Stereoscopic 3-D advice for free

Recently, I have started the 3-D Stereoscopic Professionals Worldwide LinkedIn Group: a group for professionals working in the field of stereo 3D, who also happen to be on LinkedIn. The group is growing very rapidly and already includes members from the big 3-D producers such as 3-Disney, 3-Dreamworks, 3-Digital Domain (sorry, can’t help it) and Sony Pictures Imageworks.


Beowulf 3-D: Top-notch Stereoscopic Film Production

In the first round-e-mail I sent out, I asked the members why there is not more communication and cooperation between 3-D stereoscopic professionals and, more over, why there is no openness of information and a sharing of industry practises. It seems to me like a logical question and the desire to make the industry benefit as a whole by sharing information appears, on the surface, to be the only way to truly build a global 3-D industry. The immediate answers to this question were very positive and most group members responding agreed with my standpoint of cooperation rather than secrecy and greed towards 3-D information.


Shhh, don't tell anyone: it's a 3-D camera system!

It was not all calls to arms, though, and a little reminder about the reality of the 3-D industry was given by Disney’s top 3-D man: “Unfortunately, I know a lot of 3-D gurus who have been severely punished for their generosity”.

I get contacted almost daily by people who ask for 3-D advice and I am the last person to send them away with no information, as I strongly believe in helping out those who cannot find any information out there and are unable to pay for professional help. How else can a real independent 3-D film library come into existence? But sadly it is not only people unable to pay for professional help who try to get as much 3-D information out of me as possible before they disappear into the thin air... On the upside one can sometimes get rewarded with kind words about supplying free 3-D information and of course a fantastic end product to enjoy. Last year I was contacted by a small independent animation production outset with the words: "I just found your website & I must say I really appreciate all the information you have provided on stereoscopy. I'm doing some research for a 3D film project and this just about answered all of my questions. I do have one more question though.”, and: "There seems to be little information on the world of 3D cinematography on the Internet, with the exception of your website, which has been an incredible resource. Thanks for all your help.”


www.the3drevolution.com - the 3-D Revolution website

The metioned question pertained to how small an interaxial should be on a model shoot where the models would be integrated with bluescreened actors and what cameras should be used etc. The company was called Encyclopedia Pictura and half a year after the kind words and my free advice the news of Björk’s latest music video being released in 3-D reached me. Wonderful work by EP and nice & calm 3-D that never goes negative on the parallax but keeps the video in the small theatre of positive parallax, just the way Bjork loves it.


Wanderlust 3-D - dark in places, even for Björk's taste


3-D composition in Bjork's 3D stereoscopic video 'Wanderlust'

Staying with indie 3-D animation, I have done very brief consulting on an independent stereoscopic animation production in the Netherlands by the name of ‘The 3-D Machine’ and the production company Ka-ching Cartoons thanked me and sent me a complimentary DVD of the final product. If you’re going to take free 3-D advice, at least thank the Stereographer. I am of the opinion that the 3-D industry can only grow when information is shared, but not even mentioning the person who helped you accomplish great 3-D is not the way to work either. That only makes for 3-D professionals shutting their mouths again and keeping the stereoscopic information to themselves in the most paranoid way possible. Regardless I am still keeping my website open for business and the information keeps on flowing freely. Maybe stupidly, but that’s 3-D belief for you.


'The 3-D Machine' by Ka-Ching Cartoons

By the way, you CAN also hire me for your stereo 3D music video or professional stereoscopic 3-D film or video production. Contact me.

Alexander Lentjes
3-D Revolution Productions

Stereoscopic 3-D advice for free

Siggraph 2007 Next-Gen Displays

Neit 360 degree 3-D display

Two bits from a VFX Newswire article:

VFX Newswire article at
http://www.vfxworld.com/index.php?atype=articles&id=3369

SIGGRAPH 2007 Emerging Technologies: Next-Gen Displays

J. Paul Peszko speaks with John Sibert, SIGGRAPH 2007 co-chair of Emerging Technologies, about this year's focus on display technology.


(...)
One category of displays centers on digital projection. "DLP-3D TV is new technology that T. I. (Texas Instruments) has developed that will enable you to do on a home television HD display 3-D stereo that you would normally see at a place like Disney or possibly in theaters," explains Sibert.

(...)
Another interesting display technology is the Interactive 360-Degree Light Field Display being developed by the USC Institute for Creative Technologies. "The thing about 3-D displays is that they don't show very well on a web page," states Sibert. "The cool thing about this display is that you don't have to wear glasses, and it's based on kind of an old idea of a rotating mirror that reflects the image, which appears to be three-dimensional. Usually 3-D images are hard to move around or change the shape of in realtime. This one works fast enough that it can actually do that. Also, people can stand around it in a group and see the full 3-D."

Holographic Display as illustrated in VFX Newswire

Our comments on the article:

It’s very exciting to see 3-D display technology taking leaps and bounds, headed for our homes very soon. So it’s time to create 3-D content for all these wonderful screens. Unless you’re happy to watch cooking programmes and quiz shows in 3-D all day, that is…
3-D recording and filming is still a specialization because its parameters can be very tricky. So you will want expert stereo 3D help. 3-Dimensional imagery is shot using two cameras and the look of the resulting 3-D effect is as mouldable and creatively controllable as the regular film and video image. The 3-D equivalents of focal length, aperture size, lens size, depth of field, and use of colour are seriously underemployed! An amazing amount of different things can be done with stereoscopic 3-D, while currently not much of all that potential is tapped into by 3-D filmmakers.
3-D stereoscopic content creation is something we can help you with, from script to screen. Your creative 3-D ideas on tomorrow’s screens, in the best possible way!



Of course, one has to make a clear distinction between stereo 3-D and holographic 3-D imagery. They are different mediums. Why? Because holographic 3-D (including the 360-Degree Light Field Display imagery) has no framing, as opposed to stereo 3-D.
3-D is filmed with two cameras, while holographics are recorded with light hitting an object from a very wide array of angles. A real or virtual actor on these displays will be looking in one direction, while you, the viewer, may be looking at his side, his front or even his back. So there is no controllable eye-line and your fellow-viewer will always see a different image from you. In this way, cinematography cannot be employed for these displays; rather these moving images have to be approaches as you would theatre or a stage show. This is a very important distinction to make, and once you recognise this, you can create the best possible entertainment for these displays rather than doing something that equals a ‘radio show on TV’.

Time to get creative in 3-Dimensions!

Siggraph 2007 Next-Gen Displays