Avatar Stereoscopic 3D effect

[DK]

Does anyone know how to create the stereoscopic effect seen in Avatar in AS? It's obviously not the same as the old red blue shift style 3D effect that AS is already capeable of as the screen looks unaffected when the 3D glasses are taken off.

If anyone knows more about this technique please feel free to chime in.

Cheers
D.K

[Genete]

Maybe you have to look to the thread started by Rohel with the same issue?
-G

[DK]

Hi Genete.
Ahh yes....I remember that thread now.Thanks for the reminder.

It would be interesting to also know more about the glasses technology. The glasses for Avatar look like standard sun glases not the old red/blue cardboard ones.

Cheers
D.K

[madrobot]

Sereoscopic rendering is a whole other ballgame, and the technology is changing at a rate of knots. I don't know how far we are off from consumer stereoscopic TV (and PC monitors), google wikipedia etc might lead to some interesting reading?

[DK]

Yeah. By the sounds of things it's going to revolutionize the visual medium completely.

Cheers
D.K

[Lightman]

You might want to have a look at the article on the different methods to create the illusion of depth perception here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3-D_film.
Here is a note of James Cameron and Vince Pace's Fusion Camera System Cameron used for his Avatar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_ci ... era_System.
Here you can find the description of stereoscopic glasses http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereoscopy

I hope you'll find the links interesting despite the info being rather technical.

[super8mm]

The non red and blue 3d glasses concept works as such...

One side of the glasses allows only horizontally polarized image sources from passing through the lens the other only vertically polarized image source from passing trough the other.

Similar to wearing glasses with thin black stripes on them one side has only vertical stripes and the other only horizontal stripes so when you encountered vertical lines it would be difficult to see them on the vertical stripes lens but easy to see with the horizontal lines lens and vise versa.

[Víctor Paredes]

I have one of that avatar's glasses and when I look to the monitor with the left eye closed, it looks turned off. Nothing amazing, but magical.

One side of the glasses allows only horizontally polarized image sources from passing through the lens the other only vertically polarized image source from passing trough the other.

It's the same conclusion we deduced at office. If you rotate the glasses on front of a monitor, you can see each glass turning from black to transparent and viceversa.
A couple years ago a there was something like a bus/house on the middle of the square on front of the government palace. It was a weird bus, so I decided to open the door and look inside. It was a dark 3d cinema and there was only one guy calibrating the two projectors with a movie about a rapa nui's moai. I asked the technician if I could stay there and he let me and asked me to help him on the calibration. Then several persons came, they were lot of politicians and the culture minister, they all greeted and congrats me with respect. That's how I obtained my glasses. A weird day.

[Rhoel]

I don't know how far we are off from consumer stereoscopic TV (and PC monitors)

Ah, someone missed the consumer electronic shindig in Las Vegas this week then:

Cameron et al within the industry aqre saying 2011 is the 3D year - considering the number of new releases and the success of Avatar, they might just be right. BBC news report

Basically 3D TV's are already here, using fast screen HD monitors and high refresh shutter glasses. the effect is very good. There are several good glasses free 3D TV systems (using lenticular screen). Kinda pricey solution though.

My money is on HMD or head mounted viewers. Think blu-Ray machines with a stereo head set ... there are some HMD already on the market but price is a limiting factor. But as manufacture increases, the price will drop. Apparently, the big holdup is an agreement on the technical standard for the hardware. Shutter glasses seem to have finally come to an agreement and the infrared shutter-glasses are idea for a crowd of people watching a large flat-screen. Some of these glasses are now around the $60-100. Shutter-glasses don't work for laptops, though PC monitors usually can be coaxed into working in 3D.

As for animation, ASP can already output full colour HD broadcast images... been there and done it. ^.1 was supposed to have a full colour output but it missed the release. So you have to do it by hand. I have an online calculator and some notes on this at http://www.hd3d-animation.com/, the calculator is here, and the prototype crash-core camera file converter is here.

For those wanting to experiment, set the main action up on z0, then put the background on -z layers, foreground elements on the +z layers. Its good practice to work in 2K output, then release in 1080 after you use a program like Stereomaker to set the toe-in to control the off-screen float. It is complicated when you first start but if you think in 3D space when compositiing/editing it helps - you need to avoid cutting from action in the foreground to something in the back 3D space: Think of a mix vetween tw o3D scenes, a wall clock mixing to the same circlular shaped moon... you try to match the cut to make the transition smooth. The same but more so in 3D... the difference is you are matching the Z axis/plane.

With animation (esp ASP) having the principle action on the Z-0 layer helps to keep the core action in the same place.

And don't go for hyper-3D with animation. Its better to go for less camera separation as this avoids cardboard cutouts (a real problem in 2D).

Another tip is to have more multiplane layers, this builds the depth. But don't go too crazy or the image will be unreadable.

Final point - if all the action is on the same level, there will be no 3D to see: Use the 3D camera in ASP to have an overview or the scene set-up, as you move the virtual overview camera, you should see the depth - if you can't, you have problem.

And I need to go back and finish the 3DTV site!. If people want to use the 3D forum, I'll renew the server and go back to work on it - a hacker and spammers closed it before.

Rhoel

[Rhoel]

The non red and blue 3d glasses concept works as such...

One side of the glasses allows only horizontally polarized image sources from passing through the lens the other only vertically polarized image source from passing trough the other.

Similar to wearing glasses with thin black stripes on them one side has only vertical stripes and the other only horizontal stripes so when you encountered vertical lines it would be difficult to see them on the vertical stripes lens but easy to see with the horizontal lines lens and vise versa.

I have not seen the glasses first hand but f they are polarized, they will be using circular polarisation and not linear polarisers (the type used in Sunglasses) - PL-C permits greater horizontal head angle without eyestrain.

The projectors are single lens with a front shutter filter system (Zscreen) designed by Lenny Lipton - the guy is a legend in the 3D world and hold a heap of patents on projection and camera systems ... Lipton also wrote the lyrics to Puff the Magic Dragon. He is now the chief technical officer at Real D Cinema, the guys building the digital projection systems you are watching Avatar with. Using single lenses means the images will always line up correctly, irrespective of any lens imperfections - with two lenses, you can never perfectly match.

Avatar used performance capture on a huge sound stage, and Cameron was able to see the 3D characters in 3D in real time on the studio playback system. The cameramen also have hand-held 3D camera rigs ... all digital of course - no way to do this with film. I have some pics of the camera rigs, all official of course

The 3D cinema has some seriously cool tools to play with, and its expected within 10 years, the majority of cinema and home cinema systems will be 3D. I spoke with some Japanese programmers who have a real-time 3D edit suite which works in HD - all custom hardware boards at the moment but no doubt will make it to market in the next 5 years as a commercial package.

The winds of change.

Rhoel

[slowtiger]

Using single lenses means the images will always line up correctly

I'm sorry, that's not true.

I have seen Avatar at Berlin's Zoopalast, with a badly adjusted projektor. Only 1/4 of the image was sharp, on the opposite edge I had a vertical double image, half a thumb's distance of each other. I tested 2 different 3D glasses and with and without my own glasses, to no effect.

[Rhoel]

Using single lenses means the images will always line up correctly

I'm sorry, that's not true.

I have seen Avatar at Berlin's Zoopalast, with a badly adjusted projektor. Only 1/4 of the image was sharp, on the opposite edge I had a vertical double image, half a thumb's distance of each other. I tested 2 different 3D glasses and with and without my own glasses, to no effect.

Wow, and this was with a single lens? The whole theory of using one lens is to send the image through the same distortion - think of using an anamorphic lens which changes a O into a 0 shape. With two diferent bits of glass, each would be different. But with one, you could use ripple glass and it would still work. Lenny flew out to Paris to view the first screening of Avatar and was very pleased with the result - I think they were using XpanD projectors. (there are 4 basic 3D projection systems, all using the same licensed Zscreens). Do you have any idea which projector ZooPlast has?

If the effect is constant, it would suggest the projector. But if it was different on each short, then it would be the production - they still have issues with two lenses but spend a heap of time in post to map the defects out (using known test information balanced to that camera rig). Fortunately, this is one thing which doesn't affect ASP.

Lenny has a wordpress blog here.

Rhoel

[DK]

Hmmm......getting mixed messages re: Avatar. I have not yet been to see it but I spoke to a friend of mine who HAD and he told me that there was no difference in image quality with glasses on or off.

My son saw it today and told me that the images were doubled over when you took off your glsses???

Then slow's post re: doubled over images?

D.K

[Genete]

Hmmm......getting mixed messages re: Avatar. I have not yet been to see it but I spoke to a friend of mine who HAD and he told me that there was no difference in image quality with glasses on or off.

My son saw it today and told me that the images were doubled over when you took off your glsses???

Then slow's post re: doubled over images?

D.K

I've recently watched Avatar 3D (two times in two following days by accident ) and I noticed:

1) Clean the glasses helps a lot to have good sharping in the image. The cinema provides cleaning towels.
2) Screen relative position (left/rigth/center) is not relevant. 3D effect is the same.
3) Taking off the glasses: You see double image on the areas where the object is out of focus. Objects in focus have not double image. Also the brightness of the image is noticeable different (higher) without glasses. The glasses has some black inking.
4) Reversing the glasses (left glass on right eye and vice versa) destroys the 3D effect.

-G

[slowtiger]

It was definitely a maladjusted projection system because in the very same cinema I saw Monsters vs Aliens in fine quality some months befor.

I could only get a glimpse of the final beam which was single-lensed. I couldn't see which projector they used. From my experience it looked like a maladjusted mirror from a two-lens-system. I complained to the cinema's manager in the break, hope they fixed it. I was amazed that nobody else complained.

Oh, and Avatar is definitely worth watching.