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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.

#81

Post by jerf »

robin_reala wrote: post #2

I can’t say I’ve got a headache from any of the current crop of 3D films – is my brain doing something different? Also, regarding: "Nothing will fix it short of producing true "holographic" images." See: http://www.holografika.com/

"is my brain doing something different?"

It's not out of the question. When I was very young my eyesight was good enough to develop depth perception, but since then my eyes have gone a bit nearsighted. It's not so bad I wear glasses, but it's bad enough that I don't have reliable parallax-based depth perception. I recently went to see the Tron movie in 3D as an experiment, but I wasn't sure I'd even get depth perception in it.

In fact I did, and I also can't say that it bothered me any more than a normal movie. I think that's because I didn't have the conflict the other people are talking about because my brain stopped rigidly expecting depth perception a while ago. But you can't build the 3D market on people like me.

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

#82

Post by igrekel »

relix wrote: post #48
gjm11 wrote: post #8

My own prejudices go along with this completely, but ... (Arthur C) Clarke's First Law: "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; when he states that something is impossible, he is probably wrong." ... has turned out to be correct often enough that I wouldn't want to place large bets on this. (Digression: there's an obvious difficulty in assessing Cla…

Here's one way to solve it: include in the glasses dynamic focusing. We're already wearing glasses. I'm not sure how it would work, but the idea is to change the dioptry to the inverse of the distance of what's supposedly on the screen, so that our eyes need to focus at the same distance as the converging, effectively nullifying the inverse focus.

The focus issue is related to the focus of the camera that shot the film in the first place.

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

#83

Post by astrodust »

relix wrote: post #48
gjm11 wrote: post #8

My own prejudices go along with this completely, but ... (Arthur C) Clarke's First Law: "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; when he states that something is impossible, he is probably wrong." ... has turned out to be correct often enough that I wouldn't want to place large bets on this. (Digression: there's an obvious difficulty in assessing Cla…

Here's one way to solve it: include in the glasses dynamic focusing. We're already wearing glasses. I'm not sure how it would work, but the idea is to change the dioptry to the inverse of the distance of what's supposedly on the screen, so that our eyes need to focus at the same distance as the converging, effectively nullifying the inverse focus.

You can see how James Cameron paid careful attention to depth of field in Avatar. If the foreground or background are blurry in a 3D film it seems to cause confusion as you can't focus on these things even though, given it's 3D, you might think you should be able to.

It's theoretically possible to produce some kind of hologram-like 3D that would side-step this problem.

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

#84

Post by relix »

igrekel wrote: post #82
relix wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's one way to solve it: include in the glasses dynamic focusing. We're already wearing glasses. I'm not sure how it would work, but the idea is to change the dioptry to the inverse of the distance of what's supposedly on the screen, so that our eyes need to focus at the same distance as the converging, effectively nullifying the inverse focus.

The focus issue is related to the focus of the camera that shot the film in the first place.

It is not. The eyes need to focus on the cinema screen, this has nothing to do with the camera. The problem is that the eyes need to keep the focus at the same distance, while the converging changes distance.

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

#85

Post by gjm11 »

stanleydrew wrote: post #66
gjm11 wrote: post #8

My own prejudices go along with this completely, but ... (Arthur C) Clarke's First Law: "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; when he states that something is impossible, he is probably wrong." ... has turned out to be correct often enough that I wouldn't want to place large bets on this. (Digression: there's an obvious difficulty in assessing Cla…

"[EDITED in response to two comments: ...]" Why not respond to those comments in child comments rather than in the parent? Surely that makes the most sense? It's very difficult to read a discussion where I have to read responses to comments I haven't read yet.

Because those comments made me realise that what I originally wrote was (1) not quite right and (2) not perfectly clear. The extra paragraph I added, so far as I can tell, makes just as much sense if you haven't read those comments; I just wanted to acknowledge that it was other people's comments that led me to add it.

Given the choice between a discussion where some bits have been clarified in the light of later comments, and a discussion where some bits are needlessly confusing or wrong, I choose the former.

(I might take a different view if there had been lots of replies, which might have been invalidated as as result of the edit. But there weren't; just those two.)

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

#86

Post by batasrki »

dagw wrote: post #72
Splines wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is certainly the reason I went to see it. However, not only was I underwhelmed by the regurgitation of the Pocahontas story, I was extremely underwhelmed by the 3D. The only effect that made me think the film was "realistic" was the flies that kept flying around when they were in the forrest.

Avatar did exactly the opposite of what intended to do and that is, it turned me off of 3D movies not on to them. Sure, it made the money it did, but at least for me, it didn't do anything to advance the technology nor promote it.

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

#87

Post by msluyter »

I have a problem with 3d in that my eyes never converge, period. I have keratoconus and have had surgery in my left eye, the end result of which is that my eyes have different vision levels, the left being much better than the right. My right eye drifts off a bit (lazy eye) and I focus with my left (better) eye.

The entire premise of 3d basically excludes me.

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

#88

Post by kscaldef »

dagw wrote: post #72
Splines wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I chose the 2D version. My girlfriend and I will pick the 2D version of any movie over the 3D, and won't go to see movies that are only showing in 3D at all. Even if they were the same price, the illusion does not work well for us and makes the experience less enjoyable.

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

#89

Post by kordless »

cryptoz wrote: post #47
axod wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely 3d only makes any sense if you can move around the environment - a holo-deck. 3d movies, where we're all sat down in a fixed chair makes absolutely no sense. It's a gimmick that adds nothing - apart from headaches, crappy dark image and occasional crude "THIS IS 3D" in your face 'effects'. Sitting in a chair looking at a screen we already see 3D. We have all the cues necessary for our brains to reconstruct the…

> 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.

Avatar was a good enough movie by itself to win awards and make money. It probably got a small kick from being 3D, but I disagree it was a huge part.

FWIW, I saw it in 2D first, loved it, then later saw it in 3D and hated every minute watching it. It was dark and gave me a HUGE headache.

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

#90

Post by mason55 »

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 definitely saw Avatar a second time only because of the 3D. Additionally, last weekend I wanted to see a movie in the theaters and picked Tron: Resurrection or whatever it's called solely because of the 3D.
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