Filmmaker Says Human Brain Not Suited for 3D

[tahrey]

I don't see the point of 3-D. No matter how much the objects "jup out at you", they're still constrained to a relatively small screen. It's like you're looking through a window, and although nothing on the other side of a window ever appears to be jumping out at us, we don't mind. Conventional cameras already have that one thing where they focus on what they want us to see, which is what our eyes do already. If we can only focus on one thing at a time anyway, then why do we need to worry about it being closer or further away from us, if it's already in focus?

Protip: Get to an Imax showing if one's available, and sit up fairly close.
Did this for Avatar and Star Trek and the effect was AWESOME.
It's more expensive and can be a bit of a jaunt - thanks to timing problems I ended up on a 200+ mile round trip for Avatar because it stopped showing at the Imax which was practically just around the corner from me (damn it Cameron, could you maybe have announced the Special Edition just a week or two earlier? I would have waited then gone to see it, then)

...still got eyestrain however and had to whip the glasses off for the quieter scenes. (Didn't miss anything as had already seen both movies in smaller theatres... where they were perfectly enjoyable... but certainly didn't have the same impact or wow-factor)

Personally I'm waiting for either the laser-retina-scanning headsets which bypass your lenses' focussing altogether, or the brain-electrode interface where the images are beamed directly into your visual cortex, with a corrective signal sent to the inner ear receptors to prevent motion sickness.

 

[tahrey]

Has anyone seen the new TRON in 3D? cause I thought it was really good, I've never really had a problem with 3D though but it did annoy me that most things in 3D, including AVATAR would add too much depth, a small room would look like it was miles longer than it should've been and I think that may be what gives people headaches.

Yeah, I think it was a bit of a waste really. Some of the sequences were quite cool, and it's definitely very pretty, but I don't think they used the 3D effect very well. The conceit where the real world was 2D and the virtual one 3D (because it was easier to re-render than re-shoot, I bet) was a nice touch, but as he only goes in once and out once rather than skipping back and forth, you actually hardly notice it. Despicable Me did it better (and better than TS3!), for heaven's sake.

Plus the actual story was even weaker than Avatar's. A rickety clotheshanger on which to dangle the proverbial coat of many colours. Unless you basically view the experience as paying to experience some kind of megademo-rollercoaster-combination montage (which to be honest is more the usual Imax fare anyway, and how I approached the second showing of Avatar; ST was better) you may come away unimpressed with the WHOLE thing, including the pretty rendering and 3Dness, just because the narriative didn't grab you.

 

[Somebloke]

You lost me at "Here some people's eyes will, depite the focus puller's best efforts, try to adjust focal depth, to compensate for the convergence changing over time, as the two images of the car comes together horizontally, pulling the view out of focus."

First of all the focus puller would be the car in this example?

A "focus puller" is an assistant to the cameraman. His job is to continously adjust the the camera lens, keeping the current subject in focus.

(Movies often uses lenses with a short focal range, by the way, for emphasis. This is one of the things that makes cinematic films "feel different" and the reason you see people attaching expensive lens converters to camcorders, or rather attaching the camcorders to the lenses, going by relative size... )

Second, if the car is driving away from a couple of side-by-side lenses, wouldn't the two images of the car would move apart horizontally?

Yes they would; my bad.

In a nutshell, I still don't understand how the viewing of either one of these scenes IRL would be any different from viewing them in stereoscopic 3d. Both adhere to the same rules of depth perception and focal points. One just does it in an artificial way.

I'm half thinking there may be some using the word "focus" in the figurative sense, rather than the optical one...

IRL objects are at different actual depths and thus may be at your focal point, in which case you will see them sharply, or in front of, or behind it, in which cases they will appear blurry.
On a screen, all the objects are projected onto the single actual depth viewplane. If you change your focal point away from this depth, /everything/ on screen will go blurry, including any on-screen object that you may be shifting your attention to. This will confuse the regulating algorithms that process what you see and controls your eyes, because their reactive behaviour does not yield the same results they have since childhood and first learning to fix attention on something, maybe even causing oversteering and cramps.

It takes some getting used to, is all - the algorithms are very adaptive. Your eyes need to learn a second set of expectations, where focus does not change with convergence, the way they are used to and to be able to differentiate and switch between the two. Not entirely different from wearing glasses for the first time.

With a film, you will be helped by the "focus puller" person, mentioned above. Though him, the director decides what you should be looking at and if you just relax and accept their dictate, it should be relatively easy to suppress the usual reactions.

With video games, eye tracking might do the trick, applying depth of field (..which approximates your natural focal range), according to which part of the screen you are looking at, because it should really be YOU that decides. Simply using the centre of the screen, is a less than satisfying substitute.

 

[masticina]

What is wrong with 2d?

Oh 3d is one dimension more! Maybe but if it causes headaches, eye strain and can only be seen if your eyesight is 20/20 it is ..worthless!

Funny story I know someone, actually two people who are blind on one eye. Yup no 3d movies for them!

Really I rather have our brains, who do most of our "what we see" processing anyway do the 3d processing instead of our eyes.

 

[CrystalShadow]

Ironically, this being taken seriously could cripple cinemas.

Why?

Because workable holographic displays exist in prototype form, but the basis of the technology means that while you can construct a holographic television, you'd really struggle to create a holographic display as large as a cinema screen, and one that can cope with 500 people watching it at the same time.

My question though is if this kind of holographic technology can be adapted for use with VR glasses or not.
A much more interesting question if you ask me, since VR had a lot of issues in the 80's but actually does quite a bit for immersion. Especially if the headset tracks head orientation...

We're on the verge of VR actually working the way it was promised in the 80's...

That's still a step removed from a fully immersive experience (the sense of touch is still mostly absent), but as long as it doesn't result in headaches, it could be quite impressive.

 

[magicmonkeybars]

Having read this I think 3D is a good idea, it'll force us out of our complacency, as humans we've remade the world to fit our convenience depriving us of the challenge of adversity.
Forcing some effort into our live will reinvigorate us and renew our participation in the evolutionairy process.

3D might make us "better" humans although how the acceptence of 3d will aid us in the real world is beyond me.
Maybe we should find something more usefull to refocus our evolutionairy path on like breathing in thinner air or coping with greater atmospheric pressure.

 

[UberNoodle]

'3D' today is not really so. It is an illusion that runs counter intuitive to what the brain and senses expect from three dimensional space. The biggest problem with Avatar in 3D is that though it has depth, most of that is out of focus, yet the eyes look at those objects, making the brain wonder why those objects remain blurry. It should be called the 'instant cataract effect'.

We already have the cognitive power to translate 2 dimensions into 3. As far as our brains go, films have always been 'in 3D'. This newest reiteration of old technology is only pleasing us via a single sensory stimulus, but not intellectually. The brain still knows that the picture isn't truly 3D and so it treats the image pretty much as it has always treated 2D images of 3D spaces and objects.

The wow factor is only 'eye deep'. After that, the brain couldn't give a crap about stereoscopy. That's not really how our brain 'sees' anyway. We don't see by pattern recognising a photograph. That's why everybody sees things differently and remembers them even more differently. Really, 3D is icing when the cake is already pretty damn delicious and complete without it.

 

[Olinser]

I hate the '3D' craze. Until man commercializes the hologram/image projector to actually render true 3D shapes, it will disappear. Trying to watch 3D images on a 2D screen gives me headaches.