Stereo3D Toolbox released for FCS & After Effects (Mac)

[Tim Dashwood]

http://www.Stereo3DToolbox.com

You need to download and install the v2.0.9 of FxFactory. The plugin is included with the installer. The plugin will function in demo mode with a watermark (there is no time limit) but a license needs to be purchased to remove the watermark ($389 introductory price.)

This is the official forum of Stereo3D Toolbox so please post any questions or discussion topics in a new thread.

Enjoy!

[Juergen Hansen]

Hi Tim,

great work!
I've been on holiday so have been able to try it just now. In your FAQ's you quoted, that the trial version will have a "discreet" watermark, so far I figured out only the watermark for the trial version as shown on the attached video still, which is not that "discreet". Before buying your great plug-in, I want to show my tests to senior editors but with this watermark it's not possible.
I would appreciate any advise, maybe I have made a mistake.
Best regards,
Jürgen

MAC OSX 10.5.8. /Intel Core Duo IMac/ FxFactory 2.0.9 / FCP 6.0.4

[Tim Dashwood]

Hi Juergen.

The watermark pixel size unfortunately doesn't scale down if you are using low resolution NTSC or PAL. It was designed for 1920 x 1080 HD and it is a function of FxFactory which I can't control within the plugin. The watermark function actually used to render only in the centre and NI changed FXFactory watermark system just so we could have a it out of the way in the lower left.

If you stay in HD resolution until you are ready to create a NTSC DVD or web sized file then you will maintain the small watermark.

[Juergen Hansen]

Hi Tim,

thanks for your quick reply in regard of the size of the watermark. I've tried it in a new sequence with XDCAM EX material, which I shot in 1080i50 HQ (that means 1920x1080).
It's still the same big size like on my video still above.
As I am doing all my stuff in HD, I never tried lower resolution with your PlugIn.

Thanks for your advise.
Best regards from France,
Jürgen

[Tim Dashwood]

Hmmm. Could you please zip and email me your FCP project file so I can analyze the problem?

In 1920x1080 it should be the size shown in the frame grab I attached.

[Nick Hiltgen]

Tim I haven't played with your program yet, but it looks pretty darn great. Thank you for posting the tutorials. This appears to be jsut the program I was looking for.

[Tim Dashwood]

I wanted to post an update that Jüergen's issue was due to his sequence being set to interlace. Simply setting field dominance to "none" fixed his problem.

[Juergen Hansen]

Just wanted to thank Tim again for his amazing work on Stereo3D Toolbox.
After having solved my stupid watermark issue (see above - thanks Tim for your patience) I tested it again and purchased it.

Here is my first test: YouTube - 3D Anaglyph Video Test
For Full Screen: YouTube - 3D Anaglyph Video Test (don't forget to click on HD)

I have tested cineform neo3D also, but beside the advantage of easy color correction in my opinion it is too complicated and time consuming to transfer everything in the cineform codec. And, at least with their trial version, I had problems to get the material syncronized and the trial version stopped working after one day in 3D, so I had to download it again on another computer. But there I had problems with their ReMaster converter, which is doing the job of converting into cineform codec. For such an expensive piece of Software not very assuring.
Stereo3D Toolbox is so much easier to use, everything inside FCP etc.
So far I have tested it only in Anaglyph, because there is no other monitor around. I would love to test it soon in other output modes with other monitors.
If there is someone here in France, or in Germany or Spain working on this, maybe we can join "forces".

Jürgen

[Tim Dashwood]

Originally Posted by Juergen Hansen

Just wanted to thank Tim again for his amazing work on Stereo3D Toolbox.
After having solved my stupid watermark issue (see above - thanks Tim for your patience) I tested it again and purchased it.

Originally Posted by Juergen Hansen

Here is my first test: YouTube - 3D Anaglyph Video Test
For Full Screen: YouTube - 3D Anaglyph Video Test (don't forget to click on HD)

I had a look and you are almost there, but many of your shots have a slight vertical disparity which makes it difficult to fuse the image and will cause eye strain. This of course can be easily fixed in Stereo3D Toolbox.
Basically what you need to look for is red or cyan above or below objects. You should only see the red/cyan to the left and right. For example, on the shot of the rooftops there is a definite disparity that can be fixed with the Y slider. However the towers look pretty good so I think your two lenses must not have been on exactly the same zoom setting. Use the left or right zoom sliders to match up the two eyes.

The next thing I'd like you to try, which should improve your stereoscopic effect, is to converge on the closest object to the camera for each shot. This will set the stereo window at the closest object and everything else will fall back into the screen. In parallel stereoscopy everything is forward of the stereo window until you manually set the convergence.

Originally Posted by Juergen Hansen

I have tested cineform neo3D also, but beside the advantage of easy color correction in my opinion it is too complicated and time consuming to transfer everything in the cineform codec. And, at least with their trial version, I had problems to get the material syncronized and the trial version stopped working after one day in 3D, so I had to download it again on another computer. But there I had problems with their ReMaster converter, which is doing the job of converting into cineform codec. For such an expensive piece of Software not very assuring.
Stereo3D Toolbox is so much easier to use, everything inside FCP etc...

You can sync clips in neo3d by marking an in point but I think it has to be within 18 frames of the head of the clip.

So far I have tested it only in Anaglyph, because there is no other monitor around. I would love to test it soon in other output modes with other monitors.

Next time I'd love for you to try to export as side-by-side mode and then turn on "crossview."
Upload that file to youtube and then add the tags yt3d:enable=true and yt3d:aspect=16:9
This will turn on Youtube's 3D mode and then anyone will be able to view your 3D videos with whatever glasses they happen to have! The other advantage is that you don't have to worry about the extra artifacts introduced by compressing anaglyph.

[Juergen Hansen]

Hi Tim,

thanks for your reply and for the advice. I worked on my test again and I think, it's now better.
If you want to have a look on Full Screen (I removed the version linked above):
YouTube - 3D Anaglyph Video Test

I used two different cameras (Sony HDV Z1 and Sony XDCAM EX1), that's why the zoom has not been 100% the same. But as you have mentioned, I sized the right image up (the EX1) and converged on the closest object to the camera.

I tried also the output in side-by-side with the YouTube 3D player. But maybe because my color correction was not very good, I have the impression, that at least in red/cyan modus, the image is better using FCP with Stereo3D Toolbox and red/cyan full color output.
Have a look here: YouTube - 3D Test for YouTube 3D Player

Best regards and thank you very much.
Jürgen

[Riku Naskali]

Any chance of getting something similar for Premiere/PC?

[Juergen Hansen]

Try Stereo Movie Maker, it is for free and really a "classic":
StereoMovie Maker
Cheers, Jürgen

[Alister Chapman]

I've been using Tim's plugin for a few months now and I have also used cineform neo. Neo has a performance edge once you have encoded everything to the cineform codec, but when you don't know which clips your going to use having to spend ages converting clips that may only end up in the trash is frustrating. There is really very little difference between what you can do with Neo and what you can do withe stereo tool box, the same can't be said of the price.

Excellent plug-in Tim.

[Steve Connor]

Tim, any news on a new version of the plug-in? We're about to enter post on a big budget 3D corporate and I'm interested to see if you have anything else that can ease the workflow.

I've also recently upgraded to Snow Leopard and it seems to have made Stereo Toolbox a little flakey, it still works but it occasionally gets a bit "confused" and a reboot of FCP is neccessary

BTW it's our first beta shoot on a brand new commercial 3D rig tomorrow that's designed to compete with the P&S Technic rig at a much lower price!

[Tim Dashwood]

We're working on some simple solutions to make the workflow a lot easier as well as v2.0 of the plugin. The scheduled release is during NAB.

As for Snow Leopard performance you definitely need v 10.6.2 and you should be running the latest version of FxFactory. If you are still encountering weird issues please launch the FxFactory app and select "Contact tech support" from the help menu, describe the specific issue and select the box to attach the system profile.