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The Hobbit, the Uncanny Valley, and what it means for 3D

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Re: The Hobbit, the Uncanny Valley, and what it means for 3D

#21

Post by beemoe »

martinced wrote: post #9

Can we play 48fps on our computers? I mean: is there a common video format supporting 48fps and a common media player (eg VLC) able to play at 48fps? If so, the following movie would be great: make several types of animations / sequences (both filmed and 3D and, if possible, a mix of both) but... On the left part of the movie you show it at 48fps while on the right part of the movie you show only, say, even frames (h…

The "even frames" method of comparison you describe is flawed. Motion blur is very important to our perception of motion, and is the reason that motion at 24fps can look great on exposed film (lots of blur) and terrible in video games (no blur). When you skip half of the frames you have thrown out motion blur information that could have been present had the lower-rate source been created at that rate in the first place.

But yes, It would be neat to experience some legitimate side-by-side comparison of frame rates / motion blurs. Such a comparison has subtleties that make it hard to do fairly and cheaply.

http://100fps.com/how_many_frames_can_humans_see.htm (edit to fix small typo)

Re: The Hobbit, the Uncanny Valley, and what it means for 3D

#22

Post by gwillen »

beemoe wrote: post #21
martinced wrote: post #9

Can we play 48fps on our computers? I mean: is there a common video format supporting 48fps and a common media player (eg VLC) able to play at 48fps? If so, the following movie would be great: make several types of animations / sequences (both filmed and 3D and, if possible, a mix of both) but... On the left part of the movie you show it at 48fps while on the right part of the movie you show only, say, even frames (h…

The "even frames" method of comparison you describe is flawed. Motion blur is very important to our perception of motion, and is the reason that motion at 24fps can look great on exposed film (lots of blur) and terrible in video games (no blur). When you skip half of the frames you have thrown out motion blur information that could have been present had the lower-rate source been created at that rate in the first pla…

Might this be the reason that I've heard complaints about choppiness of pans in The Hobbit at 24 fps? (When they show a 24 fps version of a 48 fps movie, do they just drop half the frames?)

Re: The Hobbit, the Uncanny Valley, and what it means for 3D

#23

Post by geuis »

There's no uncanny valley here. I just got back from seeing the movie an hour ago, so I'm speaking from very fresh perspective.

I saw it in 3D at 48fps. Both completely killed the movie. In the very opening scene where Bilbo is picking up the book, it looked too fast. It was the opposite of "smooth".

I don't care about the technical arguments about how more frames per second is smoother. It doesn't look right subjectively. I don't know if its interlacing, or that it was high fps combined with 3D, but it continuously kept pulling me out of the story and taking notice of how fake everything looked.

Everything that was epic in Lord of the Rings just looked phoney. It was incredibly easy to see the CG effects on the orcs, goblins, and wargs.

I'm thinking about seeing the movie again in a week or so, but just the normal 24fps, non-3D version.

I really hope this isn't the future of movies, because it looks freaking awful.

Re: The Hobbit, the Uncanny Valley, and what it means for 3D

#24

Post by pretoriusB »

>The reason action packed scenes and panning scenery all retain their authenticity is these scenes are unfamiliar to us. I’ve never encountered a battlefield of orcs, and I’ve never flown across the landscape hugging the ground in a helicopter. We have no prior experience which tells what these scenarios should look like.

That's not exactly what the "uncanny valley" theory says, though.

It's about realistic vs cartoony versions of things, not about familiar vs unfamiliar things.

Re: The Hobbit, the Uncanny Valley, and what it means for 3D

#25

Post by pretoriusB »

siculars wrote: post #20

I actually saw The Hobbit thrice. In IMAX 3D, "Real-3D", and HFR 3D. I do have to say that you can tell the difference when watching in HFR. It felt as if the video was fluid or even slightly fast forward. Like you are moving a bit faster than you should be. Strange, but clearly the future of motion picture.

HFR is nothing new. The problem is it sucks. It gives everything that is not a fast-action scene a cheap soap opera/reality show look.

Re: The Hobbit, the Uncanny Valley, and what it means for 3D

#26

Post by baddox »

geuis wrote: post #23

There's no uncanny valley here. I just got back from seeing the movie an hour ago, so I'm speaking from very fresh perspective. I saw it in 3D at 48fps. Both completely killed the movie. In the very opening scene where Bilbo is picking up the book, it looked too fast. It was the opposite of "smooth". I don't care about the technical arguments about how more frames per second is smoother. It doesn't look right subject…

I agree that there is no uncanny valley, but I believe that critics' complaints (and perhaps your own) stem not from independent comparisons of both 24 and 48 FPS to some ideal format, but rather from an assumption that 24 FPS is the ideal form.

If you believe that the purpose of a film format is simply to convey moving images to the viewer with as much fidelity and control as possible, as I do, then 48 FPS is objectively better (and 96 FPS would be better still, although there are obviously diminishing returns). The other opinion, which is that 24 FPS has some inherent artistic merit that makes it the ideal format for cinema, is bizarre and incomprehensible to me, and that type of argument could be (and probably was) used to argue against audio ("talkies"), color, surround sound, digital color correction, etc.

I saw The Hobbit both in 3D HFR (digital projection) and 3D IMAX ("real" IMAX, 70mm film projection, in 24 FPS). The difference in fidelity to me was smack-in-the-face obvious. HFR just looks so much better. In 24 FPS, the strobing in any shot with camera movement is so bad that it feels more like a camera or projector malfunction than a format that some people genuinely prefer for artistic reasons.

I definitely hope HFR is the future of cinema, just like I hope high resolution LCD displays become even more widespread, cell broadband networks get faster, digital cameras get better and higher resolution sensors, etc. I believe all these things are strictly better. To me, arguing that 24 FPS is better than 48 FPS is as bizarre as arguing that everyone should still use dial-up Internet just for the experience and so they will not take the wonder of the Internet for granted.

Re: The Hobbit, the Uncanny Valley, and what it means for 3D

#27

Post by baddox »

pretoriusB wrote: post #24

> The reason action packed scenes and panning scenery all retain their authenticity is these scenes are unfamiliar to us. I’ve never encountered a battlefield of orcs, and I’ve never flown across the landscape hugging the ground in a helicopter. We have no prior experience which tells what these scenarios should look like. That's not exactly what the "uncanny valley" theory says, though. It's about realistic vs carto…

Well, the uncanny valley does rely on the adaptation of human brains to quickly judge familiar things. Human faces are the most obvious and common example, because the human brain and visual system has unsurprisingly adapted to be extremely fast and aggressive at recognizing facial features. The effect will never be as strong with something like, say, the face of an aardvark, because everyone sort of knows what aardvarks look like, but few people are familiar enough to instantly recognize deviations and thus interpret the image as creepy or disturbing.

Re: The Hobbit, the Uncanny Valley, and what it means for 3D

#28

Post by MattDL »

geuis wrote: post #23

There's no uncanny valley here. I just got back from seeing the movie an hour ago, so I'm speaking from very fresh perspective. I saw it in 3D at 48fps. Both completely killed the movie. In the very opening scene where Bilbo is picking up the book, it looked too fast. It was the opposite of "smooth". I don't care about the technical arguments about how more frames per second is smoother. It doesn't look right subject…

Honestly, you get used to it.

I say this just from watching game streams at 60 FPS, at first it looks like it's faster it should be somehow, but soon enough it just becomes normal and you wonder how you put up with low FPS streams.

The adjustment period might be a bit longer with film, but it'll happen eventually.

Re: The Hobbit, the Uncanny Valley, and what it means for 3D

#29

Post by baddox »

pretoriusB wrote: post #25
siculars wrote: post #20

I actually saw The Hobbit thrice. In IMAX 3D, "Real-3D", and HFR 3D. I do have to say that you can tell the difference when watching in HFR. It felt as if the video was fluid or even slightly fast forward. Like you are moving a bit faster than you should be. Strange, but clearly the future of motion picture.

HFR is nothing new. The problem is it sucks. It gives everything that is not a fast-action scene a cheap soap opera/reality show look.

Presumably that's only the case if you choose to associate higher frame rates with television, since television is traditionally shown at higher frame rates. But this association is problematic. It's analogous to resisting faster Internet speeds because you didn't enjoy college and you associate fast Internet with being in college since your college used to be the only place where you had fast Internet.

Re: The Hobbit, the Uncanny Valley, and what it means for 3D

#30

Post by baddox »

MattDL wrote: post #28
geuis wrote: post #23

There's no uncanny valley here. I just got back from seeing the movie an hour ago, so I'm speaking from very fresh perspective. I saw it in 3D at 48fps. Both completely killed the movie. In the very opening scene where Bilbo is picking up the book, it looked too fast. It was the opposite of "smooth". I don't care about the technical arguments about how more frames per second is smoother. It doesn't look right subject…

Honestly, you get used to it. I say this just from watching game streams at 60 FPS, at first it looks like it's faster it should be somehow, but soon enough it just becomes normal and you wonder how you put up with low FPS streams. The adjustment period might be a bit longer with film, but it'll happen eventually.

For me it took about a few seconds to "get used to it." A the very beginning of The Hobbit in HFR, I thought something looked weird about the way Bilbo was walking around his hole, but when I subsequently saw The Hobbit in 24 FPS, I realized that it's just the way hobbits walk.
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