Computer Graphics World

November 2008 18 ■ ■ ■ ■ Stereoscopy after an animator shoots the frame. Before beginning the project, Selick con- sulted with Lenny Lipton, CTO at RealD and a renowned stereo 3D pioneer. e studio brought in other stereo experts, as well. " ey taught us all the rules, and it's good to know the rules," Van't Hul says. "But many of us are from creative back- grounds. We're trying to break as many rules as we can." Depth of fi eld is one point of conten- tion. " e experts say everything should be as sharp as possible to make stereo work," Selick says. " at way there's no eye strain and you can see everything. I say, 'Yeah, but the whole point is that we don't want the audience to look everywhere.' e easiest thing when you have so much in frame is to go a bit wider and throw the background out of focus so the foreground pops." us, Van't Hul and his crew have de- cided to fl aunt conventional wisdom when they can. "We don't launch an animator on a shot lightly," he says. "We don't have time to go back. But sometimes given the energy of a shot, we can be bold if the shots aren't on the screen long enough to cause eye strain." Live Action One of the biggest 3D success stories for 2008 has been the feature fi lm Journey to the Center of the Earth, directed by Eric Brevig, who received two Oscar nomina- tions for best visual eff ects while at ILM (Pearl Harbor, Hook) and a special Achieve- ment Award from the Academy for Total Recall. is Walden Media/Warner Bros. fi lm, which Brevig shot in 3D, has grossed $178 million worldwide. Frantic Films, one of several studios that worked on the feature, created approxi- mately 200 VFX shots, including those in which they integrated footage of actor Brendon Fraser and others in a raft that fl oated on CG water. "We had to track two cameras for every shot," says Chris Har- vey, co-VFX supervisor with Mike Shand. "And for every frame, we had to create two separate images." Typically, the crew would track one eye view and then use the studio's software tools to generate the second eye view. Even so, the artists needed to tweak the result. " e physical cameras caused dis- crepancies," says Harvey, "and the two Although movie theaters are excited that stereoscopic 3D promises to pull peo- ple away from their screens at home, consumer products are in the works for viewing 3D at home and even on the road. Samsung and Phillips have demon- strated no-glasses 3D TVs. Hundai sells a 46-inch 3D TV that requires glasses. At the Ceatec show in Japan recently, Panasonic showed a 3D high-defi nition home theater, which requires 3D glasses, NEC demo'd a nine-inch glasses-less 3D LCD, and KDDI showed a 3.1-inch glasses-less 3D LCD display. And Fuji has announced a pocket-sized camera that shoots 3D movies. In addition, Nvidia is introducing new glasses and a transmitter that works with existing CRT displays, high-defi nition DLPs, and the new 120Hz LCD monitors. Software in the system converts a standard 3D video game into a stereoscopic 3D game. "Since all the data is coming down the pipe in real time, we don't have to pre-author," says Andrew Fear, product manager. "We have a predefi ned depth amount, but if the end user wants to adjust the depth, he or she can." Although the target for the glasses is gamers, Nvidia expects that when a Blu- ray or other standard emerges for high-defi nition 3D movies, the DVD crowd will want to view stereo 3D movies at home, too. "I think we're probably six months to a year away from having a rigid format," Fear predicts. "In the meantime, we're building our architecture to play back whatever they adopt." Also aimed at gamers is iZ3D's $599 22-inch LCD monitor that displays stereo 3D with the help of a pair of glasses. The display, which gamers can also use as a standard monitor on PC systems equipped with a dual-output video card, displays 1680x1050-resolution images and stereo with a 170-degree viewing angle. Meanwhile, such display manufacturers as Alioscopy are readying glasses- free 3D systems. Adam Holmes, producer of an announced stereo 3D feature animation, has been using these monitors for pre-production and looks forward to the day when glasses-free displays will fi nd a home in living rooms. For now, though, "I'm most excited about the possibility of monitors like these being used as digital billboards," Holmes says. "That could really help advertise our indepen- dent movie." –Barbara Robertson Stereo 3D at Home

• Cover