|
|
This topic comprises 6 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6
|
|
Author
|
Topic: Superman Returns
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mark J. Marshall
Film God
Posts: 3188
From: New Castle, DE, USA
Registered: Aug 2002
|
posted 04-22-2006 12:43 AM
I have a sneaky suspicion that if they were to just move an object - for example, Superman himself - in a shot, then even though you're basically looking at a 2D image in a 2D environment, your eyes and brain would be fooled just enough by the shading and tones and all of that for your brain to think it's seeing real 3D.
I imagine the hard part is reconstructing the part of the background that was hidden behind the object you moved. How do they do THAT? Is that something that has to be painted by hand?
I agree on the passive filters working just fine. Although after seeing Chicken Little with the circular polarized glasses, I think they do a better job with the ghosting than the linear glasses do. Circular glasses and the projector filters are more expensive though apparently.
If the IMAX field sequential LCD shutter glasses work anything like the Chicken Little field sequential thing, then I suspect a "strobing" effect is introduced, which I thought was annoying as hell. You might not be able to notice it in IMAX branded films because they generally try to avoid quick motion on the screen since the image is so big - they don't want to make their customers sick. However in a movie like Superman, quick motion on the screen will be there. You can be sure of that. And when the quick motion is there, the strobing effect will become much more noticeable - especially to the trained eye.
The only way to avoid the strobing is either a) make sure both the left eye and right eye are on the screen simultaneously - which is exactly what a field sequential LCD shutter system does NOT do, or b) make sure you don't move things on the screen too quickly, which you can't avoid in main stream movies.
Now maybe you're thinking that if you just up the frame rate, you can make the strobe go away. But if I remember correctly, Chicken Little was running at something ridiculous like 140 fps, and it still had strobing. The only Chicken Little presentation that didn't strobe was the one that used TWO DLP projectors to project the left and right eyes simultaneously, which was done at the El Capitan theater. Oh, and you can forget about upping the frame rate on IMAX anyway beyond where it is now. Can you imagine how much film would be required for a 48fps field sequentially printed two and a half hour 3D movie in the IMAX format??
Frank... sometimes it was FIVE films a day. ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
[ 04-22-2006, 10:07 AM: Message edited by: Mark J. Marshall ]
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
|
posted 04-23-2006 10:58 PM
I am not sold on the 2D to 3D conversion thing.
The very fundamental physics of stereoscopic vision and how it works points to the 2D to 3D process being proposed having very unconvincing looking results.
With real 3D the objects have volume in 3D space. It's all but impossible to create that working with material shot natively in normal 2D process.
quote: Brian Michael Weidemann
Yeah, but that's not what they did with Chicken Little.
I am extremely skeptical and suspicious of such claims coming from the movie studio. With today's computer power, it would be far easier for them to render a second eye pass in 2K for the 3D D-Cinema output than it would be to try to massage out some fake 2D to 3D imagery. If Disney is saying they made the show in 3D after doing some 2D to 3D post-processing trickery they may be lying.
One thing I believe is getting lost in all this is what is involved with taking a 2D image and trying to make it look like 3D.
First, you need an raster-based image editing application like Adobe Photoshop. You have to MANUALLY get in there is mask out and isolate various objects in the foreground and background with every single freaking frame. This process is not exact, but it still very time consuming. There isn't any computer plug-ins in existence that can auto-sense what is an object in the foreground versus what's in the background. They can try to detect edge detail and other factors, but that's about it. With computer graphics work, lots of stuff still must be adjusted by hand to gain the correct result.
Even if you can successfully mask out and isolate all the objects in the frame, get them isolated on their own layers and able to animate in After Effects those objects are still going to look flat. Afterall, they're 2D objects themselves.
Oh? Make them 3D? Why sure!
Photogrammetry is a very possible thing. It's very possible and very time consuming. On top of that, it is a process that must be done during production. You can't just go in on the back end and invent full 3D modeled and photogrammetry textured 3D objects from an already photographed 2D 4-perf 35mm film plate. At least you cannot do that without painting a bunch of extra shit on the 3D model that didn't already exist.
Now it might be easy enough to model the triangular shape of a Star Destroyer for the 30th anniversary release in 3D of Star Wars. But how much work is someone going to put in trying to 3D model and photo texture 3D models of Mark Hamill or Alec Guiness?
In the end, I either see a heck of a lot of work being put into an effort which only gains a passing result of 3D at best. And there's lots of room to show off bad looking failure.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
|
posted 04-29-2006 09:40 AM
quote: Bobby Henderson
Even if you can successfully mask out and isolate all the objects in the frame, get them isolated on their own layers and able to animate in After Effects those objects are still going to look flat.
Very true Bobby; even in REAL 3D, one of the problems that can plague three dimensional cinematography is that if you force extreme convergence in an effort to "enhance" what nature put there, as was done pretty routinely in the 50s 3D era, the result is that even "real" 3D looks like there are a multitude of flat objects placed in an unnatural 3D environment. You got the sensory "feel" of exaggerated 3D, but you lost the naturalness of actual 3D.
You can experience this to an extent if you look through
any pair of big prism binoculars. At first you say "wow" because you feel an exaggerated sense of 3rd dimension due to the fact that the distance between the two lenses is quite a bit farther apart than the interocular distance of your eyes, so this makes what you are seeing feel "very 3D." But then you look closely and realize that the actual objects in the picture look flat. In fact, it can look even less 3D than if you look at the same image without the binoculars. Your brain is being told it needs to converge two images that are far apart thus exaggerating the sense of 3D, yet it isn't given any more real dimensional information about the objects within the image. In fact, your brain would be searching for 3D information that it expects to find but that isn't there.
You could do this same thing with a dual strip 3D polarization setup and two identical reels of a 2D movie. If you interlocked them and ran them as if 3D, you could make the audience FEEL a sense of depth by slowly separating the two images, i.e., misaligning the two projectors. The viewer would certainly feel the sense of space, but it would be of a flat image floating somewhere out in front of him. But it wouldn't make it a 3D image by any stretch of the imagination, even as paltry an imagination of the let's-save-the-movie-industry-by-repackaging-our-old-stuff- and-sticking-a-3D-label-on-it" crowd. It's colorization all over again, only with colorization it only wound up on TV; 3Dization will wind up on movie screens, even further polluting the movie-going experience.
We talk about the sense of depth and it's true; depth is unique from the sense of sight. You can SEE the same image with one eye, but open the other -- nothing changes in what you are seeing as far the image, except a new and very distinct and indeed VERY powerful sense of space has been added that is quite unique from the sense of sight. IMHO, We take that sense of depth much to much for granted and lump it as the sense of sight. But the sense of Depth Perception is a gift. 3D movies pay it homage and they should be.....3D Done Right, not some half-ass, regurgitated crap to make money without the need to exercise even one single creative brain cell. I am surprised at Spielberg.
Yah....computerized, "rendered" 3D on a field sequential 2K video projector....THAT'S something I really want to see. Whatever problems you think you have with the quality of 2K video....double it, and then add enough strobing to bring on epileptic attacks in folks so disposed. Might as well give me a towel to bite down on and just shove a xenon strobe light up my ass.
[ 05-22-2006, 12:14 AM: Message edited by: Adam Martin ]
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
All times are Central (GMT -6:00)
|
This topic comprises 6 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6
|
Powered by Infopop Corporation
UBB.classicTM
6.3.1.2
The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion
and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.
|
Home
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic