Where does a newbie start in 3D?

[Steve Shovlar]

OK I will ask the questions. I was at Broadcast Video Expo at Earls Court London last week, and every other stand was pushing some type of product on 3D. As I was exhibiting myself I had no chance in talking to these people, though I did have time to have a look at the footage and was impressed.

So where on earth does a newbie who is on a mac start?

From what I can gather, you need one of those very nice polarised JVC monitors at about £6000 to show the footage. I am not talking about that horrible cyan/red, but proper full colour ala Avatar at the cinema.

So you need a rig to hold the two cameras. I understand that. Sort of. The distance between the two lenses should be equivelent to the space between your eyes? ish? That's why one is up and the other level to get the lenses close together.

So I have shot some footage on one of those rigs. Now what? This is where it all seems to get very confusing for a newbie. I spoke breifly to a guy on the Jigsaw stand, who told me I needed a plugin for FCP called Cineform Neo 3d. OK cool. But then I nearly fell over when he told me the plugin was a whopping £1800 plus VAT! You gotta be kidding me. But I guess there's a lot gone into it and demand is very small so Cineform want their research money back plus a profit. Is that the ONLY solution for the mac and 3d?

Then there's Tim Dashwoods plugin, which is much more sensibly priced, called 3d Toolbox. I watched one of the tutorials on his site and understood a bit.

Has anyone yet produced something like the Idiots guide to making 3D movies, either in DVD or book form yet? First to do it will make a killing as I am sure I am not the only one who wants to know exactly how to do it but needs to be shown the right way. From how to mount and calibrate your cameras on a 3D rig, to delivering a 3d movie on Blu-ray.

So what's the best way to get that footage into FCP and out to Blu-ray then?

Cheers.

[Pavel Houda]

I'd recomend that you look through this web page and get one of the books recomended there. http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/3d-stere...d-reading.html. I also like this book: http://www.amazon.com/3D-Movie-Makin.../dp/B002AVU3KO .

[Steve Shovlar]

Thanks for that Pavel I have just ordered the 3D movie making book from Amazon.

It's a whole new field and a book like this will be invaluable to give an insight to what I have no doubt will become a very large area of the broadcast business. Better late into it now than playing much bigger catch up in a couple of years time.

The reason I want to be onto it is the huge possibilities it brings to an even videographer like myself. I do many wedding films during the year and try to stay well ahead of the opposition. I was the first offer blu-ray in my area. I will be the first to offer 3d weddings in my area ( at a very nice premium).

If cameramen and videographers were impressed at the BVE in London last week, what are newly engaged John and Sue going to think when they pop on a pair of 3D glasses on my stand at a wedding expo?

Now I am not intending to film a 3D wedding film anytime soon, but if I had a 15 minute loop to show, I am sure it would make my video business THE taking point of the show.

[Giroud Francois]

we discussed this alot of time already , so here is a summary.

First you need to set a workflow. You will need to deal with double amount of shots and make sure they are properly synchronized.
There are 2 ways to do it. Shoot "clean" and have a minimum of work in post, or shoot "raw" and spend a lot more time to make everything fit in post.
You can shoot "clean" by having cameras with correct alignement/spacing (about 7cm or 2.5 inches), timecode and genlock synchronized. If you do not mind spending A LOT of time cleaning shots afterward, you can shoot with any camera, eventually using a mirror rig if they are too big for the minimum spacing. The second method will hardly work on event like wedding if you want my opinion.
The second method , as you discovered, also require to puchase expensive software.

Then you go to the editing stage.
I do not know for FCP, bur some application like premiere allows to edit 2d, then save the project, clean the temp files, and replace the files you used by the ones from the other camera. you just need to make sure they have same filename and frame count.
then you simply reopen the project and launch a render. So it adds almost no additional work.
That make thing really easy, and cost nothing.

Then you got the 3D display problem.
it is a totally different problem if it is for personal view or large audience, but in both case the result is the same, so you can work on one technolgy at editing and switch to another technology for a show.
Personaly i am very happy with the zalman 3D monitor (the 22") using polarized glasses (the same as the realD ones). Unfortunately this is not suited for public display since the angle for correct vision is pretty narrow. but at least it is cheap and allows you to check for result immediately.
For fair or event, the latest technology you can buy is the one that use Xpand shutter glasses and DLP projector with the DLP link feature.
One projector, regular screen, no special setup. The only drawback is the price of glasses (about 150$) , but to demonstrate this to few customers at a time , it stays affordable.
Now if you need to display to a large audience, it is pretty too expensive and you will need to switch to polarized glasses (4$), dual projectors and special silver screen.
But it is currently the only way to display for cheap at a large audience.

[Pavel Houda]

You might then be interested in this thread: http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/3d-stere...ding-demo.html . Best of luck.

[Steve Shovlar]

Thanks for this info.

It seems I can read up and understand this pretty quickly, but will have to get some "hands on" to properly understand it all.

I've just ordered the book from Amazon and it should be with me in a couple of days. Plenty of time with this though because when it comes to shooting some 3D I will need a 40+ inch 3D TV to show it off and at the moment the choice seems limited to about....nothing really other than extornionatly priced 3D monitors. When Philips, LG, Panasonic and Sony start to bring out 3D TVs, hopefully later this year, I should be good to go.

[Alister Chapman]

Steve, to play and learn the basics I would get a couple of small cheap Sony camcorders that can be controlled by Lanc. You can normally get these pretty close together side by side and there are many controllers that will run them close enough in sync for 10 to 15 mins at a time.
There are lots of FCP editing options. I use a Zalman 22" monitor and build the edit with the right clips above the left in the time line then apply a mask to the right clips that creates the line interlaced signal the zalman needs.

I think you can read all the books and articles you want, but there's no substitute for getting out there and doing it.

[Giroud Francois]

if you need to display a 40" sized picture, any scren can fit your need, but you will be limited to the usual field sequential (60i), that is usually found a bit disturbing for long viewing, but for the short wow effect it can be doable.
Don't forget that most TV screen are not able to deal with 3D TV signal, but they also often have VGA or DVI input that can deal with nice refresh speed for 3D.
even bluray at 720p60 should be nice.
again, i think a DLP projector with DLP-link will be nicer, easier to transport and install, allow adjustable size (easily up to 100') and cost less.
Optoma is currently producing some nice models. The hardest will be to get a bunch of xpand glass for DLP-link.

[Steve Shovlar]

Yes I agree with that Alistair. I'll find a couple of cheap Sonys on Ebay to do the testing with. What controllers are you talking about though?

Cheers
Steve