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3D Cinema Doesn't Work and Never Will
circletimessquare writes "Walter Murch, one of the most technically knowledgeable film editors and sound designers in the film industry today, argues, via Rogert Ebert's journal in the Chicago Sun-Times, that 3D cinema can't work, ever. Not just today's technology, but even theoretically. Nothing but true holographic images will do. The crux of his argument is simple: 600 million years of evolution has designed eyes that focus and converge in parallel, at the same distance. Look far away at a mountain, and your eyes focus and converge far away, at the same distance. Look closely at a book, and your eyes focus and converge close, at the same distance. But the problem is that 3D cinema technology asks our eyes to converge at one distance, and focus at another, in order for the illusion to work, and this becomes very taxing, if not downright debilitating, and even, for the eyes of the very young, potentially developmentally dangerous. Other problems (but these may be fixable) include the dimness of the image, and the fact that the image tends to 'gather in,' even on Imax screens, ruining the immersive experience."
shitty filipino horror movies.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Lack of closed caption support doesn't help either.
Convergence and focus are not linked. If they were, then one-eyed people would be unable to focus.
i watched avatar in 3d huge screen, and it worked well enough for me to be impressed by it and not to regret 15 bucks i poured into it. actually, i was thinking of going and seeing it again, but didnt have time due to work and life.
really, i started to wonder why i am paying to cinema and widescreen, if we are not going to make use of the screen size advantage.
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It generates an extra 3 fiddy per ticket. It works perfectly!
...in stereoscopy (NOT "3D!): one aspect of parallax is quite wrong - the "doubling" of objects in front of focus plane, of background behind it, etc. Strangely, people hardly realize it's there...maybe because it's so unavoidable.
They also forget how "3D" had its golden area already, half a century ago (with polarizing filters!)
Or how the stereoscopic sister of photography is barely younger than its "2D" sibling, at ~160 years. Quite easily done and inexpensive for a long time.
Now ask yourself this: did you make even one such photo? Know anybody who did?
One that hath name thou can not otter
there are a LOT of people with one primary eye, and if the second one works at all, is only used to fill in peripheral data. a LOT of us. it has nothing to do with pinhead 3D glasses with are still as dorky as they were in the 60s. this is a cash grab by the entertainment industry to obsolete and sell-up a bunch of equipment before even the promoters wise up and start looking for the soft-OFF selection in the setup menu.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Is that in the past movies have used tricks like focusing in a particular screen element in order to get you to pay attention to it. With 3D movies you should be allowed to focus on any element you want, yet film-makers (including for Avatar) have persisted in using 2D film tricks like this.
The only solution would be to film with a very wide field of view so that your focus point is essentially infinity.
This could also mediate the focus problem mentioned in the article ... but movie theaters would need to change the seating so that there were no seats anywhere near the screen.
I've only seen a couple of 3D movies, and frankly the technology isn't very enjoyable. My eyes hurt when I get out of the theatre; I have to wear the glasses above my own and it costs a premium. I think Walter Murch is right, the current technology is too taxing on the eyes. There's too much information lost on a 2D projection to make 3D any good. I've given up on 3D. I won't be buying a 3D TV any time soon, and I won't pay extra for it at the movies. I think the majority of people are slowly coming to the same conclusion.
Always thinking that the ultimate aim/goal of the media industry is 'to debilitate'.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
...if you like excessive nudity and bouncing breasts in your horror movies. There was some movie out recently where one of the female actresses ran around naked for something like five minutes, and the whole spectacle was recorded in titillating detail in 3d. For those who want the most sex in cinema, 3d could work quite well. The depth of field is short, the actual on-screen duration for the needed 3d is short relative to the whole picture, and the content will mesmerize those individuals most likely to pay for the privilege enough to keep it viable.
On a more serious note, if 3d is applied to much narrower field depths then the audience might not get nearly as many headaches, as their eyes won't be straining opposite instincts nearly to the degree that they do when the effects go off to infinity. Trouble is, those aren't the kinds of films where 3d will be appreciated, unless, again, porn or on-screen nudity are primary applications.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
This 3D stuff is doing great getting people to buy stuff. Yes we know it's snake oil, we don't give a damn, it sells. If we could just sell snake oil for this much money that would be great, but people won't pay $800 for a "full snake oil kit", unless you call it "full 3d graphics and video setup kit", you just don't sell as much. Now take your science mumbo jumbo elsewhere and let us get to work, we have people to fool and orders to fill, ok?
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
Walter Murch, one of the most technically knowledgeable film editors and sound designers in the film industry today, argues, via Rogert Ebert's journal in the Chicago Sun-Times, that 3D cinema can't work, ever. Not just today's technology, but even theoretically.
Since 3D cinema pretty clearly empirically does "work" for most reasonable definitions of the word "work", arguments that it theoretically cannot work are obviously evidence of either bad theory or pointless misuses of language, or both.
Other problems (but these may be fixable) include the dimness of the image, and the fact that the image tends to 'gather in,' even on Imax screens, ruining the immersive experience.
Experience, including experience of immersion, is subjective. If a sufficient number of people didn't find 3D using existing, non-holographic technology, to increase immersion when executed well, it wouldn't be a successful selling point.
Some people don't like it, and it doesn't work well for some people (just like all the non-movie, non-holographic 3D tricks -- all of them work well for some people, and for any one of them they aren't comfortable for other people.) And, for that matter, things like shaky camera work -- for some people, that induces nausea and breaks immersion, for some people, it increases immersion and the sense of reality.
Movies rely on lots of tricks of the eye -- whether 2D or 3D -- and the experience of movies is subjective. Arguing that something you don't like that lots of people demonstrably do somehow can't work even in theory is rather pointless.
will never work, theoretically?
they work.
--
Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
Just now we can finally watch 3D movies without glasses.
If only holograms work, then we will just watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTXO7KGHtjI&feature=player_embedded What really works about 3-D is that people will pay $20 for a movie ticket.
We are all just people.
Thats funny cause i enjoyed the new tron and the only good thing about avatar was how it looked. Does Mr Murch from the article mean by "can't work, ever" that it will never make money or no one will enjoy it. Don't get me wrong i don't think its perfect but i'm pretty sure its working.
Rocket Surgeon.
From
http://www.slate.com/id/2282376/pagenum/all/#p2
Two Thumbs, Two Dimensions
Roger Ebert is done talking about 3-D movies. Thank goodness.
By Daniel EngberPosted Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2011, at 12:00 PM ET
As far as Roger Ebert is concerned, the discussion about 3-D is over. "The notion that we are asked to pay a premium to witness an inferior and inherently brain-confusing image is outrageous," he wrote in his blog Sunday. "The case is closed."
If that means Ebert will stop complaining about the medium, so much the better. For years now, the venerable critic has been griping that 3-D cinema is dim, distracting, and useless. And I mean for years: Even at the age of 10, young Ebert turned up his nose at Arch Oboler's stereo jungle adventure, Bwana Devil. (Deeply unmoved, was he, by the hails of spears.) That was back in 1952; more than a half-century later, he's still shaking his fist at the silver screen—I hate 3-D and you should, too! Professional obligations notwithstanding, Ebert doesn't want to see another movie in three dimensions. Ever.
I've had enough of this persnickety crusade, marching, as it does, under the banner of pseudoscience. "Our ancestors on the prehistoric savannah developed an acute alertness to motion," Ebert writes, in an attempt to explain why movies like Clash of the Titans totally suck:
But what about rapid movement toward the viewer? Yes, we see a car aiming for us. But it advances by growing larger against its background, not by detaching from it. Nor did we evolve to stand still and regard its advance. To survive, we learned instinctively to turn around, leap aside, run away. We didn't just stand there evolving the ability to enjoy a 3-D movie.
OK, let's not quibble with the idea that human beings might have evolved to jump away from oncoming automobiles on the prehistoric savannah. I'm more interested in the two notions that follow from this dubious logic. First, that we ought not consume any form of entertainment that doesn't derive from a selected biological trait; and, second, that standard flat-screen cinema is somehow better suited to our genetic makeup—more natural, I guess—than 3-D.
I wonder if Ebert really believes that the arts should cater to our Darwinian design, or that we're incapable of enjoying anything for which our brain wasn't delicately prewired. But in the event that he does, I'd only point out that such gimmicky and distracting art forms as, say, music, may very well be fiddling with our cortex in ways that have nothing to do with the fight-or-flight demands of a saber-toothed tiger attack.
It's just as silly to presume that viewing a film in 3-D is any less natural—from an evolutionary perspective or otherwise—than watching it flat. For starters, the human eye did not evolve to see elephants stomping across the Serengeti at 24 frames per second. Nor are we biologically attuned to jump cuts, or focus pulls, or the world seen through a rectangular box the sides of which happen to form a ratio of 1.85 to 1. Nor indeed was man designed to gaze at any image while having no control over which objects are in focus and which are blurry. If all those distinctly unnatural aspects of standard, two-dimensional cinema seem unobtrusive, it's only because we've had 125 years to get used to them.
According to Ebert, the 3-D effect brings in an "artificial" third dimension, which doesn't serve to make a movie any more realistic. In fact, he says, it makes an image seem less real, since under normal circumstances "we do not perceive parts of our vision dislodging themselves from the rest and leaping at us." Here he appears to be confusing cheesy, pop-out effects (which are used judiciously in the better—and more recent—films) with the medium as a whole. Yes, some 3-D movies do contain these gimmicks, but others do not.
In any case, it's not clear to me why one de
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
From this reference:
According to Prof. Martin Banks, Professor of Optometry and Vision Science at U.C. Berkeley, the vergence-accommodation conflict should be kept at less than ½ to 1/3 diopters for the majority of a 3D viewing experience to avoid discomfort and fatigue.
Which means if you are sitting ~16 feet from the screen, things can come ~10 feet out of the screen without you having any discomfort or fatigue. That is plenty of depth budget for most 3D movies. Thus, focus/vergence mismatch is not a real problem for stereoscopic 3D cinema.
Now if you are ~20 inches from the screen, things can only come out ~3 inches out of the screen before potential discomfort or fatigue, so vergence/focus mismatch is a real problem for small screens. Thus personal gaming devices, computers, and televisions will need careful depth budgeting in stereoscopic 3D.
"Super multiview" non-glasses 3D displays (generally with >32 views) where more than one parallax image is projected into your pupil at a time can force you to focus on the virtual 3D image where your eyes converge (this is how a hologram or the real world works, only they have nearly infinite number of parallax views).
or something, to adjust our eyes to commercial 3D. Probably it will become obligatory at some point, done shortly after birth. We all should support our entertainment industry, shouldn't we?
Obligatory
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnQZlq9Q2M4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEnCKEfSgUM
You telling me that doesn't work?
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
sounds like the interviewed editor is just butthurt. you can't say something will never work when it has obviously been working, avatar came out in 3D, then plenty of movies have followed suit, like avatar these have mostly been shallow eye candy movies (Tron), but Alice in Wonderland was available in 3D and had a solid story to go with the visuals.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
3D cinema works very well. The only problem is that there are no 3D films, just 2D stereoscopic ones.
I think Murch has a point here. Converging on one distance and focus on another is not what your eyes were made for, or rather, what your brain was made for. If you'd stay in the 3D cinema for the rest of your life, your brain would adapt quickly. But adapting to a situation where one moment you're in the cinema and another your in reality, that may prove harder. Although, I must say, I thought I'd never get used to vari-focus glasses, and I did within a day.
no, I don't have a sig
Of course "it works". The point is that it is not well designed for human consumption, it causes headaches and eye strain. As a gimmick (see once on occassion for the "cool factor") it works fine but it isn't a good permanent fixture unless you hate being able to see properly.
XKCD
"Always thinking that the ultimate aim/goal of the media industry is 'to debilitate'."
If, by "debilitate," you mean separating you from your money, you're correct.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
How about making use of head/eye-tracking and electro-active lens technology? Expensive, yes - but not impossible. I was under the impression that this stuff is in use these days in military-grade flight simulators.
separating you from your money
Well, that is also 'weakening', but I was imagining 'making stupid'.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
Sure, it's not *perfect*. I'll give you that.
There's ghosting on occasion.
You can't always look at what you want to and have it be in focus on the screen (cause lord knows they *never* intentionally obscure background by having it out of focus in a 2D movie).
After extended viewing sometimes your eyes hurt. (Again its not like my eyes ever hurt after walking out of a dark theater into a bright parking lot after watching a 2D movie, right?)
You know what though? I've been playing CoD: Black Ops in 3D, it looked KICK ASS. I played Mafia II in 3D, guess what? It looked KICK ASS. I've watched at least half a dozen flicks now on my TV. For the most part, it all still looked KICK ASS. You don't want it? Fine, we get it; no one's forcing it on you. They still show all the 3D flicks in 2D, most of the HDTVs out there for sale are still 2D. So don't buy it, but please STFU already about 3D fail this, 3D fail that. Some of us like it, we bought it, and they are willing to sell it to us. You guys can go brood in the dark and watch whatever the hell you want to. Enjoy it, please! In the meantime, I'm going to go back to playing some more CoD...OMGZ in 3D. Let the hatefest continue...
go outside.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
Reminds me of this YouTube video -- Eye-Tracking To Improve Camera Motion And Depth-Of-Field.
I can see the limitations in a theater -- only one setting can be used by all people. But in a single person's experience, it has been made to work -- you can focus dynamically based on what the person is looking at.
and, as a geek who is very hard to please and very bitchy, i, heretofore, openly declare that, i LIKED avatar.
in fact, i am hoping that some theater puts it up again, so that i can go see it again, instead of bitching pointlessly with people who think it is good to bash something popular.
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Except it didn't cause either, not in me at least.
Nor did it back in the old days when I used my Elsa Revelator glasses to play games in 'true 3D' on my PC (before NVIDIA bought them and before the card that I bought for them died).
And perhaps more importantly, even if it does at the start, your eyes learn to compensate.
It also excludes a not insignifcant portion of the population with a number of visual problems. I have strabismus (wandering eye) which means that not only do I not appreciate 3D, I get split vision, making any possibility of enjoying a 3D experience pretty much impossible.
Some day we'll have true holographic projection on an economical scale. At that point, if I'm still alive, I'll appreciate 3D. Until then, I'll have to stick to standard 2D theaters.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Yeah I tagged "ihaveoneeye", which is the truth. No interest.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
it didnt cause any headache and eye strain for me, and i even had to watch it from a totally oblique angle (right at the left front seats) because tickets ran out in that huge theater.
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I paid extra to see it at a IMAX theater, and while it wasn't great cinema, it was a fun movie. I'm glad I saw it, even if I found the notion of sex with a blue monkey highly disturbing.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
do you wear an eyepatch ?
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Green Hornet sucked. 3D just made it suck harder.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Looks like Ebert is really set in his curmudgeonly "new forms of media are trash and always will be" pattern. Guess what -- 2D cinema already violates many of the visual absolutes that our ancestors took for granted. This article complains that 3D separates focus and convergence, but 2D cinema already separated those from visual perspective, something that never happens in nature. We also evolved to have control over the plane that we are focusing on, which 2D cinema takes away. Even aside from depth cues, our ancestors only needed to perceive motion when they themselves were moving, there was no idea of sitting still and watching from a moving camera. I guess this "motion picture" thing will never catch on. It will always make some people motion sick from camera movement or give them headaches from the brightness and flickering.
What is with the timing of this article anyway? The most successful film of all time, Avatar, is a flagship of 3D cinema. Maybe his next article should be "why the cell phone can't work, ever" because calls sometimes drop. Or maybe "why flat TVs will never catch on" because they don't have as deep blacks as CRT.
There is a certain percentage of people for whom stereoscopic 3D (as implemented today) will just not work. These people need to stop writing editorials and go do something more productive. The solutions to the issues of vergence and accommodation (focus) are possible, but will take a little while to become commercial.
By the way, I've seen Captain EO (the ONE 3D movie edited by Murch, on whose letter Ebert bases his opinion) and I was NOT impressed...
3D will _never_ work for the following people:
* People who are stereo blind (i.e., don't see 3D in real life either)
* People who are extremely sensitive to motion artifacts
* People who are watching badly made 3D (i.e., converted from 2D, or edited badly)
* People who think it's a good idea to watch anything 3D for more than 2-3 hours at a time at the current level of technology
3D _might_ work for the following people with some more exposure, but probably won't:
* People who've never worn glasses and can't handle the thought of something on their face
* People who are extremely sensitive to vergence (how the eyes are positioned relative to each other) and accommodation (focus) mismatches
* People who get motion sick easily
There are many "killer apps" for this tech over the horizon unless people who delight in bashing things they themselves can't appreciate "win".
Hint: The "killer apps" will probably not be the 3D-ization of current media such as news broadcasts or handheld consoles.
---
“Well-informed people know it’s impossible to transmit voice over wires and that were it possible to do so, the thing would be of no practical value.” The Boston Post, 1865.
is all the "expert" advice we'll get from the Slashdot crowd telling us how Murch is wrong and how 3D is so super awesome cool. Just like it was in the 50s.
Or a still photo. And yet people make movies.
All those "points" are pure bullshit.
Apparently, people didn't evolve to be fooled by 3D illusions.
Quick! Someone call Escher and tell him he was wrong.
And speak up - he's been dead since 1972, so he may not hear you at first.
And that "no immersion for 3D" is utter nonsense.
That "kind of dreamlike "spaceless" space" when watching anything is called BEING BORED TO SLEEP - not "immersion".
WTF! I'm supposed to be immersed into 2D movies due to its superior qualities? Where is all that immersive porn then?
Wouldn't that be the first genre we noticed the effect with? It sure as fuck grabs everyone's attention.
Come on, raise your hand if you have ever thought you are actually IN THE MOVIE while watching it.
Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
Hold on... wait... I once got up to answer a phone that was ringing on the screen - CAUSE I WAS FALLING ASLEEP WHILE WATCHING THE FUCKING MOVIE!
Only single point that is sorta true is about 3D being more expensive. So?
Colored pictures used to be more expensive too. Just like CGI.
Hey... Remember when a computer would cost tens of thousands of dollars - and it wasn't even an Apple?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I don't wear an eyepatch. I have glass, and very fine glass at that. Big whup! You wanna fight about it?
Murch is right in his analysis of the problem, and that's why the stereoscopic process in use now so closely resembles what you see in a ViewMaster, but does not look like what your eyes see in real life. Whether he's right about a possible solution with holography remains to be seen. It may yield a workable solution for a small audience, but it may also be unworkable in even today's small cinema spaces.
The industry has already learned the reality of Murch's analysis; I've attended engineering presentations on the problems, and the issues which are presented by attempting to cheat the eye on a single focal plane. One thing holography would fix is the problem of people getting sick when an inexperienced -- or foolish -- director tries to force the effect too far.
--- Bill
Whatever, Mom.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
there is a saying that says, "you have to listen to experts, they will tell you what is not possible, with wonderful theories about why... then you should just go and do it" :)
I am sure he's got a pretty logical argument... the same way I have heard years ago there was no way you would never ever get more than 64K out of a phone line... then there was DSL
some limits (like this one) are made to be broken :)
Never antropomorphize computers, they do not like that
i watched avatar in 3d huge screen, and it worked well enough for me to be impressed by it and not to regret 15 bucks i poured into it
Ok. Yeah. It worked well enough for me to impressed and not regret the 15 bucks.
Although I developed a headache, and my wife developed a migraine. And the plot was complete and utter predictable rubbish. Its basically unwatchable garbage. So stereotypical and cliched to the point that it is painful.
But, I'll concede the headache inducing 3D was "neat", and I'm glad I saw it. I don't want to see it again though, and have little interest in seeing much else in 3D either. It's like a strobe ultraviolet light (black light)... pretty neat effect; kind of cool for them to pull it out for a bit at a night club. But I wouldn't ever in a million years want to switch all my lights over.
Same with stereoscopic 3D movies, there's a niche for it. From time to time a movie will be worth watching with the effect, but not in a million years do I want network television to switch to the format.
Vision scientist here ... sorry to have to disagree with you, but actually they are linked ... mostly for very near objects though, so the problems mentioned would be worst for handheld video games like the 3DS.
And virtually unnoticeable for images that don't attempt to get within about twice arm's length.
Also: For people of middle age and beyond, presbyopia drastically limits the ability of the eye to change focus depth. Older people would probably find the images very easy to view. Better than holography, in fact, because they'd stay in focus at all "distances" while a holograph would require the viewers to adjust focus when they can't. B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
What drives me crazy even worse than eye pain and unrealism is the fact that anything moving remotely fast looks like playing a 3D game on a 10 year old system. If I had to guess at what's going on, it's alternating frames during the 3D effects and only at like 30 FPS to begin with so the 3D effects are effectively at 15 FPS which looks AWFUL! Anything zipping across the screen in 3D looks like choppy crap and my gamer eyes can't take that.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
You can make the same argument that 2D movies will "never work" either. Projecting an image on a flat screen that somehow tricks our brains into thinking that it is looking at a real scene is just another "gimmick" that works well in some situations and poorly in others.
The most rabid believers in American Exceptionalism are the exact same people whose policies are destroying it.
God never intended for us to see in color, after all.
Purists can say what they want, but the cinephiles at the Seattle International Film Fest love 3-D.
We also love black and white, Cinemascope, and whatever we can get our hands on.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
i believed that you are the guy who i replied to. you successfully trolled me.
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of evolution has made us great at using tools, but we can ALSO play the piano.
3d is working, and 3d is improving a lot.
There is tremendous push behind this technology.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Yes. I completely agree. I the 3D worked very well with Avatar. I think, as counterintuitive as it may seem, 3D seems to work well when the scenes are complex in terms of depth range. For simple 3D shapes such as boxes or 3D letters, it just doesn't work well. This is why Tron didn't work well in 3D. Also, it all depends on the glasses you get. For Avatar I got nice comfy 3D glasses that fit well, were very light, and had large lenses, so you aren't distracted by the frames. For Tron I went to a different theater (oddly, the theater was supposedly newer and better) and got crappy 3D glasses, that were heavy, had small frames, had a tiny nose bridge that sat on 2 points on my nose, and were very painful to wear. The glasses also make an enormous difference. And, the problem is, once people have one bad experience with 3D, they aren't likely to try 3D again for quite a while.
It was very interesting to read about the smaller apparent image size (the "gathering in" effect mentioned in the article) of some stereoscopic moves. I've noticed this as well and it seems to be related to whether your eyes are converging or diverging. For instance, when using cross-eyed free viewing of stereo pairs (left eye sees image displayed on the right and vice-versa) the image looks small and cramped, whereas when using wall-eyed free viewing the image appears large and expansive. Does anybody have any insight into this and how it relates to stereoscopic projection in movie theaters? Perhaps this effect is just due to badly adjusting the convergence points in the editing process?
lets see.
i didnt develop a headache, despite watching it from almost an 15 degree angle. nor any eye issue.
plot being predictable makes something bad, since when ? i dont understand why people have started to treat any kind of movie like a fucking detective novel. hellooo - you dont have to be surprised at EVERY fiction/nonfiction work you encounter. classic music pieces are always the same, however the 'telling' of the music by the performer makes the difference. its no different in movie, fiction. a story can be told a million times, but some may be far better than others.
lets drop this extreme trait that plagues us geeks - noone has to please us all the time, and 'having seen all' does not require a medal, or give the reason to constantly bitch about everything.
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Hey, I have a news flash for you, shitty HD or 3D movie is shitty in 2D as well. I swear half these responses sound like "i went to see a movie i probably wouldn't have liked anyway but i saw it in 3d and also got a headache so 3d is the worst thing ever since hitler". I'm sorry you didn't enjoy it, but 3d probably wasn't the real problem.
So, you're handicapped, therefore the rest of us can't have nice things, because YOU can't enjoy them?
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
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Correction: blue cat
Some day we'll have true holographic projection on an economical scale. At that point, if I'm still alive, I'll appreciate 3D. Until then, I'll have to stick to standard 2D theaters.
With huge films, this generally isn't a problem, as there are generally a few theaters showing both versions, so one can choose, but with mid-level films (e.g., recently Tron), it's often the case that only a single theater nearby is showing the film -- and if it's the 3d version then I end up paying more than usual to see a crappy substandard film (noticeably dimmer than normal films, need to wear awkward and uncomfortable glasses).
I'd rather they just raise the price and show the 2d version (call it the "haha aren't you lucky we didn't go with 3d!" tax...)!
We live, as we dream -- alone....
.
I'm not saying 3D doesn't suck, of course it sucks. I'm just saying it doesn't mean the format can't be improved upon.
If it were up to me - I'd advise the indistry to focus more on improving the basic 2D format, so when I go to the movies, I'm not constantly disapointed that my 52" plasma TV at home, showing HD video looks better than what I'm seeing at the theatre.
Back almost 30 years ago when the Disney Epcot place opened they had some 3D show that was incredible. I believe it used polarized glasses like they do now but the 3D in it was way better. I have never before or since seen anything as good as that. I mean they had 3D stuff that literally looked like you could reach out and touch it.
A sensor that can detect shifts in the eye's focus and alter the depth of field of a stereoscopic image could be used as well, perhaps even a neurosensor implant (although I would think an external monitoring system would be more appealing at first, perhaps a camera monitoring distortions of a non-visible (and low intensity) laser grid reflected off the retina - i have no clue...) combined with multi aperture photography (I believe MIT had some demonstrations of this) and of course a higher frame rate and field of view (think omnimax, 120p) could be pretty close to TRUE 3d cinema. Movement of the head or eyes would still be prohibited of course.
Seriously, who cares about the not insignificant portion of the population with a number of visual problems? Not me. They release the movie in 3D and 2D. Go watch the 2D if your body isn't capable to watching 3D.
Wouldn't that be the iEye ?
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
I agree. Avatar was quite long and I had no ill effects from the 3D. My Sega Master system I had back in the day, holy crap did those 3D glasses suck. I was good for twenty minutes on a good day before eye strain and head ache city...
I live about half a mile from a large Imax theater. The sell tickets for $16 each and are sold out nearly every show. I'd say it were gimmickry, but they've been doing this for over 5 years. I don't really like it for the regular feature films... 2hrs in those glasses kills you, and the directors seem to think 3D = no need for a plot (see Avatar) but Imax has a lot of documentaries that are amazing. They are less than an hour and it really is a interesting experience to have fish swimming around your head or looking off the edge of a cliff.
Several things.
I'm over 50 years old.
I've corresponded with Roger Ebert several times over the years.
I like and respect him.
I completely disagree with him on 3D in the cinema.
For me, Toy Story 3 was an excellent example of what is possible. Meet The Robinsons was underrated but also had several excellent scenes where the use of 3D made them work better than 2D could have. For the most part, live 3D has a learning curve that hasn't been mastered yet, but I believe that will change.
I don't own a 3D television...yet, but I think I certainly will in another couple of generations of the technology.
I do wear glasses, but don't have headaches or issues with 3D glasses. Maybe I'm lucky or perhaps my cavemen ancestors were blessed with 3D wiring in their brains.
I am my own gestalt.
Another problem with any fake 3D (i.e. dual images projected on a flat surface with binocular separation) is the fact that the parallax is fixed. When you view a truly 3D scene, your head doesn't stay still; it moves, even if just a little. You're not just sampling the scene from two angles, but from multiple angles. If you want a better look at a background object, you move your head to one side, and the image shifts a little. That's part of how your perception of depth works. Its much the same as why you need more than two speakers to create a realistically 3D soundscape (because we judge the direction of a sound in part by moving our heads imperceptibly). Even the most perfect flat-3D projection system cannot simulate that.
This doesn't mean that 3D "doesn't work", of course. It simulates an approximation of a scene, just as 24fps 2D images approximate it, and B&W 2D images approximate it less realistically, etc. But it will always fall sort of a true three-dimensional viewing experience. And kind of like a CGI rendering that doesn't quite look real (the Uncanny Valley), it'll always fall sort of satisfying.
Until we get real 3D projections. :)
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Human parallax only works well up to a few meters. In "good" movies (those that contain exploding spaceships, erupting volcanoes and tens of thousands of Mongols charging on horseback - or preferably all 3 ) the action is at a large enough distance that the 3D effect vanishes. If you try to turn a spaceship battle into a 3d effect, you wind up with inch-long spaceships fighting for control of your nose.
The only movies were 3D might be useful would be porn flicks where presumably you might want to be close to the action.
Avatar 3D in Melbourne IMAX was still, by far, _the best motion picture experience_ I've had in my life. I walked out of the theater flabberghasted-- It was a breath of fresh air; I had no idea a movie could bring something new to the table in form of 3D which made it so, so much better than it could've ever been without.
Unprecedented immersion.
(mod down as much as you want; this is not about the story)
Not to take away from your point, other than to point out more that he has no idea what he's talking about. This caught my eye in 2D: "And 600 million years of evolution has never presented this problem before." I have to ask what starting point he going from. I doubt early multi-cellular life was concerned about whether their eyes focused correctly.
Avatar was done correctly and is the only appliaction of the technology that does work That is:
1 - Digital. The displacement between the two images is on a per-pixel basis. This is too small for our eyes to easily discern. The image looks nearly identical with the glasses on and off from the perspective of focus.
2 - Depth only. Adding an artificial dimension towards the audience is going to cause eye problems, but using it to overcome the limitations of film's optics and limited depth of field is actually more what our eyes expect and our brains desire.
Maybe half a dozen films so far have taken this approach. The rest are the typical eye-strain junk that everyone complains about.
myself and the 3 others I went with to see Avatar all complained about the eye strain or headaches by the end of it. Why is the plot being predictable bad? well if after 20 mins into the movie you can already work out what the hell is gonna happen by the end then really what is the point of a story driven movie? The characters were extremely shallow and cliche to the point where you had to cringe at some of the dialog and story. Having said that I enjoyed it to for the well done 3D, though it did ensure that I never want to watch movies in 3D again (at least with current tech).
Autostereograms (aka random dot stereograms, some made by Magic Eye) only work because you CAN control convergence and focus separately. Yes, it can be easier further away and some people don't seem to be able to do it, but it WORKS.
The 3D used in Avatar was beautiful, and in many other gimmicky films that project stuff into your lap, it WORKS. Is it perfect? No, of course not. You can see depth, but you can't move your head and look "behind" something. If you tilt your head wearing polarized glasses, the images blur and the illusion fails. Saying that 3D doesn't "work" because of this is like saying movies in general don't "work" because there are 24 still images flickering every second instead of constant smooth motion like in the real world.
Walter Murch sounds like the kind of guy who still goes around saying bumble bees can't fly...
Help! Help! I'm being repressed!
It was cool for a gimmick, but beyond the first 20 minutes of the film, nothing in 3-D was impressive to me. There was a little at the end, but even the falling of the tree was less then spectacular, the flying didn't really benefit from 3-D as optically stunning and in countless battle scenes the 3-D wasn't even noticeable. Move alll that to a TV and the less then spectacular becomes 10 fold.
The only 3-D I have ever seen that made me say wow was that inside of a Disney park, but I would imagine that the cost to bring that to massive amounts of theaters would be too high, even through the first time I saw it was as far back as 1986. In 1986 it was still 100'rds more times impressive then the drivel that is 3-D in theaters now.
And I submit my bank balance as proof. - James Cameron
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
Replacing good script, good acting, good plot and good characters with flashy effects.
With a lot of the latest THREE DEEE Movies I get the idea that they add a dimension to the movie to make us forget that the characters are at best one dimensional.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I tried watching Avatar in 3D (I was forced to go with friends). Halfway thru the movie I had to take off the glasses and watch the movie 2D in a terrible-looking way because I couldn't stand trying to focus in on the background and it not focusing because it isn't a real 3D scene.
Tron in 2D would be like going to an airshow while you're recovering from eye surgery on one of your eyes.
Some movies are absolutely stunning in 3D, because they are done correctly. Tron didn't cause me a moment of eye-strain and I wear glasses (3D glasses are on top of my normal glasses).
What moron puts this shit up? 3d is doing well, better than 2d ever did. This is such a fucking joke. You fucking twits quit wasting time!
If the only 3d I was exposed to was what I saw in theaters I would think 3d is inherently something that hurts your eyes. There's actually a couple things at play here:
1. A lot of movie theaters have bad technology that results in unwatchable motion blur. Hey tards, for starters lets get both eyes IN SYNC. I suppose asking a minimum wage earning employee to make sure this is correct is out of the question, they can't even get their sound levels to be balanced half the time. Here's another fun fact: I get the same problem on my DLP TV when I watch a 3d movie on my PS3; I have to enable "movie mode" to get the motion blur to go away. I'm not sure if this is a TV problem or if they really recorded the blu-ray disk with one frame for one eye and the next frame for the other eye but I doubt anyone who isn't as tech savvy as me would figure this little thing out. It's subtle for one, no one wants to spend a bunch of money on a TV and PS3 and 3D movie then say out lout do everyone around them "hey does that look blurry to you when it moves?"
2. The brain wants to control things when its in 3D. Despite having a lot of experience with 3D, being able to see stereograms without effort, and being able to play 3d games for hours on end, I don't feel that comfortable watching someone else play a 3D game. I get motion sick, I get eye strain, I feel things are blurrier or out of focus more often. I can't give a good explanation - maybe different parts of the brain are used when I play a game versus watching it.
3. If you hear someone bitch about 3D then they probably wear glasses or contacts. Seriously, I'm not kidding. As a non-glasses wearer I can only venture a guess that the cause is that people's brains are actually compensating for something at all times without them realizing it. For example, on 3d previews the text floats about a foot in front of the screen. My mom couldn't focus on it. Given how often 3d floats that far in front of the screen I'd imagine I wouldn't enjoy 3d either.
4. 3d is awesome for first person games. It is simply where it absolutely shines. There's no motion blur. You can set the depth to whatever you want. You are in control of the view so it feels natural. Real time strategy games can be kind of cool as well since it's like you have a bunch of toys in front of you fighting it out, but getting the depth to where it gives that neat effect without hampering gameplay is sometimes impossible if the game isn't already 3d ready.
Depth perception is not viewing in three dimensions. If you want three dimensions go develop a light field display (http://gl.ict.usc.edu/Research/3DDisplay/). Stereopsis is achieved perfectly using two displaced cameras to view the image. Parallax is not perfect unless head tracking is used to transform the view frustum dynamically. Its like static depth perception without it. Everyone knows that dynamic is always better unless it is typing (this is a funny truth/joke, I hope someone gets it).
There is a huge difference between the 2D to 3D conversion process to produce films and using a stereoscopic camera with dual cameras. Cameron used stereoscopic cameras to film Avatar, though I am sure he used some tricks to accentuate some scenes. Chronicles of Narnia used the conversion process, so all the characters are flat (I mean in regards to video, and not plot development), but the computer generated backgrounds have depth perception.
Somebody else mentioned that depth perception is past its prime. I agree with him/her. This is the same technology of the 60s. Until head tracking is combined with depth perception, all of the binocular cues are not active. Convergence can be achieved with future technology. The only problem with the current technology is that sometimes bad editors overlay foreground scenes (from a green screen) and backgrounds with different depths of field. This produces a wonky image that our brain has trouble processing. The Gestalt principles should be law when editing 3D video.
Nintendo DS does not use stereopsis (two images). It uses big object detection with a computer vision library to detect the position of your large head. It does not produce two separate images for each eye to view. It then transforms the viewing frame to account for the position of your head. So if you are looking out a window, you can poke your head around and see around the interior of the edges of the screen.
I can't believe I had to read this article so I could comment on it.
3D films remind the audience that they are in a certain "perspective" relationship to the image. It is almost a Brechtian trick.
What nonsense, this is only because its feels weird wearing those glasses. And the glasses tend to be less translucent around the edges which causes a dream like effect similar to the blurred borders in scenes used in 90s TV to evoke a dream state, and in some bad movies.
The shifting of convergence he is talking about due to the strobing from horizontal motion would be greatly reduced using head tracking (with depth perception) to perfect the parallax, but it is kindof difficult unless everybody has their own display with a camera on it. A side angle camera is required to perfect this technology, as using the size of your head does not really determine you head z position. The dynamic/instantaneous position of your head is important.
well if after 20 mins into the movie you can already work out what the hell is gonna happen by the end then really what is the point of a story driven movie?
whats the point of going to a classical music concert, or a shakespeare play, or watching a classic movie again then ?
Read radical news here
this is what happens when you let marketing people run wild with sales charts chasing things nobody wants.
... support a local theater--the kind with live actors and technicians. Stage theater is dying a painful death in this country, and it is a damn shame.
has been in 3D for centuries.
on my computer
i started editing it. one problem: it sucks
not story wise or acting wise. but technically. the sound is awful, scratching, wind-blowing, the lighting is obviously amateurish. i used wireless mics and you pick up odd hums and rf ghosts. a nightmare
so there it will lie, forever, unreleased, until such time that i get over my perhaps too high self-standards about releasing a technically super-crappy movie in my name. but its embarrassing. i just don't want to edit it and release it. too depressing
someday i may finish editing it, perhaps drunk, to get over the depression of how much it technically sucks, just for laughs. so someday, you will have your laugh at how much i suck at the technical aspects of filmmaking
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Wow a long post and you missed the major point.
After all the reasons he gives he get's to Murch. And Murch's key techicnical observations is this: because the silver screen is a scattering device not a hologram your eyes must be focused on the screens surface. But the stereoscopic convergence point of objects in the seen may far in front or behind the screen. In real life humans never see things in which the object they are focusing on is not at the convernce point. it takes effort to do that. Ergo 3d movies have a problem.
Now holograms and volumetric displays of course would solve that but it's absurd to propose that for a movie theater at this point in time.
While Murch is technically right, he is also ignorant of another well know effect that erases that. It's the hyper focal effect. What this means is that as long as the blur size of a defocused point is smaller than the resolution limit of your vision or any optical system (the blur circle of a perfectly focused spot) then the point is effectively in focus. In practice this happens for any object located far from you. For human eyes in a darkened room this might be something like 30 to 30 feet. so if you are that far from the screen then if your eyes focus on the convergence zone behind the screen, the screen itself is effectively in focus.
This will break down for case of people sitting close to the screen and a convergence zone far in front of the screen. But other than that Murch is right for first order optics, and moot for second order optics.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
If u are blind in one eye and can't see out of the other, then I see ur point. I on the other hand like it from the first day 3d was shown in a theatre. No head aches and I have 20/15 vision and better than average night vision ! Cheer up things will get better.
hyper focal distance defined.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I guess we could revive CINERAMA that would be great, no glasses !
You can basically reverse every single argument this Walter Murch made when comparing the fact we see in 3D, so 2D movies conflict with evolution. You still have issues with convergence and focus in viewing 2D movies. His mountain analogy just made me laugh when I thought of how everyone has trouble determining just how far away that mountain actually is. There are many things wrong with 2D movies that can make peoples brains hurt..
But! None of this takes away from the viewing pleasure of a well done movie be it in 2D or 3D. Just watch what you like
I like the 3D movies. Sorry, that's all there is to it. They're more fun.
I like a well made 3D movie. To me, that's a movie that uses sterevosion as yet another a tool in film making, but not as a feature. That will come, eventually, as the fad fades.
But in 3D games I can tell you that the spacial sense that stereovision gives is awsome. Sometimes almost feels like cheating.
In Total War games one gets a better feel for the lay of the land and can see exactly when the archers should fire that volley or the cavalry should charge for maximum effect.
In WoW in monovision, I can see on the mini-map that the cave branches, and sometimes I must move back and forth to get some parallax with the mottled bitmaps to find that branch. In stereovision I clearly see the shape of the cave (who needs a map?), oh and the walls happen to be covered in mottled bitmaps.
Apparently it's great with FPS's where you can estimate where to aim a rocket launcher so the rocket intercepts the target. (I don't play FPS's myself.)
In tools, I can imagine Kinekt or PS3 controls in combination with stereovision. You'd start a session by calibrating four reference points: origin, X, Y, Z. Then you'd control things within that space. I think it could be handy in engineering, flight control, anything where spacial awareness and control comes in handy.
Just give it another 600 million years to let our eyes evolve with it -- then we may truly enjoy The Matrix ReReReReLoaded !
Here's the thing about movies and the technology behind them, they are meant to do the impossible! I know a thing or two about 3D, particularly in the IMAX arena mentioned in the article, because I've been one of the few actually building the shows there for 3+ years now. Bottom line is this... Like anything in film when it's done well it works and looks great but if it's not done well, there's just no telling how bad it can really be. Right now, there is no standardization. It's all made up by the men in charge and their experience. At last count there are at least 8 major 3D philosophies currently being used. The first issue you run into is plain old conversion. How do you convert 3D type A to 3D type B? How was it shot? Avatar with specially designed 3D cameras looked awesome, especially in IMAX, although there's what I call a metallic halo sort of like artifacting, mildly odd geometry in places and plenty of room for improvement. Or Alice in Wonderland, shot in 2D and converted to what I call 3D cutouts, which looks ridiculous in places but overall done well. There are no rules, so you have to go on experience, and a LOT of R&D testing. From the 3D I've seen, IMAX 3D is the best because it has the best tech specs. The highest contrast and brightness ratio in the 3D world. It brings out many flaws with some technologies and techniques. But the one area where IMAX has everyone beat cold, by patent, is they do it with two eyes. They actually have two separate projectors, representing the eyes. I think you can't really beat that thinking seeing as though we have two eyes. The two eyes of a human being aren't particularly special when taken individually. Each eye sees a 2D image, its the brain that does the rest. Something my mind effortlessly does for hours at a time. But don't get me wrong, I hate 3D. I think it'll die soon enough, except maybe in video games and IMAX.
When watching a movie I scan the screen, as I watched Avatar, I noticed what I wanted to look at was out of focus; there seems to be one focal point in 3D. What I've seen ( limited) in the TV 3d looks looks like stereograms depth-of-field only, figures still look flat. If you need to send a pie in the face of the audience you might want to rethink your script.
One of the tricks of the eye that I like with 3D glasses is glimmer. You can't see glimmer with one eye, you can see shine, shimmer, or sparkle, but glimmer is a two eye thing. And objects that should glimmer don't in 2D movies. A my monoscopic friends just thought glimmer and shimmer were the same thing, course most of my stereoscopic friends never noticed either.
The crux of his argument is simple: 600 million years of evolution has designed eyes that focus and converge in parallel, at the same distance.
That same 600 million years of evolution has designed humans that frequently focus at different depths to focus upon points of interest. Both 2D and 3D films fail to allow us to focus anywhere but on the screen.
By this logic, 2D movies don't "work and will never work"; By this logic, the ONLY visual entertainment that can work is live: Plays, Opera, Concerts, etc. Unfortunately, it's not economical or practical to produce real time special effects and have actors deliver perfect performances with the same frequency that movies are played...
Once again, by the flim critics' own line of logic, I have once again arrived at the conclusion I always arrive at when critics speak: There is no need for film critics.
(...It would be awesome to have my own playhouse & players that could immediately put on any of the plays I want on demand; Sadly, a childhood incident involving a lost balloon, molten cheese and a bear's crotch has left petrified of those creepy animatronics.)
Euclid. Google it.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Well, I saw Avatar in IMAX and the whole thing was a series of Holy Christ Almighty moments. Saw it in the 3D regular cinema and it was about that good again. Amazing and unforgettable.
So I plunked down extra cash for Tron2 in 3d last week, and literally lost the whole 3D feeling halfway through the movie. Lightcycles - couldn't tell. Cora? still couldn't tell. I don't know what I lost, if I'll ever get it back, or if James Cameron can find it again for me.
I sure hope so because I want want WANT Avatar all over again.
whats the point of going to a classical music concert, or a shakespeare play, or watching a classic movie again then ?
Because they are classics. (As opposed to merely old.) Lots of old movies aren't worth ever watching again. The one's that are classics are. Usually for the great acting, clever script, etc. And sure a solid plot helps make them watchable.
What will Avatar be in 20 years? An early example of stereoscopic 3D, and about as much of a classic as the first movie filmed with "technicolour". Of interest to people interested in the history of film technology... and that's about it.
I'm almost 50, I have no problems with 3d films.
1) 3d doesn't matter to 95% of the film so it's a lot hassle for those few significant 3d moments.
2) 3d is TOO EXPENSIVE. I'd pay a buck for it. I'm not going to pay three bucks for it when I can see the same film for four or five bucks. I'm definitely not going to pay three bucks on top of fourteen dollars for Imax unless it is something exceptional to me (Tron3d has been it so far).
3) My mind remaps the 3d to 2d quickly. I noticed this in the light cycle battles in Tron3d. I noticed it in Avatar. I see a 3d image, but even 2 seconds later, it's stored in my mind in 2d and I sort of see it again as 2d.
It's okay for some films. It's okay for a *SMALL* surcharge. It's not worth 3 bucks.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
My wife, after seeing 2 3d films in short order (2 days apart), told me she hopes this is just a fad, because she's not going to want to go to movies if they're all 3d.
I concurred. Even after seeing Tron Legacy, which was pretty good stuff (visually), I concluded that this is a novelty. The movie would have been better if they spent all that money on finding the right writers.
It's nice to see it getting some press. "3d" is not like "talkie" pictures. It is a game changer, but in a way that seems limiting to everything but computer animation. Peripheral vision is a serious problem. I hope it doesn't last, because I will miss movies that work, and look good.
As an aside, when you take off the glasses seeing things in real3d may persist. If you see in 3d for a period longer than 4 hours, take some Viagra.
--
Toro
I can tell you my biggest problem with modern 3D cinema: 24fps.
For whatever reason all 3D cinema is at 48Hz (24fps per eye). This creates a huge amount of motion judder, which (in my opinion) is much more noticeable in 3D.
The 60p football game I watched on a 3DTV at Best Buy resulted in significantly less eyestrain and was much more pleasant.
I used to dismiss "120Hz" TVs as a gimmick but since I purchased one (240Hz actually - Sony XBR9) I have decided that judder sucks. Motion interpolation like my XBR9 has is not as good as real higher-framerate content, but it still does a fantastic job of getting rid of judder in film. Yes, it makes film look like video. No, I don't care anymore.
We don't watch many black and white films anymore, we don't watch films with crappy sound anymore, and we don't watch 4:3 films anymore. 24 frames per second is no more a part of the cinema experience than black and white was. It's time to move on and acknowledge that smooth motion is better.
Usually in classics it doesn't feel like someone is stabbing your ears with awl. Ok, sometimes it does, but I am not a fan of all classics anyway.
Lets compare two movies – Avatar (physical and emotional pain) and Ultraviolet (enjoyed a lot).
In Ultraviolet (not popular) plot is scarce: love story – one innuendo; description of the times they live in – few paragraphs. To understand anything, you really have to follow. But the part of the plot that is there is OK and makes sense, id est, I can understand why each character is doing what what they do, or at least imagine valid reason.
In Avatar, the things that happen simply don't make this emotional sense:
There were similar comments on sound and color. Once, a long time ago, movies like Metropolis were created. They didn't need sound to carry their meaning. Sound could even have been a distraction. This doesn't mean we should turn the clock back many years. When technology progressed, sound became the default. This doesn't mean all films with sound are better than all films without it.
The same counts for color. The difference is: the first color movies sucked in their representation of color. Some of the first 3D movies suck at 3D. Clash of the titans was a bad movie without 3D. The low quality 3d subtracted even more from that, but even with a good 3D the movie would have sucked. Piranha 3D was even worse. But there is a difference between that shit and Avatar. Avatar had a good story with beautiful images that were boosted by the 3d effects.
There is also the (small) part of humankind who get real dizziness effects from seeing a 3d movie. The cause of this is due to the fact that each human brain is different: Each processes the information from the retinas in a different way. Different brains have different values for different sources of information. Compare it with seasickness: some brains can work with a difference in information between the eyes (I am standing still in my environment, the boat) and the vestibular system (I am moving) and some brains can't.
This should not be a reason to stop making 3D movies: Did deaf people stop the making of movies with sound? They could not follow the story of these movies, so going to the cinema's was useless for them.
I have the feeling Roger Ebert is in the category that can't handle the difference in the angle between the eyes and the focus distance. It's to bad for the 3D movies that he's a well known critic.
source: Kijk (a dutch magazine), somewhere in the fall of 2010
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
Personally I think current 3D-cinema does work, I don't mind the glasses and I do think it adds something to the mix (not for all kind of movies ofcourse). I think it's just pretentious/snob talk. as I said it's all in the eye of the beholder, as some people really don't like the glasses and those are the ones that regularly complain that 3D just sux.. Yes 3D can suck if done poorly, but even if it's done mediocretly it can add something..
Is less the eye of the viewer but the attitude of the movie industriy.
a) Shoddy movies which have 3d plastered on top as afterthought
b) The 3d tax of the movie theatres which is a hidden 25% price hike over here in Europe
c) The smallest problem is the eye strain, you dont watch it constantly.
Add to all this that movies at least over here in europe have become really expensive watching especially if you have to pay for a family and you
can see why 3d itself is the smallest issue.
I tend to avoid 3d like the plaque but not because of the eye strain.
Actually I was not too impressed, the 3d effects were nice and mostly non distracting, but the story really lacked and was shallow.
If you had headphones... this could be true.
Virtual haircut (use headphones)
Adding headphones to the glasses adds a price....
Everyone is waiting for 3D (steoscopy) without glasses... well multiple audio sources might be the solution for 3d audio without headphones.
May I kindly point out that 2D will never work either. It has even more problems than 3D. How will anyone evet get depth perception in a 2D movie :-S
Max M - IT's Mad Science
> most technically knowledgeable film editors and sound designers
Clearly optics isn't one of his strengths.
Anything beyond around 20 feet in a dark theater is infinity focus for the human eye and more like 6 feet in daylight.
What this means is your eye focuses the same for any objects 20 feet away or further, Such as when sitting in a theater.
So as long as the 3D isn't projecting images out of the screen at you, your eyes aren't going to notice anything unusual in focusing.
So it's all up to how the 3D content was shot.
Technical details:
What we want to know is the hyper focal distance of the eye,.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperfocal_distance The closest point of focus at a given aperture, at which infinity falls within the Depth of Field
Optics of the human eye By David A. Atchison, George Smith PG 214 has a nice graph on this.
http://books.google.com/books?id=MHgx-jBA0TAC&lpg=PP11&ots=DGJxkLC644&dq=depth%20of%20field%20human%20eye&lr&pg=PA214#v=onepage&q=depth%20of%20field&f=false
Astronomers the maximum iris opening is 7mm this gives a max aperture is f/3.5.
Wikipedia says f/2.1 to f/8.3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apertures
The focal length of the eye is 17 mm http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2002/JuliaKhutoretskaya.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperfocal_distance
http://www.flickr.com/photos/robertseber/2372620675/ Optimal Aperture For Foreground Sharpness With Infinity Focus
http://www.dofmaster.com/charts.html
http://www.bobatkins.com/photography/technical/dofcalc.html
I have some article on my blog about 3D content issues.
http://videotechnology.blogspot.com/2010/08/thx-and-blufocus-join-forces-to-certify.html
http://videotechnology.blogspot.com/2010/08/why-bad-3d-not-3d-glasses-gives-you.html
I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso
My main gripe with 3D is that, unlike any other special effect, the user needs to do something in order to experience it. With other special effects, the best ones at least, the viewer isn't even aware it is a special effect. If you had to put on special glasses to see a building blow up, say, then that special effect wouldn't be a success with the public either.
America, Home of the Brave.
Avatar is the third largest earning film of all time. I was really impressed watching that movie, and I don't really care what this tech geek thinks.
Now it's having another go. I've seen Despicable Me, and Tron Legacy at the Leicester Square Empire, which is THX 1138 approved and pretty much the best cinema experience you can have. They actually REMOVED seats to improve the experience!!!!
Given the choice, I wouldn't watch films in 3D. Both times, I wasn't expecting it.
What March says is true: it's bad for your eyes, you have to constantly adjust your depth of field according to where the pokey object is; and it's primary use is simply the novelty of poking stuff towards you.
This is a fad as it was in the 80s and the 50s. God only knows why anyone would want a 3D TV in their living room.
Ha, he didn't see Avatar obviously.
The best film experience I had ever.
The Human brain is very adaptive. Learning not to focus (on subtitles mainly) is a simple trick that most people lean in a few seconds.
Some people need a few minutes and only a few fail in this respect.
I suspect Walter envies Cameron and doesn't want to see 3D.
J.
Seriously, who cares about the not insignificant portion of the population with a number of visual problems? Not me. They release the movie in 3D and 2D. Go watch the 2D if your body isn't capable to watching 3D.
Our local fleapits will often only show the 3D version or show one 2D at 12pm and four 3D at realistic times of day
Learn to capitalize. GTFO!
Historically, 3D has been the stupid crap that "flies off the screen", which of course is very limited and does nothing to really enhance the movie experience. What many people have not been thinking about is when the entire film is done in 3D, there is a greater depth of field in all scenes, which DOES enhance the potential enjoyment of watching the movie. Without going into "how real does the 3D look" issue with people being very crticial of the current 3D implementations, one thing I noticed when I watched Avatar at an IMAX was that the scenes in the movie had a far greater field of depth to them than your normal non-3D movies.
Now, as was the case with the move from mono to stereo, and then to surround sound, this enhancement in the field of view should be seen as a positive improvement overall. Did we NEED stereo sound when it came out? What about surround sound? Just adding that depth will act as a positive improvement, and let the "objects popping off the screen" garbage die.
Yeah, 3D cinema will never work. Look at Avatar. It was a complete disaster. Nobody went to see it because the 3D experience just didn't work at all.
Although I developed a headache, and my wife developed a migraine.
One man's headache is another man's enjoyment. I watched the film twice and experienced no headaches, pain or fever. On the contrary, I found the 3D so realistic that I didn't even notice the effect of it after the first five minutes -- like the digital effects, it was convincing enough to not disturb my brain at all.
And the plot was complete and utter predictable rubbish. Its basically unwatchable garbage. So stereotypical and cliched to the point that it is painful.
Personally, I thought it was a cliched story (with some very two dimensional characters!) but nevertheless a story that I didn't mind hearing told again. Mindless entertainment, sure, but highly entertaining -- and given the record grossing levels I'd suggest that many people thought the same :)
The point about Avatar, though, is that nobody (or very few) people went to see it primarily because of the 3D effect. The 3D fun was an added bonus, but people went because of the sheer grandiose scope of the film, and because they wanted to enjoy another retelling of the fish-out-of-water dances-with-wolves going-native story. The error of film makers post-Avatar has been to assume that Avatar's success was all due to 3D, and that by kludging bad 3D onto bad films they would somehow draw in the masses by recreating some of Avatar's magic.
That trick was never, ever going to work.
As I understand it, for the 3D effect to really work, you have to be just the right distance from the screen, and you have to viewing the screen from just the right angle. 3D effect will work for viewers in the center of the theater, not so much for everybody else.
OSC pointed this out a year ago (at least the focus aspects). I couldn't agree more...
Can't find examples of evolution? No matter, neither could Dawkins
In the last weekend of June, as part of an expo highlighting the life and inventions of Nikola Tesla, AV Concepts is going to help James Turner of Teslanet Entertainment Network introduce a new presentation method that has never been done before. A 2-D high-definition screen at the MGM Grand in Vegas will be the backdrop, with holographic images in front of it, interacting live with 30-40 performers on the stage. They're calling it "4-D – The next level of entertainment." This will be the first venue ever. And what better subject to do it with than the Father of the 20th and 21st centuries! A young actor posing as seeking material for a science fair project will transition from real, to holograph to 2-D, then back, as part of the 1.5-hour show. Bruce Heyning and his wife have joined the project as executive producers for the show. Bruce has been credited for the technical features utilized for uniforms in the movie Tron and this year's Super Bowl halftime show. What breakthrough free energy energy technologies would be good to include in the exhibit hall?
Tomorrow's news yesterday -- the bleeding, visionary edge.
I saw the Green Hornet and the 3D wasn't too dark (the glasses did darken the field somewhat but over all maybe 1/2 an F stop at most). After a while I didn't notice the 3D effect at all, most of the film didn't try to use it as eye candy and it was simply in the background though flying objects would suddenly flash into and out of view rather than be seen moving across the field of view. The only time that the 3D effect was effectively showcased was during the ending credits (cartoon like).
The point is that if the editing doesn't try to overdo the depth enhancement the 3D effect is very subdued and you hardly notice it, but it IS there and the added depth looks real and natural. If the editing tries to showcase the 3D effect (things floating in front of your face), it's NOT a real world effect and looks it. That isn't a problem if this is the intent, a good thing at a theme park maybe but not in a drama.
The movie industry is pushing this so hard so normal 2D will go away and films can't be leaked anymore.
I was skeptical of his point myself, then I started paying closer attention and damned if he wasn't right. Sure it depends upon the film, but ones that are properly filmed give all sorts of interesting things they can do without the extra 3D technology.
I'm not sure the effect discussed in that article is that significant at cinema screen distances but, FWIW, Kurt Akeley gave a keynote talk on the importance of linking convergence and focal distance at Graphics Hardware 2003.
There is a paper on his research here.
check out the pirate bay and you will see a zillion torrents for the 3d version of Avatar. yes, you have to have the tv and glasses but it's like saying bluray will stop piracy because you need a bluray player. simply put, you are wrong.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Ebert used to find 3D movies jaw dropping.....Lately; not so much.
As a hypnotherapist, I hypnotised myself to not notice many of the flaws of Avatar 3D and perceive it as if I was there.
Opening scene, flying over the forest: my jaw dropped.
Within about 10 mins I was feeling massively nauseous. With all the panning, it was exactly the same phenomenon as motion sickness. The relatively frequent jumps in perceptual position didn't help either.
Took me a good hour to get my head past those. I had to close one or both or my eyes during that time in order to not actually be sick. But throughout, the 3D effect persisted and the film was made 10x better because of it.
What will Avatar be in 20 years? An early example of stereoscopic 3D, and about as much of a classic as the first movie filmed with "technicolour". Of interest to people interested in the history of film technology... and that's about it.
I'm not sure this comparison to technicolour helps your case.
As i understand it, the first big budget technicolor movie was the Wizard of Oz, and it was to most movie goers of the time utterly ground breaking
[for people who may not have seen the film in a while, the begining starts off in "normal" black and white, it's only when Dorothy gets to oz that it switches to colour]
I think its not an unfair comparison to the early scene in Avatar where there is a drop of water floating in space, 30 feet in front of the projected screen.
For me that was a genuine wow moment at the new technology, which i imagine was the same reaction technicolour had
I think from then on the problems with 3d detract from the movie more than they enhance it, and to be honest it's a pretty weak story with very 2 dimension (pun-intended) characterisation - ( except for the armoured mechs, Cameron is right in that EVERYTHING can be improved with armoured mechs...)
There are really two problems that ruin a 3D film. The first is that most cinematographers will use the blurring of the image known as depth of field to convey the third dimension. In the real world, your eyes don't do that per se so it jumps out at you on screen. This goes hand in hand with the human ability and need to look at everything in the real world but on screen a specific subject/actor is what the director wants you to look at so as long as you stay focused on that the 3D holds up. Once you start looking elsewhere on the screen it falls apart. Cameron did a decent job of maintaining the direction of your gaze which is why Avatar is the gold standard.
Sit near the back of the theater for any 3d film.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
http://www.holografika.com/Products/NEW-HoloVizio-C80.html
This technology should diminish eyestrain + no need for 3d glasses!
It seems to me there should be at least 1 seat in every theater for which the focus distance and convergence distance is the same. I always try to sit in the exact center of the theater. Note that by Murch's standards, stereo sound in a theater doesn't "work" either!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
See that "From:" part.
And the link.
And the quote marks.
And that "By Daniel Engber Posted Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2011, at 12:00 PM ET".
Granted, with this New Slash interface, I can't tell which the fuck is which either.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
This new interface is hard to look at as it is, without me having to guess when you are replying and when you are agreeing with me.
Point of 3D is that it exploits the same imperfections of our eyes/mind combo that Escher's optical illusions did.
Just like our imperfect eye allows us to watch the movies in the first place - cause we can't catch every single frame so we see a moving image instead of a bunch of still ones.
So it isn't true that the movies are requiring your eyes to focus at a distance different from what the lenses need to focus? Or are you conceding that to be true but asserting that it isn't a problem that causes eye development problems in children and headaches in adults?
If the 3D movie is done right, it compensates for all the focusing problems you might experience and you don't develop "problems or headaches".
And 3D causing development problems is UTTER BULLSHIT!
Probably even bigger than the idea that video games damage eyesight and development of this or that, when actually they improve eyesight and hand-eye coordination.
Also, it is pure guesswork bullshit, as there is no data, no study, not even anecdotal cases of "development problems in children".
As for "I got a headache from watching 3D"... well... it is a combination of badly done 3D (some older 3D shooters had similar effects) and your own health problems.
It is YOU who are defective - not the 3D. Fix it if you can, or simply don't watch 3D movies.
You wouldn't try to run with a broken leg, now would you? Same thing.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
This is a poor argument and does not stand up to the facts. The fact is that when an object is beyond a few meters, there is almost not change in the focus of the eye. This is due to the lens law which has a 1/f relationship. Basically, when you focus at infinity, the back focus of the eye is the shortest. Since the eye is small compared to a few meters, a few meters is actually nearly the same focus as infinity. When the eyes are converging for a virtual object that is a few meters away, the eye does not expect to change focus from an virtual object that is 1000 meters away. If headaches come the expectation to refocus with convergence, then the 3D can just be limited to depths no closer than a meter.
I must challenge some of what Mr. Murch presents as fact but also make some observations of my own.
The mountain is a great example. So let me expand on what he ignored.
In real life standing put yourself on a flat plain and a mountain in the distance.
Can you tell my the relative distance that mountain is away from you?
How High is that mountain?
Now have Objects between you and the mountain such as a tree or in the distance a building. What are those approximate heights?
Do you know how bit the tree is because of visual clues or because you brain has stored an approximation? The same now is applied to the building. Is it because you know approximately how high an individual story is to give you the sum of the buildings height?
While you think over what I wrote above, replace your physical self standing there and record the scene with a 2D camera. Now you are viewing that exact same scene from a normal theater screen.
Ask yourself all the same questions as above.
Are the answers different?
What adjustments did you require your brain to make to interpret the scene.
Repeat this whole process with a 3D camera setup to mimic an average persons depth perception.
Now ask yourself the same questions as above.
But you know what Mr. Murch I'm not going to sit here and examine the answers to those questions. I'm going to leave those thoughts for you.
Now I move on.
Why are we still watching movies at 24fps on standard screens? I'm ignoring Imax in this question as it's not fair to mix it in. 24fps is a very poor substitute for live action. If only just considering the motion blur many people experience with this slow rate, why has your industry never addressed that problem? You know it will improve the feel and sense of being in the action on screen. It will reduce eye strain in theaters many people experience. (Although I'm referring to 2D movies here, this aptly applies to 3D as well). The technology exists to change to a higher frame rate but your industry does not.
I know that when I watch a 2D or 3D movie to compare the quality between different TV technologies there is a vast difference in quality that is very dependent on the screen frequency. LCD at 240hz is by far inferior to a plasma at 600hz. This is extremely noticeable with 3D content that is almost impossible to watch on an LCD screen due to the motion blur and artifacts. While less of a problem in viewing 2D content it is still very much there.
I could go on and point out perhaps more than a dozen more examples in the perception people have between real life viewing experiences and those presented by technology to our eye and brain. I could go deeper into how our eye and brain interpret what we see, but there are many papers written on studies that have been done along with the interpretations of the data.
My point to you Mr. Murch, is that I find your statements rather disingenuous, to say the least. I don't know your motives behind some of your statements but I do see how your examples are crafted to fit your conclusions. I find that rather; well I'm not sure how far to go in what I wish to say. Is it fair to say that you are being somewhat dishonest? Should I perhaps be sympathetic to you because you have trained in the art of a 2D film tradition? I'm not sure but I get the feeling you feel threatened by 3D. Do you doubt your talents and their ability to adapt to this new environment? I certainly would rather talk face to face with you than fully judge what you say from a limited written and edited article online.
We all know Mr. Ebert's leanings and I have to ask myself what influence that had on the formation and the presentation in this article. I would hope none but I have no proof either way. The only way to know, would to have been sitting behind both during the discussions for this article.
What I do conclude is that the opinions of Mr. Murch are just that. Just because he is in this industry doesn't make those opinions fact. What he presented as proof can be argu
I also really enjoyed Avatar in 3D. As for other movies, as long as they can advertise and push poor 3D films on the masses, they'll probably be successful. I think most people are heavily influenced by advertising.
For true holographic displays, we need a resolution smaller then the wavelength of light, and a metric f*ckton of processing power. I think we'll be there in 20-40 years.
The real reason why 3D failed in the 60s was that it required keeping two projectors synchronized. This proved too difficult, and theater owners decided to abandon 3D. Until we can get holographic displays; I anticipate that "3D" movies will be a niche option, like diet soda.
I look at 3D like the evolution of color film. Some movies were hand-painted. Then other movies had short scenes in limited color. Some color films required special projectors that were very dark and blurry, or had a lot of flicker. Eventually, color was exclusive to Disney animations because technicolor couldn't be filmed live. Finally, when technicolor cameras were invented, it still took a long time to become the "default" because it was expensive to use.
No, I will not work for your startup
Amen! Ebert is the same Luddite who said that "video games can never be art". His biggest complaint about 3-D is a reduction in the brightness of the screen. I'm 52, and I find the difference tiny, but apparently he is so old it makes a big difference to his eyes. He should be intelligent enough to get past his own limitations when making these sweeping comments.
Tron and Avatar were the most imersive experiences I've had short of hallucinogens, and i wear glasses, I'm 20/600 corectible to 20/20 and I love 3d. These babys who complain are the same hypochondriacs who get carsick, airsick, complain about 2nd hand smoke, and have never tried any recreational drugs. Get over yourself, your body can handle far more than you're experiencing, your imagined discomfort is psychosomatic, now stop trying to ruin the 3d experience for the rest of us. Go watch it in 2d then, you're like the morons who say doctor, it hurts when I do this. Stfu and gtfo.
I make 3d Photos and have also done many 3d stereo laser shows with LFI The main problem with 3d films effects is that the eye must focus on the screen, for the image to be in focus, in the eye, when the 3d stereo aspect of the image gets closer to the eye than the screen the eye changes focus thinking the image is closer and it image blurs, this does not happen with a laser light image. The main advantage to doing 3d effects with lasers, is that the vector drawn laser image does not need the eye to focus on the screen for the image to appear sharp, it works GREAT, and has been done many times. multimedia, ie mostly flat film images, and full stereo 3d laser images, combined, is the best so far, ecpt of course, for true Holography. FL
I'm not sure this comparison to technicolour helps your case.
The first film in Technicolour "Process 1" was "The Gulf Between" (1917) a movie that has been lost.
Ironically, wikipedia mentions this about it:
"the story is dull, trite, and drawn out interminably.
The first film in Technicolor "Process 4" (the 3 strip process used for Wizard of Oz) was a Disney short called: "Flowers and Trees" (1932)
The first feature-length movie in three-strip Technicolor was Becky Sharp (1935)
Disney's Snow White was released in 1937.
The Wizard of Oz wasn't released until 1939, and while I agree that it is an important classic it was by no means the "first"... it wasn't even a bleeding edge early example.
And while it made excellent use of color and special effects for the time, it stands the test of time on its story and acting as well.
Avatar's 3D is impressive but it really adds little to the movie except to serve as a distraction that there is no movie. Without the novelty the movie is utterly trite.
Wizard of Oz was a great movie. The directors use of colour was brilliantly done. I watched it in the 70s on a black and white TV and it was still good, although the loss of color was a genuine loss. I don't think the "Wizard of Oz" equivlaent has been made yet... although I personally thought Coraline 3D was particularly well done. (And that one tells a story worth watching, and is entirely watchable in 2D too.)
One man's headache is another man's enjoyment.
No. I enjoyed it too. But it -also- gave me a headache. I don't doubt that you didn't, but I did, and many others did.
I found the 3D so realistic that I didn't even notice the effect of it after the first five minutes
Just don't look at that out of focus flower just off to the left...because you can't. Even though your eyes are telling you its a 3D object 3 feet away.
Looking at an out of focus element in a 2D movie doesn't work either, but your brain successfully focuses on the flat projection itself at 20 or 30 feet away, and there is no conflicting messages. It is a picture of an out of focus flower, 30 feet away. QED.
vs
It is 3D flower 3 feet away, but you can't focus on it...WTF.
Personally, I thought it was a cliched story (with some very two dimensional characters!) but nevertheless a story that I didn't mind hearing told again
Yeah, I honestly enjoyed it enough the first time through. I don't find it survives re-watching.
The point about Avatar, though, is that nobody (or very few) people went to see it primarily because of the 3D effect.
Hmmm. I strongly disagree. I went to see it in theatres because it was supposed to be amazing in 3D. Most people I know did too. I'm glad I did, because it was amazing in 3D, but take away the 3D and its keeping company with independence day... which isn't bad, and was huge summer blockbuster as well... but its not that good either.
The error of film makers post-Avatar has been to assume that Avatar's success was all due to 3D. The error of film makers post-Avatar has been to assume that Avatar's success was all due to 3D, and that by kludging bad 3D onto bad films they would somehow draw in the masses by recreating some of Avatar's magic.
I disagree in part. I feel Avatar was good 3D on a weak movie, and it had novelty and hype surrounding that 3D. And it delivered on the 3D.
The follow up movies, we can agree have just been weak all round. Weak movies, badly tacked on 3D.
The 3D novelty isn't there, and they aren't even living up to the 3D hype because the 3D itself doesn't deliver either.
yes there were too much camera movements.
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That's what I told them whippersnappers sinca that confangled panopticon thing! Or that smudgy panopticon! It just can't work! Don't even try to get me to look at it! There's no argueing with some folks!
"Dim picture" is a problem that I have noticed and really bothers me, but I don't understand WHY it is not addressed by the film creators ? I'll give you an example: Most of the movie Tangled, which is a computer generated movie, therefore the 3D is computer calculated as well, is fairly bright in all the bright scenes, but whenever there were dark scenes, it was... too dark. (The flooding mine cave scene for example). Since the film creators were able to generate a 3D movie, there is no reason they couldn't have also bumped up the contrast, at least in the darker scenes that need it! How hard is it to wear a pair of those RealD glasses, get a sense of how much it darkens the image and then compensate by brightening the MOVIE up in post-production???!?!
PS: I like the new slashdot icons, but the whole area below the article summary is a mess. (At least in IE8 it is)