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Why 3D doesn't work and never will.

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Re: Why 3D doesn't work and never will.

#71

Post by JonnieCache »

alttab wrote: post #59
marknutter wrote: post #11

As much as I hate the recent spate of 3D movies, I don't think it has anything to do with the technology, but more about how poorly it is applied. I say this because Avatar, at least for me, was simply mind-blowing; it was easily the most immersive film I've ever watched, but mainly because the 3D was done tastefully, subtly, and with care. You can give me as much hand-waving sudo-science to try to convince me I'm no…

Nothing like an un-biased view of how "3D" will never work from a guy who has built his career off of making sound-systems.

Yeah, because people who spend their careers thinking about waveform dispersion, destructive/constructive interference patterns and the effect of microsecond-level sensory input timing on human spatial perception would never have anything relevant to say about 3D.

The only fundamental difference is one of wavelength.

Re: Why 3D doesn't work and never will.

#72

Post by dagw »

Splines wrote: post #56
cryptoz wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> didn't work in 2010s Hah! You wish. For example, Avatar made more than $2,000,000,000 . That's $2 billion . And a huge part of the Avatar revenue comes from its 3D sales. Maybe it didn't work for you , but it sure worked for most people who went to see it.

But given a choice, would moviegoers pick the 2D version over the 3D version? In a universe where Avatar 3D never existed, would the 2D version alone have sold as much? Remember, they would have also been able to deliver the movie earlier (I don't know how much, but making a 3D movie can't be free - at least not yet). I'm reasonably certain that there are only a very small number of people who saw Avatar for the sole…

I don't know anybody who went to see Avatar because they thought it would be a good movie. I also don't know anybody who went to see the 2D version, despite it playing at the same time and a few bucks cheaper. Everybody went because they wanted to see what could be done with the cutting edge in CGI technology plus insane amounts of money and to see what this 3D cinema thing was all about. I have as little evidence as you do, but I imagine that skipping the 3D version wouldn't have gotten the film anywhere near as much hype (and thus money).

Re: Why 3D doesn't work and never will.

#73

Post by JonnieCache »

baggachipz wrote: post #54
marknutter wrote: post #11

As much as I hate the recent spate of 3D movies, I don't think it has anything to do with the technology, but more about how poorly it is applied. I say this because Avatar, at least for me, was simply mind-blowing; it was easily the most immersive film I've ever watched, but mainly because the 3D was done tastefully, subtly, and with care. You can give me as much hand-waving sudo-science to try to convince me I'm no…

"I don't believe your research." $> sudo science "I believe you now."

When I finish my tab-completion script for the science command we're gonna have green energy, space elevators and jetpacks by the end of the week dude.

Re: Why 3D doesn't work and never will.

#74

Post by joebananas »

ars wrote: post #15

They said the same thing about "Talkies", and I'll quote from wikipedia: "....the new development was treated with suspicion by many filmmakers and critics, who worried that a focus on dialogue would subvert the unique aesthetic virtues of soundless cinema."

Adding sound didn't mean we had to start listening in an entirely new way hereto unknown to humans.

Re: Why 3D doesn't work and never will.

#75

Post by Vivtek »

gnaffle wrote: post #52
RyanMcGreal wrote: post #24

My problem with 3D is simply that I find I can't disappear into the movie. I'm steadily aware of myself sitting and watching the 3D effects, which ruins the experience.

I had this feeling with some poorly made 3D movies. But I only occasionally had that feeling while watching Avatar.

I didn't get this feeling at all with How to Train your Dragon - I thought the 3D was really pretty charming in that movie (just like, you know, everything else about it).

Re: Why 3D doesn't work and never will.

#76

Post by dagw »

bambax wrote: post #34

The master quote is this: a good story will give you more dimensionality than you can ever cope with . Don't bother with technology. What "piracy" proves is that people are more than willing to trade quality for convenience. People will put up with crappy image and garbled sound if it means they can watch what they want faster. The movie industry loves technology because technology scales (sort of); but what sells ti…

Avatar kind of disproves your whole thesis. It had neither story nor acting talent worth speaking of, and bucket loads of technology. Yet it sold more tickets than just about any other movie in history.

I really wish what you said was true and that filmmakers would focus more on great stories, but box office takes show again and again that flashy effects beat great stories 4 times out of 5.

Re: Why 3D doesn't work and never will.

#77

Post by mixmax »

bellaire wrote: post #69
mixmax wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Human beings are technology too, albeit very complicated technology. Another quote from Douglas Adams[1] sums up humans as machines quite well: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" Altering and improving human beings is not undoable, it's simply a hard engineering problem. The technological improvement of human eyes started out with glasses, then contact lenses, then laser operations…

Did you mean Clarke again, and not Douglas Adams? You've quoted Clarke's third law.

Ah, sorry about that and thanks for the correction.

Re: Why 3D doesn't work and never will.

#78

Post by isleyaardvark »

brudgers wrote: post #42
krschultz wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that Clarke was referring to technology problems. I agree that with enough time, will, research, money etc many technical problems can be solved that were thought impossible. But constraints of human beings don't change much. If our brains are not wired to really get the current 3D format, then I think that is a pretty good indictment of the technology. The post isn't saying 3D movies won't exist someday, it i…

It's not just the viewers mind, it's the film editor's as well. Murch says, "Consequently, the editing of 3D films cannot be as rapid as for 2D films, because of this shifting of convergence." OK, so 3d films have to be edited differently - since when have constraints been an issue in art? But more importantly, the 600 million years of evolution argument doesn't hold the water he is putting in it. 600 million years o…

> 600 million years of evolution did not prepare humans for traveling at 60 mph (much less controlling two tons of steel and insuring the safety of their children, while doing so), nor did it prepare humans for sitting in front of a bright light pecking at keyboards for hours and hours on end.

That last bit could be used to support Murch's argument, if the articles I've seen on HN about ergonomic chairs and sitting versus standing are any indication.

Re: Why 3D doesn't work and never will.

#79

Post by rmc »

GrandMasterBirt wrote: post #55
brudgers wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just the viewers mind, it's the film editor's as well. Murch says, "Consequently, the editing of 3D films cannot be as rapid as for 2D films, because of this shifting of convergence." OK, so 3d films have to be edited differently - since when have constraints been an issue in art? But more importantly, the 600 million years of evolution argument doesn't hold the water he is putting in it. 600 million years o…

Except there are studies coming out about the harm to developing eyes and such. The point is that we're not meant for 3D. 3D though is a great way theaters try to "add value" to movies forcing us to pay more. Tangled was playing ONLY in 3D in theaters around me xept for like 1 showing. Guess which is the only showing I could take my daughter to. She would throw the glasses off in 15 minutes due to headache an thats t…

Except there are studies coming out about the harm to developing eyes and such.

I'm sure the same was said about television, or travelling more than 30 miles per hour.

Re: Why 3D doesn't work and never will.

#80

Post by PaulHoule »

I've greatly enjoyed some 3-D movies. My impression is that the current systems do better when the dynamic range in value isn't very strong. "Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs" tried to do all sorts of transmitted light effects that are tempting but don't quite work. Other films, like Avatar, Tangled, Tron, and the 3-d conversions of Toy Story 1+2 and work a lot better.

Last weekend I was playing with some 3-D glasses, black paper and colored pencils, trying to draw stereoscopic images by hand. The first thing I realized is that you've really got to get conventional perspective right... It has to tell a consistent story or your brain is going to really rebel.

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