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Why Bad 3D, Not 3D Glasses, Gives You Headaches
Barence writes "The most common complaint about 3D is that the glasses give you a headache, but that's not actually true, according to the man who teaches the pros how to make better 3D. Speaking at the BBC in London, Buzz Hays, chief instructor for the Sony 3D Technology Center in Culver City, California, explained: 'It's not the technology's fault, it's really the content that can cause these problems. It's easy to make 3D but it's hard to make it good — and by "good" I mean taking care to make sure that this isn't going to cause eyestrain.' He went on to detail some of the mistakes made by inexperienced 3D film makers, from poor composition of shots, through uncomfortable convergence settings, to overuse of on-set monitors without viewing their content on a big screen. But the biggest admission Buzz made was that not even the 'experts' know all the tricks yet, which is why 3D should only get better from here. In the same seminar, Buzz also explained why 3D glasses are here to stay — at least for the next few years."
At least, I'm pretty sure that the movie Avatar was not physically squeezing on the sides of my head and pushing down on my nose.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Why do I hate 3D glasses? Because I'm near sighted and had to wear glasses every day of my life... now watching movies or television is going to require a SECOND pair on top of the first one? Go to hell, hollywood, for making my everyday life even more impractical than it already is.
As subject, this just for lameness filter.
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
I'd take a black and white movie/show with a decent story over Avatar and its ilk and damn day of the week.
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
I'm sorry, I have yet to see a movie in 3D where 3D provided anything additional to my movie experience other than a headache.
I watched Avater, and was distracted from the movie by the places that the 3D effect broke up badly. Of course, I get distracted by the film reel change indicators also.
Why do the movie companies believe that we want 3D? Heck, why do the television manufacturers believe that I'm willing to spend 2 grand more for it? Does anyone here feel that its a useful addition to a movie? /frank
And the worms ate into his brain.
It, the movie, is not 3D, but you, the viewer, are seeing Three Dimensions. If your brain is perceiving Three Dimensions, does it really matter?
Call me back when they fix the depth of field issue. The whole scene needs to be in focus so that when my eyes aren't looking at precisely what the director wants, my eyes don't try to focus on something that can't be focused on.
Then Ebert is really against 3D because of how much darker the picture is, when normal movies are already projected too darkly half the time.
At this point, it still seems to be a gimmick. I remember reading that 3D ticket sales had fallen from 85% (or so) of ticket sales in some of the earlier 3D movies this year to ~40%. Clearly, people are realizing that it's usually a scam for an extra $5 from you.
Cameron worked on it for 10+ years. Nolan explicitly fought against making Inception 3D because he didn't think it would work. There is no way the no-name director of American Pie 7: Bagpipe Retreat is going to do 3D well.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Your current vision system consists of a pair of 2D image sensors (a.k.a. your Retinas)... so I don't see why the mere fact that the screen is 2D should be an absolute obstacle to re-creating the parallax that makes your 2D vision into 3D.
SirWired
As far as your eye knows it really is 3D (if it is wearing 3D glasses of course). So for all practical purposes it can be called 3D.
The biggest problems with current-technology 3D is FOCUS. With 3D glasses, your eyes correctly converge to look at a near object, or diverge more to look at a far object, but the focus of your lens is still fixed to the distance of the screen. This unnatural coupling between convergance distance and focus distance is the biggest factor that makes current-generation 3D painful.
I wear glasses and love 3D stuff! Really adds to the feeling of being there imho, sure it sucks having to wear a 2nd pair of glasses, but it sucks more having to wear 1 pair of glasses in the first place. tldr; 3D = good & people love to complain
Removable 3-D contact lenses! It would make zillions for the inventor. I don't imagine they'd be too hard to make either. As a prescription item, 3-D contacts would be the perfect solution and do away with any more need for 3-D glasses. It's just too bad I can't patent my idea.
Mod Me Up. You'll make a grown man cry.
He's the chief instructor for the Sony 3D Technology Center, so of course he'll tell you its not the tech's fault. Its his job to make sure people don't go against this technology. Its all about PR and the millions/billions of dollars invested and wanted to be made from this. Its like when a cellphone loses signal when you hold it in the wrong way, its not their products fault, it's the users fault because to admit "Hey, we screwed up" will cost much more money then to try to trivialize the problem and hope people will shift blame from the real issue (the tech itself).
Attention... all grammer nazi"s! Is they're anything; wrong with: my post,
The 3D technology will only proliferate when the porn industry adopts it.
Does it start with an M and ends with a Y?
I just hope that it dies before it starts to change the way cinematographers shoot movies, because they are under pressure to make the movie '3d-able'. Composing a film for 3d is an entirely different paradigm compared to the decades/centuries of NORMAL filmmaking and cinematography. I bet in future decades, when people watch today's movies without the lame 3D glasses, everyone looks back at pictures from this era and wonder why everything is composed in the center of the frame, with deep-focus effects and limited pans and zooms.
Not true, the point of view does not respond to changes in head/eye position as it would with a 3-dimenstional object. Your eye can tell that it's not perciving things that really exist in 3 dimensions because of that.
That's probably the cause of the eyestrain. Your eyes keep moving and altering focus to try and sort out whether what you're seeing a 3-d object or not (it seems 3-d but doesn't respond like it's 3-d)
Heck, why do the television manufacturers believe that I'm willing to spend 2 grand more for it?
I agree with the view of this being nonsense. Last I heard, there was all of one 3D-BluRay movie. Really, how many times does someone want to watch Monsters vs. Aliens? I can't even think of anyone I know who watched that movie in the theater in 3D, so I'm not sure why someone would buy a 3D TV to watch it in 3D at home...
And sure, they are promising that more movies will come out in 3D, yet the movies that do so well in 3D in the theater (Avatar, Clash of the Titans especially) are then released only in 2D on Blu-ray.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Mirrors. Completely flat. Such good 3d that people have been known to walk into them by accident.
Only if more than two humans manage to have a completely differently behaving brain. So no...
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The term "3D", in this context, is referring to the simulation of the experience of viewing the scene in the video as being three dimensional from the standpoint of the viewer. It makes perfect sense and this crap argument is just an incompetent attempt at pedantry.
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Maybe it's not the 3D that gives you a headache, it's the plot (or lack of it).
OK, they ran out of the safe room they had found, and into the scarey laboratory with the evil monster, split up, ripped up/off their clothes (always necessary), and then started randomly pressing every button in sight, and jumping into the first dark room they could find. Why should I be surprised that something bad happens to them? [Noise from banging my head on chair in front of me] Why should I get a headache? [bang! bang!]
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
Just reading this story and the comments gave me a headache.
"The laws of science be a harsh mistress." --Bender
So what they're saying is that it's an inherent failure in the current design of 3D technology - that there is no way to make a movie look good in 3D without explicitly having that in mind all the time. So it's like spam email - the inherent flaws in the current 3D technology mean that there's nothing can be done about filmmakers abusing it, or doing it poorly, or not doing it at all?
That's got me convinced then - I won't ever buy the current generation of 3D. Thanks, "Buzz" and Sony, you made an already-certain decision of mine even more concrete.
Wouldn't you, by definition, be walking into yourself? I can't quite wrap my mind around what's going on here.
Why in the world, now that we have gorgeous 400Hz LCD screens with amazing contrast and colors, would I want to go and ruin it by using a technology which makes images look worse? Not to mention the mandatory shaded glasses that absorb a good portion of the screen's light. I mean, seriously, who's buying it?!
I was hoping all the fuzz about it would be dead by now.. what is this, the third time they try to push this tech into the market? I sure hope this is another fail and the last at that!
Oh, I get it, masturbatory.
Please, that's not remotely true.
Watch Avatar. Now try to focus on something that's out-of-focus in the background.
"WTF", your eyes say, "I know I'm *supposed* to be able to bring that tree into focus, but I can't!" That's because it's *not* 3D. At best, its a fragile optical illusion.
I bet in future decades, when people watch today's movies without the lame 3D glasses, everyone looks back at pictures from this era and wonder why everything is composed in the center of the frame
Part of framing shots with a huge overscan has nothing to do with 3D and everything to do with SDTV. SDTV has a 4:3 display aspect ratio, and cinema is closer to 7:3, so "reformatting to fit this screen" cuts off a horizontal area that adds up to roughly the height of the picture. Even though VHS is dead, cable TV is still around, and secondary TVs in houses are still standard-definition. They could pan-and-scan, but that tends to look artificial for several reasons: jerky starts and stops in the panning motion, panning motion at 60 Hz is uncannily smoother than the film at 24 Hz and lacks motion blur, no attempt to synchronize pan movement with camera movement, etc. And they still have to frame the shot with the expectation of part of it getting cut off, which means pushing things together.
My first 3D movie experience was The Last Airbender. I don't think it was the 3D that gave me the headache, but the really bad acting and butchered storyline. And also the 3D. It seemed like 99.5% of the movie was 2D, with only a small handful of brief scenes actually being in 3D, which were done poorly. The Legend of the Guardians trailer was much more interesting that the movie we paid to see, both in content and 3D effects.
We use a more than binocular vision to see things in 3d. One way is moving our head position, though in a movie theater this isn't really a big deal. Another important way is by focus. This is one reason why 3d movies cause headaches. When they gimmick out to make things "pop out" of the screen, the image our eyes see doesn't match up with how our eye wants to focus on it.
There's nothing really wrong with 3d movies, it could potentially add something. The current state of 3d movies however is to pack the movies with distracting "HOLY SHIT IT'S 3D!" gimmicks that add nothing.
Mirrors. Completely flat.
My mirrors are convex, you insensitive clod!
I'm no expert on this, but I have a feeling that doubling the framerate might help substantially. The eye strain for me, outside of convergence issues, is the severe motion blur. I think the main issue with this "fix" is that current 3D projector technology can't run at double the framerate...and that's where the "tricks" and the "good 3D" comes into play. The hardware is limited, so they're having to come up with work arounds to make something that looks bad look better.
When I can watch 60fps 3D (we're talking about 60fps per eye, not 30fps per eye) I might bite. 24fps film makes me queasy enough during action screens...
Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
That's not true. Your eyes themselves only see in 2 dimensions. Depth is perceived after the brain has processed both images. The glasses allow you to obtain 2 different images in each eye, and if pulled off correctly your brain won't be able to tell the difference.
for the cinematographers who are mostly self-employed in the industry, and have to buy something the size of a closet so it can hold two cameras...and then expect to move that thing attached to you with a steadicam rig.
I can't be the only nerd in here who gets artificial butter all over the lenses by the halfway point of the movie. Popcorn salt doesn't do much for them either.
...are on their way: http://www.televisions.com/tv-news/No-joke-3D-contact-lenses.php
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
3D movies exaggerate the 3D effect in order to impress. Actual, accurate 3D would be pretty boring, because anything more than a dozen feet away would be basically little different from a flat projection.
Are there more reports of headaches from watching "Step It Up 3D" than "Avatar"?
Compare with headaches from the 2D versions...
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
On a recent long now foundation seminar (http://www.longnow.org/seminars/, Jesse Schell for those interested) a professor of game design pointed out that Stereoscopy was invented in the first half of the 1800's. Alfred Hitchcock played with it before deciding that he couldn't use 3D to accomplish anything meaningful. If anyone were interested, we could have started having every singe image presented in 3D starting over 100 years ago. But we don't because after the novelty wore off, living in that world would be incredibly annoying. (Pop-up ads would probably be grounds for murder.)
Maybe this time the kids are going to start doing it, but I'm guessing not so much.
OT: How are people with amblyopia supposed to watch 3D movies?
TechCrunch actually gave a very detailed explanation on how 3D display technology works. Everyone who wants to know more should read about this.
It is NOT 3d, you CANNOT get 3d from a 2d screen
Go to a play, then.
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I was recently a subject in market research around 3D televisions specifically, we watched 3 2-hour World Cup matches with a small break in between each. By the end, it was just too much...now granted I can't say another pair of glasses could have helped things some but the reason 3D won't catch on like HD is because it only works well in moderation.
I'd point out that all you ever see of the world is a pair of 2D images, but if you want to get nit-picky....
Close. The primary cause of the headaches is that the parallax angle doesn't match with the optical focus.
Your body is wired to have your eyes focus close up when your eyes are crossed substantially (pointed at something close) and focus far away when they are not. With 3D movies, anything that doesn't appear to be roughly in the same plane as the screen is going to cause headaches because your eyes are converging on something closer or farther away, but focusing at that distance. As long as your primary action occurs mainly at the screen depth and there is minimal activity in front of it to cause you to converge your eyes unnaturally closer than the screen, you shouldn't get headaches (assuming the glasses aren't too tight).
I'm assuming that we're talking about passive 3D here (polarization-based). The active systems (alternating fields) cause even more headaches because of how much more they depend on persistence of vision.
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No CGI! :p
Exactly. That's why I hate 3d movies, before I get the possible headache.
With 3d movies, since the screen is still flat, only one item can be in focus at any given time. The items in focus are those in the plane where the action is typically taking place, but sometimes something interesting is happening in the background. Attempts to view the background have you focusing on something that will never come into focus. This causes eyestrain and an uncomfortable visual feeling.
Most of the time people want to see what the director wants them to see; however, there were several scenes in Avatar where I wanted to look at the squad tactics in the background. It was quite disconcerting to know that they were permanently rendered out of focus.
If there wasn't part of the screen being rendered with tricks to simulate depth, I doubt I would have been so put off by the other parts of the screen failing to simulate depth in the same way.
Eventually I think 3D will be a standard part of the viewing experience but I see little to buy into it now. Let some sucker early adopter pay 2x for their v0.9 3D implementation. Give it a few more years and the experience, the technology and the price will be far more appealing.
Go outside, do some body.
No movie can compare to being in your own movie.
I was going to write something halfway intelligent about how they need to use mini LCDs over your eyes and track your focal point and run that back through the computer so everyone gets their own frame tailored to their focal point. Or, more cheaply, several possible focal points that are pre-rendered and then stitched together based on your focal point. It would go along way to make it more immersive. I hate the fact that the director controls the focal point. "Look at this now!", the fascist art director orders me. "You will look a this, or you will see blur!" I personally like looking around the background.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
It's not 3D, and it can never be 3D because human eyes are unable to collect 3D data. Human eyes collect 2D images only. Our brains perceive 3D environments by interpreting 2D images. This is in contrast to, for example, bats that can actually acquire 3D data by echolocation.
Enough with the nitpicking, now I will explain why you are still wrong even if we set aside the physical data acquisition issue. Humans perceive 3D by two main methods: stereopsis[1] and parallax[2]. Stereopsis is the synthesis of depth from binocular images. Parallax is depth perception by comparing relative motion from two different monocular images. Stereopsis is limited by the binocular separation distance. Therefore, we use stereopsis up close, and parallax far away. "Up close" can mean anywhere from 10 meters to 700 meters. This reference[3] has a short, easy to read treatment of various factors that affect stereopsis range.
Executive summary: 3D movies will never be really 3D because they cannot simulate parallax.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereopsis
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax
[3] http://arapaho.nsuok.edu/~salmonto/vs3_materials/Lecture14.pdf
Apparently, the major theatre chain up here in Canada has started adopting the policy of having pre-made bags of popcorn for concession, instead of scooping it for you while you wait, and have the customer put popcorn topping on it themselves at a nearby booth.
While I can agree that this may speed the lines up, it's annoying for people who like the popcorn topping "layered" in the bag.
My wife wrote to the management to compain about this new policy and we were sent two complementary popcorn tickets for the next time we go to the theatre.
AAAAARRRRRGGGH!!!!
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Buzz Hays, from the Sony 3D Technology Center says that the 3D isn't a problem, just the techniques involved in making it?
Sorry, but what that really means is that the visual vocabulary available to filmmakers using pseudo-3D is limited because of the risk of eye-strain.
Why? Because this isn't actually 3D. It's stereoscopic, but the ability to focus at different depths is not available to the viewer. Depth-of-focus and stereo convergence being in sync is something that our brain learns to do at a very young age (first few years of life). Making 3D films to avoid giving headaches means making films to minimize the breakage of this every-day principle. Artistically, that sucks, and even the best executions of this are going to cause headaches in some.
Every reader here should have called BS as soon as they read where Buzz Hays works. Culver City, for those who don't know, is the home of Sony Pictures. They'll happily sell you on the idea that 3D is totally awesome and totally safe if it means a few more bucks of margin.
I'd like to point out that the image your eyes send you "is NOT 3d, you CANNOT get 3d from a 2d" retina.
Real life is in real 3D* and it's all around you every day.
The problem really is bad technology that tries to re-create a pseudo-3D effect via two flat 2D images with a fixed viewpoint.
* Note to cyclops and other one-eye beings: even if you can't see it, it's in 3D anyway.
Bullshit. 3D currently tricks the mind into thinking it looks like 3d using the glasses, however your mind knows something isn't right because the subtle tilt of your head, the location of the sounds (even in surround), the movement of your head from side to side while you're sitting there, the depth of field, and a million other subtle hints that your brain has evolved to use and has learned to use throughout the course of your life tell it 'hey, this looks wrong, not really sure why, but something isn't right'.
Current gives you a view from the perspective of the camera that appears 3d if you can get over the subtle cues that tell you otherwise.
As the original post said, you can't get 3D from a 2D object and while you can trick your brain into thinking it is for the most part, your brain is still aware something isn't right.
For reference: People with non-binocular vision can still perceive depth and '3D' in the real world, and it utterly fails to work at all in movies because their mind has learned to pick up on cues OTHER than binocular vision.
A single EYE may see in 2 dimensions if you want to boil it down to generic general statements, but thats just ignorant because a single eye is only a small part of a much large equation that turns into depth perception.
The same is true for sound, which is why wearing headphones when playing FPSes works better. The sounds location moves with your head so the subtle movements of your head in relation to the speakers you would listen to otherwise which would not move in relation to your head.
Your mind may be too stupid to pick up on it, but mine isn't. I doubt yours works any different than mine, one of us is just more observant ...
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that doesn't have to be the case. that is seen in some scenes where the film makers fell back to old techniques of drawing your attention to what they thought was important. I agree they are jarringly noticable. There are other scenes where the full depth of the field is 3d simulated and your eyes do have to bring the two images together differently for forground vs background elements.
Maybe you should read about how mirrors work when you have some free time.
Hint: Objects in a flat mirror can be brought into focus just as if the mirror were not present and you are looking directly at the object. Mirrors bend the whole wavefront other than in the cinema where most of it is missing. Try holography.
If the screen is beyond the 1/2 hyperfocal distance of the human eye, then your brain isn't getting any distance information from the current focal length of your eye. That means all the information your brain has to rely on is parallax, which can be readily (if imperfectly) simulated.
The one source I could find (admittedly not much) said that this distance was about 11 feet. Meaning that in all but closest seats, the focal length of your eye is not a problem.
While the parallax is only simulated, done properly, it can look decent.
The big problem I had with Avatar was my eye trying to focus on objects that were out of the depth of field of the camera. It didn't give me a headache, but it was distracting. This was only an issue in close-up shots.
SirWired
3D don't work with my eyes. The last time it worked was back in the 1980s/80s for Disneyland's Captain EO. My eyes went bad (near sighted) so nothing with 3D works for me. :(
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3D perception is a artifact of the mind, not much related to our binocular vision (I have only one functional eye and my depth perception is very good -- except in a movie).
3D movies look great to minds not powerful and/or complex enough to detect the myriad flaws in the attempted 3D illusion.
How many great minds are there in Hollywood again? I think their affection for 3D and even more, their belief that it does (or even can) work is more proof that Hollywood is filled with exactly the kind of fools many of us have thought were gravitating there in the first place.
It's such a strain to wear an extra set of glasses for a couple of hours a few times a week (at most)? I think not. (Yes, I know what I'm talking about - I wear glasses every waking hour too.)
Take your karma whore drama queen act elsewhere.
Watch Avatar. Now try to focus on something that's out-of-focus in the background.
"WTF", your eyes say, "I know I'm *supposed* to be able to bring that tree into focus, but I can't!" That's because it's *not* 3D. At best, its a fragile optical illusion.
Exactly. That's what I found most disappointing about 3D. Normally I've been looking at the scenery too, but I think this wonderland movie was much more mushy than stuff in 2d movies ever is.
And then my brain punishes me by stabbing pains behind the eyes.
I have the same problem FPS games. Back in the early 90's, would only start getting a headache after playing Marathon for more than 12 hours. Once Quake II came out, was down to about 4 hours game time. Finally, Quake3/Unreal Tournament was only tolerable for an hour or so. Gave up on FPS and now just play SMAC/X over and over and over again.
I hate my brain.
I drank what? -- Socrates
Please, that's not remotely true.
Watch Avatar. Now try to focus on something that's out-of-focus in the background.
You're not doing that experiment right.
Go to watch Avatar. As the movie goes, take off your glasses and start asking people if they give a f**k which is more semantically correct name for this. You'll notice not a single f**k will be given.
Depth Perception is the operative phrase here.
In humans, visual depth perception emerges from a combination of cues:
Traditional "2D" movies already have most of the monocular cues necessary for depth perception. Without them, you wouldn't be able to tell whether a car was driving towards or away from the camera. However, some monocular cues are missing. Within ~6 feet, "accommodation" can be used to tell you how near or far you are focusing, based on how your eye muscles are shaping your lens.
What most people consider "3D" is just stereopsis -- presenting a different image to each retina. This gets you much closer to "real" depth perception, and is enough of an improvement to be "worth it" for a lot of applications (CAD, Hollywood movies, etc). However, it is missing "convergence," which is how much your eyes have to point towards each other to see an object.
Read the Wikipedia article for the full list.
Why Bad 3D MOVIES, Not 3D Glasses, Give You Headaches
The article that should have been written!
Look out next summer its JAWS 3D you will fear for your life as the shitty quality gives you a headache and the flood of b movies in 3D try to convince you seeing an ax or knife coming at you makes up for the extra $5 you paid to rent the glasses. You will be in awe at the horrible acting and even worst directing empties your wallet.
not everyone has the same distance between his eyes...
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_(film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadows_and_Fog
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108052/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072431/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109707/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0433383/
Dare to say that any of those are bad.
Also see http://listverse.com/2008/06/07/top-15-modern-black-and-white-movies/
Nothing about 3D has improved my movie going experience. And how in the hell am I suppose to make out with that hot chick watching a 3D movie without taking the glasses off and missing the movie entirely. I used to enjoy the other factors in play of going out to the movies like oh I don't know.... social contact! These damn 3D movies are physically and socially awkward and since more movies have been coming out in 3D I have been going to the movies less often. I strongly believe that this 3D initiative is somehow related to the MPAA in an attempt to curb piracy or some other lame crap.
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Watch Avatar. Now try to focus on something that's out-of-focus in the background.
That's exactly right and what bugged the hell out of me when I watched that movie. Especially the first scene in the spaceship in the big open bay.
To my understanding, this is 3d like old Nintendo games are 3d because of parallax scrolling.
"He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
Last year I had the opportunity to see a live 3D demo. The glasses had motion and tracking sensors and the image was updated based on your head position. An on screen dot determined what you were looking at and could bring any item into focus. What was neat was the ability to look under and around objects. Moving your head to the right, for example, would rotate the on-screen object. This really sold the illusion. The range of movement was very good too. There were times when I was looking down almost vertically just to see how far I could push the illusion. The target market was medical imaging, but the developers anticipate that similar technology could be used for games and maybe even implemented in the hardware itself.
While the ground may be within 1/2 hyperfocal distance, if the shot is composed properly to keep the eye on the action (which generally is not occurring on the ground) then this is less of an issue.
During close-up shots of objects at less than 1/2 hyperfocal, the 3-D effects can simply be "turned off" temporarily turning it into a non-headache-inducing 2-D movie.
The biggest problem I had with Avatar was that everything in view was not in focus. My eyes were hurting after the first 10-15min before I finally realized why. It was because I was looking around trying to see all of the objects on the screen, and those objects were not in focus. My eyes were becoming strained because they were trying to focus on what appeared to be a 3D object that was not in focus to begin with. Once I just stared at the center of the screen that was in focus and ignored everything else my eyes felt less strain. I thought this caused the opposite effect of what Cameron was trying to accomplish with 3D. Instead of opening up scenes with 3D, I felt the scene was restricted with physical pain as punishment for looking around at an object in frame that was not the direct subject of the scene.
Man, that would be awesome. Wouldn't be very practical in a theater, of course.
Then again, theaters aren't very practical to begin with. You're driving halfway across town, paying half again more (per person) than the DVD will cost to buy two years from now, and spending fifteen bucks on a tub of popcorn and a coke, all for the pleasure of sitting there in a chair that looks like some homeless guy peed in it, with a sticky floor, squeezed between two morbidly obese people while their kids sit behind you and throw popcorn at your head, all the while having trouble watching the movie for all the laser pointers and screaming children....
Yeah, I watch movies at home anyway unless I'm on a date, and ideally, even then....
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Right, and your TV is not really in full color, because it can only show red, blue and green.
Both reflect the fact that our eyes do not actually see in 3D, or in full color--our brains do. And our brains construct (or for real images, re-construct) this full color, 3D representation based upon sampling of limited color ranges of two 2D images projected onto our retinas. And if you give your brain that same information, by whatever means, it will construct that 3D representation for you.
Reflecting light and projecting images on a flat surface are two different things.
And it has not taken off really, since then. Sure, an AVATAR can make a global splash. But really, who cared about Monsters vs. Aliens 3D? Or Toy Story 3D? Or say, Clash of the Titans 3D?
The problem is glasses, are required, for viewing in theaters. Just like MP3s drove more "lossy" audio codecs, to the horror of Jimmy Iovine (also earbud headphones), all those Iphones, Ipads, Netbooks, laptops, computers, existing TVs, DVD players, and the like, are going to drive frankly, portable video over "high-quality" ones including 3D. Look at some of those "personal TV" glasses that projected a screen onto glasses, "filling" your view. How well did they do vs. the no-fuss/muss video Ipods, and mobile phones, offering convenience a 12 year old could figure out?
I don't see 3-D doing much more than a fad. Chris Nolan commented that it took decades of work, by Lucas and others, to get theaters to light the screens via powerful projectors, so movies looked bright not dark in the theater. Now, 3-D makes everything half as bright.
The real kicker though is that Hollywood (seriously, it does) makes the lions share of its profits from toy sales and merchandising, not tickets sold or DVD sales or TV rights or all of that. Disney expects something like 2.8X gross revenue from global merchandising from Toy Story 3D, with toys, dolls, bedsheets, lunchboxes, vs. ticket sales and DVD sales and TV rights. Hollywood has become a giant toy commercial, because it can't make money off movies any more. The WSJ ran an article on global ticket sales, buried in the story was a table showing country by country breakouts for global box office. The US was first, with 33% or so, then Japan, at 7%, everyone else was lower than 5%! This includes China and India.
There's just no way to collect from that many countries. Not even Sony or Canon sell to that many countries, and they have local dealers who have real incentives not to screw them over.
The problem is that you live in an area with crappy theaters and crappy theater patrons; I guess maybe you live in the U.S. For you maybe it makes sense to watch at home.
I, on the other hand, live in an area where theaters are large, very clean and well maintained, with comfortable seats, and the patrons are quiet and respectful (and thin!). Yes, even the kids. The theater experience here blows away any home system unless you have agoraphobia...
Going to a theater is more than just technical superiority, it's a social experience. That can be bad if the other patrons are all jerks (or if you are a recluse), but it can very much enhance the experience if they're not -- shared laughter, the pleasant buzz of conversation on a summer's night before a late horror show begins (as you sip your beer!), the collective gasp of the crowd when the hero makes a narrow escape in an action movie. Even if you have friends over, it's an experience you simply don't get in a "home theater," and (along with a better viewing experience) makes seeing a movie in a real theater very much worth the price in many cases.
We live, as we dream -- alone....
Hmm.. where do you live? It's one of the strange things, but I consider ticket prices to be very high. In my area (S. Florida, USA), it's about $10-$12 per person for the ticket. Inside the theatre, a crappy hot dog is $6, a bottle of water is $5, a pack of sugar candy is amost $5. For a family of three it makes no sense to spend $60 or more to see a movie at the theatre. Add to this the crappy seats, crappy patrons, and other horrors and I opt to watch movies on DVD or Netflix. It would be one thing if it was a cheap night out, but at those prices they can keep their movies.
Of course it's not true 3D, and nobody is pretending that it is. A more correct term would be stereoscopic cinematography. That's a bit of a mouthful however and a sensible abbreviation, stereo, is already taken by audio specifications.
It also pays to keep in mind that all cinematic experiences are optical illusions.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
B&W is a design choice, used to stylistically highlight the desired emotion of the scene. So are contrast, saturation, blur, framerate, depth of field, framing, sound effects, CGI, frame aspect, lens flares, 65mm negs etc etc - and so is stereo 3D. They're all simply different adjectives to a cinematographer. And just like all the others, 3D requires careful thought in its usage, and can be used, overused or abused.
Nobody wants stereo 3D slapped on to films carelessly, any more than we want blur or lens flares or colourisation plastered willy-nilly just for the sake of a trend. Unfortunately we'll get a fair amount of that, but as filmmakers learn how to use it and the 3D industry matures, I see no reason it won't become just another tool in a director's toolbox, to be used when and only when it would support the story's impact.
It's not just technical, action directors like James Cameron that think so, either, but respected, story-oriented directors like Martin Scorsese and Ridley Scott, who are both exploring what stereo 3D can add to their next films. I'd like to think that one day, we could even see a decent story, stereo 3D and black & white, all together in a very interesting film.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Here in Norway, I'm forced to choose between 3D in English or 2D in dubbed Norwegian for many films (certainly all children's films), so unless I was to lose about 90% of the experience of seeing a film like Shrek with Eddie Murphay, Mike Meyers etc..., I have to go see it in 3D.
I HATE 3D! I HATE WEARING GLASSES! I HATE MY EYES BLURRING AND REFOCUSING AFTER NEARLY EVERY FILM CUT.
Seriously, 3D should be reserved for crappy films which no one would go see otherwise. Films with good scripts and good actors and good productions can be shown on crappy old 8mm B&W film with scratches and they'd still be great films.
So, if I'm force to sit with a pair of cheap crap plastic glasses squeezing the sides of my oversized skull, then at least give me the option of getting a pair of them with matching polarity for both eyes so I can filter out the 3D effect and actually enjoy the film.
Why do the movie companies believe that we want 3D? Heck, why do the television manufacturers believe that I'm willing to spend 2 grand more for it?
They, along with the electronics manufacturers, are hoping their marketing has convinced or will convince you to buy into 3D.
If more people show interest in paying extra to watch 3D versions of 2D movies, those same consumers might show interest in paying extra for the 3D extras on Blu-ray discs, for 3D-capable TVs, etc.
And, using word-of-mouth, they hope fanatical consumers will convert at least a percentage of the skeptics. The more converted skeptics, the faster the growth.
You are right. For movies to be really enjoyable, the directors need to choose whether to use 3D or shallow depth of field - but not both. It also seems that only some people find it annoying. Many people do not find anything wrong with the current 3D movies.