPS).

We know there are other animals with faster reactions / higher "FPS", and slower reactions / lower "FPS" than us. Do they really perceive everything in different speeds? That would be at least the most understandable way to understand. Or do they experience the world in real time, just as us, but just with more/less inertia, and simply differently good reactions? Are these three aspects really bound to each other at all?
I'm not at home in this subject.

r3v0lv3r

zeroone506 wrote:

r3v0lv3r wrote:
Yea I was thinking about this aswell, and started thinking ((out of matrix content )). If a human could raise his eyes frames-per-second, lets say to 48 (( normal human eye catches 24)), he would see things slower, he would also move slower, but still see vertying slower, and it would give him time to think since his eyes are catching everything at doble rate, 2 seconds for him would be 1 for a normal human.
Just some insomnia theory xD.

You know the real world isn't a TV screen and there are no frames

If a human would raise his perception to 48 per second, he would simply divide his eye inertia (?) by two. Meaning, he would be able to perceive moves double as fast sharply, and concordingly need a 48 FPS format for watching TV, because with 24 FPS, he would be able to see single frames (as we can see them in, let's say, 12 FPS).

We know there are other animals with faster reactions / higher "FPS", and slower reactions / lower "FPS" than us. Do they really perceive everything in different speeds? That would be at least the most understandable way to understand. Or do they experience the world in real time, just as us, but just with more/less inertia, and simply differently good reactions? Are these three aspects really bound to each other at all?
I'm not at home in this subject.

I know real life doesnt have fps SMILEY

, I was taking it as a reference

**zeroone506**

That's why I attached a smiley to that sentence? =p

**AqueousRei**

Well Hyper Dodge was in Cr.1 & in the movies & that covered bullets, knives, and punches like in the films...
What we have now, is just that, what we have NOW. That's my story & Im sticking to it.

**Nephilix**

Theoretically, the machines should be able to do anything whatsoever they please. The Matrix is after all just a program, so it can of course be edited. The question is would it matter if they sped up time? If everybody and everything moved twice as fast as it usually did, no difference would be apparent.

In the animatrix, they don't even nessecarily stop 'time', since time doesn't actually exist. They simply pause the program. The key in that was that the runner was so determined to break the record he smashed through that barrier to the point where his real body reacted, because of how hard he was pushing himself.

So it would actually depend on how 'time' is programmed into the matrix. If they just have one variable set as Time, which affects all motion, then changing it would cause no side effects, unless there were other errors in the code. But if each object in the matrix depends on it's own variable to determine movement, they would each run on individual time and each individual could be frozen. But it is not likely that is how it would be done, as it is simply not effecient.

But in theory, machines could make a quick switch so all dogs had cat heads on instead. So it makes sense for them to be able to manipulate time, but it may stress the system a lot to do so, or all problems could be easily solved by pausing the simulation, isolating the issue, and simply deleting it. Which in many examples we see, they do not and take on a much more hands-on approach.

So in conclusion, yes, bullet-time is simply extreme amounts of speed, and the slow-motion effect lets us see what is happening.
Theoretically the machines can manipulate time, because they can do whatever they want, unless the Matrix was specifically programmed to prevent the ability to do so.

Basicly it all comes down to the programming of the matrix, as it would with any other program. But somehow I don't think we will ever get our hands on how to build your own matrix.

Mr_Gallows

r3v0lv3r wrote:

Yea I was thinking about this aswell, and started thinking ((out of matrix content )). If a human could raise his eyes frames-per-second, lets say to 48 (( normal human eye catches 24)), he would see things slower, he would also move slower, but still see vertying slower, and it would give him time to think since his eyes are catching everything at doble rate, 2 seconds for him would be 1 for a normal human.
Just some insomnia theory xD.

The whole "human eye can catch 24 frames per second" idea is a misunderstanding. In a cinema the movie runs with a low frames per second in theory, but every frame is shown three times, so the dark pause between frames is shorter giving a refresh rate of 72 frames per second. Motion blur of analog systems also add to the illusion of smoothness.

Tests have been made on pilots and the tests showed that pilots could recognize planes shown only 1/220th of a second. That is recognizing an image. Consider someone being in a dark room and just having to register brightness. I am sure we would have to get in the area of a bright flash showing only 1/500th of a second for the eye not being able to register it.

The illusion of a smooth frame rate is not the same as the eye only being able to see that many frames.

Most normal persons will be able to register close to 100 frames per seconds if the images are completely sharp and there is no motion blur. But it is not the same for all persons! That is the second thing that is a common misunderstanding.

about 70-100 frames per second will be enough for the average person to see the movie as flicker free... but for complete virtual reality with sharp images you would need perhaps 500 fps.

The 24 fps is a matter of technology and "cheating" not the limit of the human eye!

Pharm0r

r3v0lv3r wrote:

Yea I was thinking about this aswell, and started thinking ((out of matrix content )). If a human could raise his eyes frames-per-second, lets say to 48 (( normal human eye catches 24)), he would see things slower, he would also move slower, but still see vertying slower, and it would give him time to think since his eyes are catching everything at doble rate, 2 seconds for him would be 1 for a normal human.
Just some insomnia theory xD.

on that note....what if we had lag in real life? wouldnt that suck? oh yeah, we do. it's called a hangover.

/hijack

**MxOElliMann**

r3v0lv3r wrote:

Joakim wrote:
Guys.
Are you sure that bullettime is actually something that exists in the matrix and is a thing that happens to people in the matrix?
It's just a way of showing us what happens in a cooler way...

I know its just a way of showing us things cooler. I was just saying that if a human raised his fps he would be in bullet time...all the time

Nah it would probably just run smoother SMILEY