006 - Stereoscopic 3D

A significant part of this project is focused on the use of stereoscopic 3D in film, and more recently, video games. It's the same effect you see at the cinema when you don the 3D glasses.

At the inception of this project I'll admit I didn't know much at all about how 3D works in this way. It had always intrigued me, so I leapt at the chance to investigate it depth for this project.

I realised that in order for this effect to work there must be two completely separate views of the same scene/area. Each of these views represents the difference in space between the right and the left eye. Just like in real life when you focus on something in the foreground the background not only blurs out of focus but is also split in two horizontally. The same thing happens to a foreground object when focusing on the background except the horizontal split happens in the opposite direction.

This effect can then be harnessed by 3D technology to mimic the eye's natural methods. By setting up two cameras the right distance apart in a 3D modeling package like 3ds Max 2012 you can then composite the two views and create the illusion of depth. It tricks the eyes by forcing them to apply the rules of three-dimensional vision to a 2D flat surface.

First test with 2 Iphone photographs

I tried some initial experiments with this using several 3D characters I modeled. They all sit at different points on a flat surface, some closer to the camera, all of them a different size. The goal of the experiment was to see if the viewer could identify what characters were closer and what ones were in the distance. The effect works very well here with everyone I tested being able to correctly read the '3D' space.



I am hoping to do one scene or all of my final animation in stereoscopic 3D to further to further dramatise the on screen events and to push my own knowledge of using 3D systems.

(I suspect 3D will be a passing phase in general society, impressive as it is. It's a very clever gimmick, one that has been polished considerably in recent years. 3D TV sets have came right down in price yet they're still not a popular choice with today's consumers. I think this may be because people don't like wearing special glasses to watch television. I think it's the only barrier holding the technology back right now.)