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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Hobbit gets greenlight.. Shooting in February IF...

Daniel Browning said:
Was it on film with plastic glasses? If so, then it matched my experience. The only time I ever had a headache on a 3D movie was Avatar on IMAX 3D. Normally I don't watch film -- in fact, I pity those poor, backwards folk who don't have modern amenities such as running water, electricity, or 2K digital projection. I haven't darkened the door of ye olde film projection theater for about six years. The only exception was to see Avatar on IMAX 3D and compare it with 2K + Dolby Real3D glasses. In addition to the headache, the projector focus was off and had a slight but annoying jitter.
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While there's a lot of "professional" stereographers running wild that still don't believe in a uniform intra-ocular distance and apparently don't give a sh*t about doling out a stadium full of headaches, AVATAR's problem was running time-- it simply exceeded the threshold of comfort for some people.
 
Jeff Coatney said:
While there's a lot of "professional" stereographers running wild that still don't believe in a uniform intra-ocular distance and apparently don't give a sh*t about doling out a stadium full of headaches, AVATAR's problem was running time-- it simply exceeded the threshold of comfort for some people.
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And to think, they came out with an extended version later on... :shocked:
 
Jeff Coatney said:
While there's a lot of "professional" stereographers running wild that still don't believe in a uniform intra-ocular distance and apparently don't give a sh*t about doling out a stadium full of headaches, AVATAR's problem was running time-- it simply exceeded the threshold of comfort for some people.
Click to expand...

So true. I saw it twice in 3D and while I didn't really notice any discomfort during the film, both times I had obvious eye strain and the start of a headache upon its completion. No way was I going to watch the extended version in 3D... I haven't seen it anyway, I'll watch it some day, I guess. I can think of better ways of spending almost 4 whole hours on one thing though.

And not only is there differences on the production side, but also on the distribution side. Real-D, IMAX and Dolby all have different approaches to 3D presentation. I ended up, against my will, seeing Alice In Wonderland in IMAX 3D. My wife now understands why I didn't want to... I had her tilt her head to the side to witness linear polarized glasses in all their glorified failure. Not only that, but I find they're a lot harder on my eyes -- her's too. My son, who's 5, has been to see several 3D movies, but his eyes always hurt. In fact, he has only sat through two 3D movies without taking his glasses off and complaining. The first one of those was Toy Story 3, he still said it hurt his eyes, but he didn't want to miss any of it. My daughter, 7, has never had any trouble.. My wife and I seem to be pretty similar. Mostly 3D doesn't bother our eyes -- Just IMAX 3D :P -- I think it bothers her more than me. And Avatar was just too long. It has to be hard on a person's eyes, I'm wondering what the long-term effects might actually be if it's something done constantly -- and I'm not so sure there won't be issues as 3D TVs and content become more prevalent in the home.

It's hard to truly agree on an interocular distance because not every human is the same. There is a range that most everyones' eyes fall into and all that can be done is to pick an average. And how does one determine that average? Well, you run tests with test audiences or you don't and you just wing it by using a pre-determined factor or published average number or simply doing what has been done before... Peoples' eyes differ in many ways. Not just interocular (IO) distance, but also how sensitive they are to certain wavelengths of light, what frequencies of on/off states or flickering they can see, how vibrantly they see color, etc...

It's not politically correct, or at least I'm sure it wouldn't be, but would it make sense to profile different interocular averages based on racial or ethnic traits? Perhaps IO distance can be tweaked enough in post in order to deliver a better audience experience for localized distribution. Maybe average IO distance is 3.5mm closer in a market where the average adult audience member is under a certain height compared to another market where where the average adult is 15cm taller? Call me an ass if you want, but we're not all the same height or build. They make different shoe sizes, hat sizes and eyeglass frames for a reason. We can't just assume that everyone's eyes are a magical 3.875" apart. I don't know what the solution is, or even if there is one with current technology. But until there is a solution, a lot of people will continue to have headaches and eyestrain while others do not.
 
I thought the racking convergence of Avatar really reduced eye strain for me.

Convergence in the real world is almost always at the focal plane. The Focal plane for our eyes in a movie is the screen so it lets the lenses and the brain maintain a consistent and normal focus/convergence.

But I definitely got stiff neck syndrome from Avatar IMAX. You have to sit upright and perfectly still. no slouching for 3 hours to keep the polarization aligned.
 
The magic bullet for 3D is actually a kind of VR Goggles. I got to wear an advanced prototype pair in the mid 1990's when a friend of mine was working on a DARPA project for the Army. The Intra-ocular distance was user-selectable and you went through a brief alignment protocol that matched to your vision on the x, y and even the z axis.

The beauty of using goggles is three-fold:

1. People are used to wearing glasses for a 3D experience.

2. The image is totally immersive due to optics that can create the effect of a near 180 degree field of view. Plus, there is no need for polarization so the image is immediately brighter.

3. You don't need to build an aircraft hanger to show an immersive cinematic experience, you could have virtual Imax theaters in your home. Just imagine a room full of comfy chairs with lightweight headsets equipped with 3D sound* tethered to a server farm. The actual brick and mortar footprint of a cineplex using this tech could actually be quite small in comparison, thus reducing overhead.

Of course in the 90's they only had limited resolution but the image was completely immersive. Because the separate left and right eyes are discrete image streams, there is no need to align them to a common convergence point as each user has their own natural intra-occular distance, as Jeff points out.

The program I saw at the Navy labs was primitive compared to what is currently available, but this tech is something that the private sector has to create as a system. I doubt there's a single DOD system that could be lifted wholly and scaled up, since the purpose of that tech was to provide freedom of movement of the user through physical space. A movie audience needs to stay put and maybe even buckled in.

*Another amazing bit of tech that stomps surround sound. Again, developed in the mid 1990's - I think I "saw" the sound demo at Imagineering. Completely, utterly immersive sound that is spatially dynamic in every sense.
 
I saw Jackass 3D last night. Movie was great, but I got a headache toward the end. :(

It was RealD.
 
My girlfriend has abnormally good eyesight. She always spots what number a bus is long before anyone else and she dislikes digital projection. Personally I much prefer the crispness of 2K projection (have been to cinemas with 4K projection but I HIGHLY doubt any movie I've seen since 2002 was finished at 4K).

She complains about "the RGB's" as she calls them and gets flustered when I can't see them. I think I know what she means now though. I saw the social network projected at 2K. Was sitting closer to the screen than I usually sit. Whenever my eyes darted from one extreme end of the frame to the other I saw red green and blue...pixellation? Points of light?

She was glad that she wasn't alone. (fantastic looking film btw :) )

As for old technology that needs to be unveiled in consumer products I jumped for joy when the Nintendo 3DS was announced with a parallax barrier screen. I saw a glassless 3D tv set back in 1995 at the live 95 technology exhibit in London when I was a kid. I remember the rep telling me that every home would have one by the year 2000.

Cut to:
 
Eren Ozkural said:
My girlfriend has abnormally good eyesight. She always spots what number a bus is long before anyone else and she dislikes digital projection. Personally I much prefer the crispness of 2K projection (have been to cinemas with 4K projection but I HIGHLY doubt any movie I've seen since 2002 was finished at 4K).

She complains about "the RGB's" as she calls them and gets flustered when I can't see them. I think I know what she means now though. I saw the social network projected at 2K. Was sitting closer to the screen than I usually sit. Whenever my eyes darted from one extreme end of the frame to the other I saw red green and blue...pixellation? Points of light?

She was glad that she wasn't alone. (fantastic looking film btw :) )

As for old technology that needs to be unveiled in consumer products I jumped for joy when the Nintendo 3DS was announced with a parallax barrier screen. I saw a glassless 3D tv set back in 1995 at the live 95 technology exhibit in London when I was a kid. I remember the rep telling me that every home would have one by the year 2000.

Cut to:
Click to expand...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_effect#The_color_wheel_.22rainbow_effect.22

Solution: sit further back.
 
Eren, most people can't see the rainbows. And it's not a resolution issue or something that sitting further back will typically fix. I can see them and I've had to train myself to ignore them. Some peoples' eyes are more sensitive to sequential updates and color timings. I would guess that she also hates the flicker from fluorescent lighting and can't stand looking at a CRT computer monitor that scans slower than 85Hz or more.

I have all these issues and I can also count the number of ass-hairs on a mosquito at 100 yards. A 2K digital projection on a 40 foot screen makes pixels that are about 1/4 inch in size. The optical system does a great job (usually) of blending the pixel edges while leaving the pixel centers sharp. But if I sit within the front 2/3rds of the movie theatre with a 2K projector, I usually start pixel-peeping. 4K works much better for me as the pixels are smaller and we get additional interpolation (blending) from 2K source material. The SONY LCOS system also doesn't produce the same rainbow effects.
 
Now we should probably start speculating on whether Mr. Jackson will be shooting with Epics on his stereo rigs. The timing certainly seems to align nicely.
 
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