3d effect!

[FireyFate]

Monsters Vs Aliens was pretty damn cool at the theater as well. I think they were claiming to be the first CGI movie that was storyboarded specifically for 3D.

[VjDeranged]

Ok.. Seeing how I logged in after about a year.. let me take a stab at answering as best I can.

To Do some stereoscopic 3D Visuals from the VJing point of view:

Capture

First the Basics:

You need two unique "views" of a scene to be able to present 3D! you cant simply offset a view a few centimeters and expect it to be 3d. what you will get is flat 2d either 'inside' or 'ouside' the surface of the display screen.

Simple experiment: Extend your hand in front of you and raise a single finger. now close right eye and focus on some object in the distance with left eye. next close the left eye and focus on the same object in the distance with right eye
you see the "dance" your finger is doing? thats the principles of stereoscopic 3D .. you get two unique views of a scene by each eye, offset at about 2.5 to 3 inches apart. this is then fused in the brain to form a 3d image.

So you either use two cameras to capture such a view...or in CG software like 3DSmax set up a parallel camera and render left right views of the same (remember to keep the targets parallel) same applies to real world cameras,,, keep them side by side and looking out parallel .. dont "toe in" the cameras.

toe in .. or converging is a separate advanced topic.. for now shoot in a straight line.
Movies are converted sometimes from 2D to 3D by banks of animators rotoscoping out elements and assigning depth to each element or layer, not an easy task, and they also have to fill in holes etc etc.. anyway thats not the subject of this post... getting back...

Ideally you need a pair of Genlocked Cameras. The 'affordable' ones usually start with the Sony EX3 range...and climb steeply in price from there

or - Use any of the Sony AVCHD cams. I favor the CX12s, although they cant shoot progressive. Why is progressive important in stereoscopic 3D? .. read later...

So what gear do you use to sync the two sonys together? and why Sonys only? cause the freaking others like pannys and Jvcs did not include LANC control.

So you need to buy a Lanc Controller from say www.digi-dat.de to get you hooked up proper.

Its as simple (ok not that simple) as buying two sony CX12s or ever SR10 whatever the models are.. that have Lanc sockets and placing them side by side on a horizontal bar.

The form factors of the CX12s are just right to give you closest to human eye spacing of about 3 inches when placed side by side.

ofcourse but your going to be in a club and possibly in the DJ booth so you can use a bigger interocular/interaxial --- just fancy words for side by side spacing...

all this is really easy stuff the thing to producing good 3D is.. you have to have some knowledge of what works and what wont.. Then again we are lucky cause mostly we are producing "raw 3d" for use in nightclubs and not professionally for a movie.

Still! i'm duty bound to point out that producing bad 3d will have all your audiences getting headaches and so I'll try and explain a few things...

1) - There has to be Zero tolerance for any vertical disparity! i.e left and right eye views have to be vertically aligned exactly! at the capture stage and later if using Dual projectors with polarizers.. at the projection stage.

2) You can use Software - try Stereomoviemaker (im to lazy to google it) its free.. or virtual Dub or After effects to vertically align your left right views if the camera rig that you have isnt perfect.

3) try as much as possible to have the camera rig itself setup proper so as to give good vertical alignment

4) Dont go panning and zooming the camera.. that will give people guaranteed headaches when watching. Remember many things we VJs do with 2D footage will end up giving them nausea

5) The golden rule.. try as far as possible to allow time for people to "digest" the visuals. In 3D less is more.. the brain wants to roam around the rich 3D scene. of course you can do rocks-flying-at-you stuff.. that works because its coming from inside the screen and out at you.. the brain has time to adjust. fast panning of the camera is the worst (is worst a word?) for 3D.

Processing

You can decide how you want to process the 3D for display

A) is it going to be Live? as in are you gonna film the punters and display them on the screen live at an event?

B) are you gonna use single projector (anaglyph), or Single Projector Page Flip? ..more on this later... or Dual Projectors with polarizers?

So.. if using single projector anaglyph (the least preferred method for me today.. back in 2002 it was ok)..
if yes to the above then its also the easiest way to process and display at a club.. You can use Stereovideomaker and process your left and right video and output as Anaglyph. output as either Optimized or half color anaglyph.
All you then need is a single projector and cheap paper glasses red-cyan

if you are gonna display in page flip mode or dual out.. you need to process the video in side by side format.
this has an advantage also of having both the left and right views always in sync with no lag versus trying to play two video streams on a PC and hope to have complete sync always.

Display

1) Anaglyph - the el cheapo way to do 3D.
Advantages: Cost effective!
and you can manipulate the video in VJ software rather easily.

Disadvantages: Color loss, retinal rivalry, mpeg artefacting (beyond the scope of this mini guide to explain) thats why if you must do anaglyph use Optimized anaglyph output or Half color output.

2) Page Flip - This is if you have access to Projectors like the Christie Mirage or the more affordable DepthQ HD or even the newly launched Viewsonic 3D.

Advantages: True color 3D
Disadvantages: glasses are expensive LCD shutter glasses
Projectors are expensive. Should only be used perhaps at limited size venue and audience.
Also Infra red transmitter to sync the glasses to projector may just malfunction in club environment.

Did i mention - expensive glasses?

3) Dual Projection - My favored way of doing it at venues.
Stacked projectors and have to be aligned precisely.
Advantages: Full Color 3D
Glasses can be cheap cardboard polarized glasses

Disadvantages: need a "silver screen" at the venue.
aligning the Polarizers for proper "extinction"
What type to use Linear polarizers? or Circular?... a bit involved all this ;-)
May hot-spot depending on intensity of Projector and quality of screen

Workaround: If you have enough space and a good Polarize light retaining 'back projection screen' ..you dont need a silver screen then in this case!

How do you get left video to left proj and right to right proj? well your Vj software will have to be able to do full screen and then its simply a matter of Horizontal spanning your monitor and connecting the outs of the Video card to both projectors.

added info
Why Progressive is better for 3D?
Well interlace cameras will introduce 'temporal' mis-sync in a video frame this is noticable in things like even a person walking.. and surely in visuals for Vjing like wheels of a cycle etc..

It's bad enough that you have to use a LANC remote to sync the cameras which by the way DOES NOT give you 100% sync and it will drift off at different intervals. this depends on the pair of cameras you have and the luck factor. usually they should be in sync for at least 5 minutes when shooting.

Other stuff for syncing like clapper boards, time code etc...may / maynot work for true 3D due to temporal mis-sync within the frame and from the fact that CCD/Cmos sensors "paint" the frame at differnt times...we're talking 100ths of a second etc.. all pretty unimportant sounding... but can lead unknowingly to visual discomfort in viewers.

If you use a genlocked pair of cameras, in any case that camera would definately have progressive scan mode.
Interlaced is for the pro-sumer sony AVCHD cams.

What is Retinal Rivaly?
Well in anaglyph videos.... the "red" in say, superman's or santaclause's outfit would look completely black in one eye because of the colored lens and it will look red in the other eye. This is just one form of retinal rivalry.
Processes such as Optimized anaglyph will try at best to balance it out rather effectively.

Embossing / Mpeg Artefacting
This is artefacts left when encoding anaglyph video in a lossy codec.
more accurately its color subsampling artefacts. It shows as a thin "emboss" looking line around areas of High contrast in a scene and can be witnessed in ANY of the anaglyph DVDs that you can buy in the market.
of course if you use a non lossy codec you could try and get rid of it.. but then it most likely wont playback unless you have a really beefy PC.

The only way to overcome this is to have software that does the anaglyph encoding on-the-fly from a left-riight video stream.
Such functionality I do not know if its present in any current VJ software.
So its worth a Plugin ;-)

Youtube actually has this right now!

Well.. I hope this roller-coaster ride has helped at least a bit!
All the best in stereoscopic 3D Vjing!

I have not touched on subjects such as Window Violations, Floating windows etc. and even on live stereroscopic capture and display at clubs..
thats for later.. or hire me :-)

having basic cinematographic exposure will help immensly in setting up proper framing for Stereoscopic capture, however, in the same breath.. almost all cinematographers have to "undo" what they have learnt in conventional 2D school and go back to understand and grasp filming for 3D.

Regards!
clyde

If you do want http://www.realvision.ae could find you some more (limited) info on the subject.


P.S Also i did not want to say this.. but for the newbie, watch out for Pseudo Stereo.. You know where everything looks ok but the stereo is actually "inverted" and left eye view is being projected for right eye.

[FireyFate]

*clap clap clap clap*

That's the sort of information you should charge for! In fact, I'm copying it to Word before you change your mind!

[VjDeranged]

Lol Fireyfate :-)
It's my pleasure! just giving back to the community what i enjoyed learning from (and still do till today) all these years.

Regards, from old-school
VjDeranged.

[Architects of Tomorrow]

Excellent Tutorial

Thanks
Sean

[vjpixylight]

I shot some stereoscopic footage at the "Day out of time" event this weekend, and quickly realized that I am going to have to get the cams sync'd to make it all work.
I am looking at getting the TimeTool L
This should sync the 2 HC7's well enuf to get frame accurate steroscopic video.
I have emailed the company to make sure it will do what it says it will do, and will do it with the HC7's...
I will post back if it does work, as I know there are a few of you here that would find this hardware useful..

[zambari]

Hi,
I've just uploaded some stereoscopic video shot in Camden Town London this summer to youtube:

Click on the link and choose your favorite 3d viewing method.

The embedded youtube player doesn't work with stereoscopy so just click on the link to see it

http://tinyurl.com/njwocp

Footage is a bit boring but it's all about what works and what doesn't work in 3D.

[vjpixylight]

Just came across these while researching lenticular video..
http://www.depthq.com/projector.html

[vjpixylight]

and more like what I am wanting to try...
I'm planning on taking a similar setup to Germany next month, well if I can get the Lanc Genlock gear to make it all work...(I am spending cash these days that makes Obama look like a choir boy)

Peter Wimmer from 3DTV.AT (Linz, Austria) demonstrated stereoscopic player (3D video player), stereoscopic multiplexer (3D video recording), and two Sony HDV cameras mounted as a stereo-pair controlled by a LANC camera controller from Digi-dat (Roth, Germany).

[StereoVJ]

IMHO for such installations, like the helicopter camera rig you'll need to pull the cameras apart as much as possible. For example, if you fly and record objects from 100 yards, the ideal separation is around 2 feet.
We made aerial 3D footage, the cameras were mounted on the end of each wings (10 meters) and it was awesome. The normal separation (3 inches) just not enough for bigger distances. Due to disparity concerns everything will be flat.