Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.