What do you think about 3D? Do you like it? Hate it? Think it's better than 4K?

[TWright]

Originally Posted by amandadun

What are your opinions on the matter? Are there really benefits to 3D versus regular movies, or is it an annoying gimmick?

Oh it's awesome indeed! I've never been a movie collector, most of the movies we've bought were for the kids. But I love the 3D at-home experience so much that I've been avidly collecting 3D movies so I can watch them over and over again. I've never been big on seeing any movie more than once, but there's something so appealing about 3D that I find myself watching movies multiple times without getting tired of them.

I've mentioned this before, but I fly R/C planes/ helis/ multi-rotors and have noticed when training and flying with others that there are a lot of people that have zero depth perception. Some people can tell exactly where their plane is over the field at all times (I'm this way) while others have no idea. They will fly straight into the only tree on the field because they can't perceive the difference in distance between the tree and the plane. I'm convinced that just like some people are tone-deaf (watch American Idol to see many examples ) there are also many people that are depth-perception blind. And it makes sense that 3D would have no appeal to this group, and I suspect that many of the 3D curmudgeons fall into this category.

[wvl]

Originally Posted by TWright

Oh it's awesome indeed! I've never been a movie collector, most of the movies we've bought were for the kids. But I love the 3D at-home experience so much that I've been avidly collecting 3D movies so I can watch them over and over again. I've never been big on seeing any movie more than once, but there's something so appealing about 3D that I find myself watching movies multiple times without getting tired of them.

I've mentioned this before, but I fly R/C planes/ helis/ multi-rotors and have noticed when training and flying with others that there are a lot of people that have zero depth perception. Some people can tell exactly where their plane is over the field at all times (I'm this way) while others have no idea. They will fly straight into the only tree on the field because they can't perceive the difference in distance between the tree and the plane. I'm convinced that just like some people are tone-deaf (watch American Idol to see many examples ) there are also many people that are depth-perception blind. And it makes sense that 3D would have no appeal to this group, and I suspect that many of the 3D curmudgeons fall into this category.

Being a movie collector can get expensive.

[BleedOrange11]

Originally Posted by Zivouhr

For those who dismiss 3D as a gimmick, close one eye if you see with two eyes, and keep it closed the rest of your life. Then come back and say three dimensional sight is a gimmick.

Humans actually do receive some monocular depth perception cues. We can still perceive depth in real life with just one eye--just not as well as with two eyes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_p...Monocular_cues

[Captain Jack]

Originally Posted by BleedOrange11

Humans actually do receive some monocular depth perception cues. We can still perceive depth in real life with just one eye--just not as well as with two eyes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_p...Monocular_cues

But we don't really see depth with one eye, we can deduce what is what through those cues, but we don't actually 'see' it.

[TWright]

Originally Posted by wvl

Being a movie collector can get expensive.

So can being a motorcycle collector, but it hasn't stopped me

[BleedOrange11]

Hmm, nevermind. I suppose the clever retort works pretty well. Closing one eye mainly removes stereopsis, which is the major cue gained when going from 2DTV to stereoscopic 3DTV.

Carry on then.

[BleedOrange11]

Originally Posted by Captain Jack

But we don't really see depth with one eye, we can deduce what is what through those cues, but we don't actually 'see' it.

Is there really a difference between "seeing" depth and your brain "deducing" depth? Isn't our perception of depth just a result of our brain processing the depth cues that it receives from visual information?

[Captain Jack]

Originally Posted by BleedOrange11

Is there really a difference between "seeing" depth and your brain "deducing" depth? Isn't our perception of depth just a result of our brain processing the depth cues that it receives from visual information?

I think there is a difference, absolutely, because when we see it we are processing depth from two angles and recreating a 3D image in our brain, whilst if we close one eye we are just using past experience and learnings to guesstimate depth levels in what is a 2D image.

[Cevolution]

Your brain still determines depth with one eye, it's just not quite the same as it is with 2, but having 1 eye does not reduced 1's brain from being able to interpret depth by a great deal. If it did affect 1's ability to interpret depth by a large degree, then people with just 1 eye wouldn't be allowed licenses to drive. My father in law only has 1 eye (he drives a car every day), and I've had conversations with him about seeing depth before, from what he's told me, having 1 eye doesn't throw everything out of balance on a large scale.

[Captain Jack]

I don't disagree that your brain can still estimate depth based on other cues, I just question whether you 'see' that in your brain, I mean, take for example watching Avatar in 2D and 3D, yes in both versions you can determine the depth of a given shot, your brain understands what is close and far from the camera in each because of the various factors listed in that wiki article, but you only 'see' the depth in the 3D version IMO, you quite literally are combining two different images. Viewing the world with 1 eye is sort of to me like converting a 2D film to 3D, your brain can do it because it has the experience and processing power to know what is what, but it's not two distinct images so inherently there is less focal points etc from which the mental image is being constructed.

[BleedOrange11]

On a related note, I found an interesting blog post that despite being annoyingly biased, manages to make a legitimate argument for why some 3D movies aren't as life-like as 2D movies. Also, I think he is really onto something with the higher frame-rate suggestion (and apparently so do James Cameron and Peter Jackson).

Filmmakers, James Cameron included, do not really understand 3D.

Film, like photography and perspective painting, is already a three dimensional medium. Monocular cues like linear perspective, occlusion, and shadow, to name but a few, all provide the same sense of depth perception in a film, photograph, or painting as they do in real life. It is true that binocular cues add dimension to the other depth cues (when looking at objects up to 100 feet away), but it is a subtle effect and not the only way we see depth in the world or in film. While many filmmakers have an intuitive understanding of the principles of human perception, it’s not something that they study formally. Most get by in 2D, because there are established filmmaking conventions that they conform to which happen to play well with human perception. Unfortunately, 3D hasn’t been around long enough for such conventions to develop. 3D filmmakers end up using 2D film techniques that induce depth cues which are then contradicted by some of the 3D binocular cues that are layered over everything. When your brain is presented with such conflicting depth information, it will choose one version over the other, but when such conflicts happen many times over the course of a few hours, you end up with a perception headache.

There are many other factors that influence our perception of 3D, including the focal length of the lens, the composition of the shot, and the movement of the camera, but modern filmmakers don’t seem to be aware of the effects of these important factors on the perception of their films. This is why watching a 3D movie doesn’t really feel like being there, it just feels like its own, somewhat annoying, thing.

The push for 3D comes from a confluence of the old desire to create a more immersive cinema experience and the contemporary need to get people excited about going to the movies again. Unfortunately, the current 3D technology fails to deliver on the former and so it is destined to fail at the latter. A much more fruitful approach would be to adapt Douglas Trumball’s Showscan technology. What Trumbull demonstrated was that by shooting and projecting film at higher frame rates, he could create a much more immersive and realistic experience than what we get with a traditional 24 frames per second projection. His system, which involved 70 mm film shot and projected at 60 frames per second was dismissed as impractical and excessively expensive. In the digital age, this objection is no longer relevant. It is already possible to design reasonably priced digital cinema cameras and projectors that shoot and project at high resolutions and fast frame rates. This, it seems to me, is the next logical step in the evolution of cinema. Not the gimmick that we now call 3D.

http://technmarketing.com/random/the...has-no-future/

This inspired me to google and explore a couple of examples of 2D techniques that don't work in 3D and why. Both of these really bug me when I see them in 3D movies.

Fast Editing and Too Much Editing
- First, we have no visual accommodation when watching stereoscopic 3D because our eyes are always focused at the level of the screen, so it literally takes longer to observe all the visual information found in a 3D scene. Our eyes have to converge at all the different layers to be able to fully process everything in one 3D scene.

Second, the longer a 3D scene stays in one spot, the more the viewer feels like he is in the room with the characters, which can be a powerful tool for immersion. Moving the camera instead of cutting to a different viewpoint can be a more effective way to tell 3D stories.


Depth of Field and Intentional Blurring
- This technique works very well in 2D because it mimics the sharp focus effect of our eyes converging on a specific object and automatically directs our attention to whatever the director wants us to look at. Not only does this effect not work in 3D, but it is also unnecessary.

In real life, when our eyes focus and converge on a specific object, the light from that object is directed at the fovea, which is the point on our retina that contains the highest density of cones and allows for maximum acuity and most vivid color. In comparison, other objects in our field of vision are slightly blurred because their light is projected at a different angle onto a different area of the retina with less cones.

This blurring can already occur somewhat naturally in a 3D movie because objects can actually appear to be on different depth planes. Additionally, the eyes usually converge first on the object that is closest to the viewer. If that object is part of a blurry foreground, it makes for an unnatural-looking image. Lighting is a more effective way to direct a viewer's attention in 3D.


A few other random notes and 3D no-no's I've found:
- Using a telescopic lens to zoom in for a close up can create a cardboard cutout appearance. This makes it harder to do close-ups.
- Failure to fill in the environment between two objects at different depth layers can make them appear as cardboard cutouts.
- Increasing parallax can cause pop-outs to pop more and depth to recess further but doesn't change the overall size of the objects, so it's important not to increase it too much.
- Images separated wider than interpupillary distance are impossible to converge upon.

[Captain Jack]

Yeah that's the thing with shooting 3D, it lends itself to a deeper depth of field, so for cinematographers who love to shoot shallow with a really low f-stop, it can create a 3D image which is not what the brain actually sees, works fine in 2D, but in 3D it can be disorientating.

Having said that, look at your sight and what you really focus on when you look around, you invariably only focus on one specific area of what you eyes can see, especially when something is close to you, you never see everything in focus (foreground+background), hence why shallow f-stops do still have their place when shooting 3D IMO.

Ultimately with 3D, arguably you should shoot with a deep depth of field and let the view decide what to focus on, but that's totally the opposite of a lot of cinematic techniques atm where your focus is very much directed places.

[BleedOrange11]

Originally Posted by Captain Jack

I don't disagree that your brain can still estimate depth based on other cues, I just question whether you 'see' that in your brain, I mean, take for example watching Avatar in 2D and 3D, yes in both versions you can determine the depth of a given shot, your brain understands what is close and far from the camera in each because of the various factors listed in that wiki article, but you only 'see' the depth in the 3D version IMO, you quite literally are combining two different images. Viewing the world with 1 eye is sort of to me like converting a 2D film to 3D, your brain can do it because it has the experience and processing power to know what is what, but it's not two distinct images so inherently there is less focal points etc from which the mental image is being constructed.

Our eyes and brain work differently than two cameras that receive a pair of stereo images and a pair of glasses to integrate them. Depth perception with one eye isn't just a mental estimate of where an object is supposed to be. Our brain actually perceives objects to be in different planes based on depth cues. Its perception just isn't as accurate without the binocular depth cues, especially stereopsis.

Try closing one eye and holding your hand in front of your face, while at the same time facing a distant wall. If you can't actually "see" that your hand is not in the same plane as the wall, you might want to see an opthamologist.

[Gae]

I think we are losing the point of why we like 3D rather than how our eyes perceive movies. Neither 2D or 3D movies reproduce the way our eyes and brain perceive the world.....that is a given. Only our actual eyes and brain can do that as we scan and interpret the world around us.

Personally, the reason I like 3D is for the following reasons...
1) It's a different, new format to 2D (of which I have seen thousands of films and was getting a bit bored of..seeing the same formula, sequels, remakes, variations on the same theme etc etc)
2) 3D draws you into the film more by making the characters look more solid and real and giving a depth to the environment....almost like a window on the world. That's fascinating for me and opens up new possibilities in the ways of making movies.
3) 3D works better with movies that have good framing, slower editing and tracking cameras etc (a bit like the classic films of yesteryear). I prefer watching this type of film over the more modern films that are subliminally edited and have shaky camerawork.

Gae

[Zivouhr]

Originally Posted by Gae

Yes Zivouhr. After reading this I just did another test with my eyes...try it everyone.

1) Hold an object (say a pencil) in front of your eyes and close one eye.
2) Take note of where the object is in relation to a background object.
3) Keeping the object still, close that eye and open the other one.
4) Take note of where the object is in relation to the same background object.
Now quickly switch between each eye and note the difference of the position of the object. The separation between each eye is huge isn't it?

Now compare that type of separation with the type we are seeing in a lot of current 3D films and you can see why a lot of the 3D films fail to wow us.

Gae

That's true. A lot of stereographers are aware of comfort levels, and unfortunately, too many feel we all have wimpy eyes, so they keep the cameras/two offset images too close to each other and we end up with mostly subtle, flat looking 3D in a number of movies. That's why Hugo 3D is an important movie, because it challenges the eye to get stronger and enjoy stronger 3D. Also see Sammy Turtle 3D, Open Season 3D, Avatar 3D, etc...

Originally Posted by hsox05

To answer the question, I thought everything coming out in the theaters in 3D was annoying... until I got a new TV that happened to be 3D ready. I put a couple of 3D blu-rays on just to check it out, and I've gotten hooked. I'm now in the "Awesome" camp and hope they continue to come out with as many 3d films as possible

Glad to hear it.

Originally Posted by TWright

I'm convinced that just like some people are tone-deaf (watch American Idol to see many examples ) there are also many people that are depth-perception blind. And it makes sense that 3D would have no appeal to this group, and I suspect that many of the 3D curmudgeons fall into this category.

Interesting point. Considering how many differences of opinions there are over the same 3D in a movie, I'll agree. Picture an elephant's eye width to an ant's eyes (even though they probably don't see in 3D) to imagine how two camera eyes set too close together become almost 2D, compared to the elephant, which miniaturizes objects, but increases the strength of 3D.

Originally Posted by Captain Jack

But we don't really see depth with one eye, we can deduce what is what through those cues, but we don't actually 'see' it.

Originally Posted by BleedOrange11

Is there really a difference between "seeing" depth and your brain "deducing" depth? Isn't our perception of depth just a result of our brain processing the depth cues that it receives from visual information?

Visually there is a difference, though I'd imagine a slight advantage goes to those with depth perception. Ever wake up with one eye open and not being fully awake, certain objects seem aligned with others, yet they're far apart when both eyes open for depth perception?
Predator animals like cats, have two eyes in front for 3D depth perception when hunting, an added advantage over the prey, who tend to have eyes on the sides of their heads, mostly for quick turning/eyes in the back of their head to spot motion in a 2D background.

Originally Posted by Captain Jack

I think there is a difference, absolutely, because when we see it we are processing depth from two angles and recreating a 3D image in our brain, whilst if we close one eye we are just using past experience and learnings to guesstimate depth levels in what is a 2D image.

Well said.

Originally Posted by Cevolution

Your brain still determines depth with one eye, it's just not quite the same as it is with 2, but having 1 eye does not reduced 1's brain from being able to interpret depth by a great deal. If it did affect 1's ability to interpret depth by a large degree, then people with just 1 eye wouldn't be allowed licenses to drive. My father in law only has 1 eye (he drives a car every day), and I've had conversations with him about seeing depth before, from what he's told me, having 1 eye doesn't throw everything out of balance on a large scale.

I also had to drive one day with one eye closed and had no problem (maybe a learned skill from playing 2D driving simulation video games over the years?).

Originally Posted by Captain Jack

Ultimately with 3D, arguably you should shoot with a deep depth of field and let the view decide what to focus on, but that's totally the opposite of a lot of cinematic techniques atm where your focus is very much directed places.

Another good point. If a foreground object is too close to the camera, the two cameras have to reduce their interaxial distance between each other to focus on that object regardless, otherwise the viewer's eyes would strain trying to combine the two separate images into one if the camera's are too far apart (see some unconverged shots in Blood of Ohma for an example).

ON TOPIC:
Seeing in flat, two dimensions works, but if given a choice, I'll take three dimensional sight any day. It costs twice as much to render out for filmmakers and 3D broadcasts, but if done right, can bring the viewer into another realm of viewing.

[mseeley]

I personally adore 3d and think when used well, GREATLY enhances my viewing of a movie. Sure the high cost can be a bit much, but if your smart about it(DO YOUR RESEARCH!!! :P), then it's well worth it imo

[Zivouhr]

Research on the 3D is necessary for unseen movies, agreed. If a movie gets reviews on the 3D saying it's flat in the parallax (3D layers of depth), then I'll avoid it most of the time unless it's 10$ or so.

Relating to the topic: Can awesome, strong 3D save a bad movie? Or does it make the movie more annoying?

[mseeley]

Originally Posted by ericj

for those who haven't read the "international 3d awards" thread, just look at what wins for getting shown on broadcast/satellite tv in other countries:




The grudge-carrying ticket-whiners have rendered the us so 3d-illiterate compared to other countries right now, it hurts.

+1 :*(

[mseeley]

Originally Posted by Gae

Another reason that 3D would be great for ordinary dramas is that it works better with slower paced shots. So with this type of film, with less cuts we would enjoy looking around the environment a bit more, soaking up the depth and feeling more a part of the on-screen action.

I wrote a short article on this recently...The Psychology of 3D and Movies

Gae

Lol, I started a 3d defense paper a couple months ago. Haven't read your paper yet, but I'm not sure if what I had to say in mine is anything that hasn't already been said in your piece lol

[mseeley]

Originally Posted by Zivouhr

Well said.

I personally love seeing things in strong, unmistakable 3D.
For those who dismiss 3D as a gimmick, close one eye if you see with two eyes, and keep it closed the rest of your life. Then come back and say three dimensional sight is a gimmick. As my signature suggests, the glasses are the only gimmick. Just as if you had to put on special lenses to see a movie in color instead of black and white, or had to wear head phones to listen to the sound on a movie all the time.
A pain in the @ss for most people, but I don't mind personally with battery free glasses. And many don't mind with the battery ones either for the HD advantage offered.

3D is one of the last features to conquer in terms of replicating our 5 senses onto a TV 'screen'. Think about the future. 3D will be as natural as stereo surround sound, color TV, moving images and digital photographs are now.

It's sad how the mainstream dismisses 3D just cause you have to wear lightweight glasses (most passive 3DTV's allow the use of the real D 3D glasses from the theater) for the time being.

But if the growing 3D library is any indication, a turning point might be around the corner for 3DTV.

Sorry for that boring rant.

Quite alright my good man