having a moment here in gnome
to everyone pointing out that this is for touchpads;
a: it’s awful on that too
b: note the mouse in the example given
It’s the same with left versus right, which nobody has yet talked about. It you angled my head right, my vision would be turning towards the left. Both of these need to be inverted.
The way my brain rationalizes it (inverted y, normal x) is that the closest analog to my hand on a mouse is my hand on top of my character’s head.
To make that head look up I pull my hand back, which is the same exact motion as pulling the mouse back. So it feels natural.
To make the head look left, I would rotate my hand counterclockwise. Rotating a mouse doesn’t do anything, so I have to translate that to lateral motion, and left to look left feels more natural.
Of course the real explanation is that the first mouselook games I played defaulted to inverted y and normal x, so that’s what I got used to. And even before mouselook became a thing, I was playing flight sims, which default to inverted y. Still, it’s fun to try to rationalize something that ultimately boils down muscle memory.
