G-Force

[cybereality]

I just got back from seeing Disney's G-Force and I have to say, I was impressed. Honestly I wasn't expecting much from this film and I went to go simply because I go to every 3D movie release (just to support the industry mostly). So going in I was expecting the movie to be crap, but I was pleasantly surprised. First off, there were some cool previews and all of them were in 3D. There was an animated film previewed that I never heard of (can't remember the name now). A preview for "Cloudy with a chance of meatballs" (my favorite children's book) which looks decent. Then there was "A Christmas Carol" which I had seen before. Then they had the Toy Story 1/2 in 3D which looks awesome. The trailer had some really impressive out-of-screen effects. And finally a preview for Tim Burton's 'Alice in Wonderland' which looks really good.

Getting back on topic: The 3D effects in G-Force were great, I'd even go as far to say it had the best 3D out of any recent movie release I've seen. Some films, like Coraline in particular, had a flat look to them and some scenes might as well have been in 2D. In G-Force, on the other hand, there was not a single shot where there was any doubt as to the fact you were watching a 3D film. This is even all that much more impressive to know that the live-action footage was converted to 3D in post. I tried to look for flaws, but there were none. The 3D conversion process was nearly perfect and it looked just as good or better than some true stereoscopic material I have seen. Even in scenes where you were looking through glass (like a car window), large crowd scenes, or intricate details like stairs with dozens of poles supporting the handrail. The CGI 3D effects were also pretty good, with some nice out of screen effects throughout the film and some clever tricks where objects penetrated the letter-boxing while coming out of the screen. Overall some really good depth throughout the film and hopefully this movie has raised the bar in what is possible with a 3D movie and also proved, without a doubt, that the 2D->3D conversion process is a viable option.

In terms of the actual movie itself, well the voice-acting was top-notch. There were a few funny parts, but it was mostly a kids affair. Not too much adult humor in there, but what do you expect? The plot was pretty generic, but passable. Basically it was a bootleg Mission Impossible type scenario where a faux Bill Gates plans to take over the world with a special microchip embedded in every consumer electronic device. Not original by any means, but still mildly entertaining. All-in-all a decent experience overall. I definitely enjoyed it more than Ice Age 3, that's for sure. Even so, had this film not been in 3D I seriously doubt I would even have bothered watching a preview of it. So I guess the studios are right: 3D is a motivator to get people back into the theaters.

Anyone else see this movie? What did you think?

[clydd]

Cybereality,
Unfortunately i wish i could share the same opinion as you on the subject.
I found many flawed conversion moments in the film. And if I had the luxury of being able to pause and rewind I would no doubt find more.

I took some time to write my observations if anyone is interested:
http://www.slideshare.net/clydd/2dto3dconvertedmovies" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Although supposed to be just an overview and observations, you can skip some pages if it's too boring.

Kind Regards.

[phil]

Excellent doc clydd!

That's very useful info for game developers too. Thanks for sharing it!

Just out of interest, were you as irritated as I was about the light glares in Up that had the same pattern of streaks in both eyes?
I'm no expert, but to me that looks totally fake and unsatisfying. It's one example of an effect where stereoscopy can do even more more for us than providing depth - it can give us a real instinctive illusion of a sparkling lightsource. Or, as was the case, not

[clydd]

Hi Phil,
Thankyou for the kind words.
about UP, i'm ashamed to say I have not seen it yet I heard that it has overall excellent use of stereo, and I will not doubt that considering I have (non personal) knowledge of the people involved in depth grading supervision of the movie.

and since it was stereoscopically rendered from start to finish, I expect it would be great anyhow.
Surprising that you say the lens flare (im assuming thats what u meant) were completely identical? As it was surely ray-traced (unless maybe not).

But even then it would be very hard to judge that it's really identical unless you could freeze frame it.
still I look forward to seeing this movie now although its stopped playing at the cinemas here (Dubai)

Regards
Clyde

[phil]

Don't get me wrong, Up is a beautiful film that I enjoyed from start to finish (only twice so far) and totally recommend.
I just remember seeing one or two sun reflections, with streaks radiating from them, that looked billboarded because the streaks matched in each eye (or at least, were far too similar to look like the entoptic streaks* that we're used to seeing in real life).

But it's a fairly pedantic detail... and maybe they actually chose to make it look that way for some good reason, who knows. 8)


*trying to sound clever

[cybereality]

Cybereality,
Unfortunately i wish i could share the same opinion as you on the subject.
I found many flawed conversion moments in the film. And if I had the luxury of being able to pause and rewind I would no doubt find more.

I took some time to write my observations if anyone is interested:
http://www.slideshare.net/clydd/2dto3dconvertedmovies" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Ok, cool. I read the document, and I do agree with you in general. Directors/Producers should be aiming to shoot in 3D from the onset of production. However I disagree that conversion is not a viable option. I did not see Harry Potter, but the conversion in G-Force was top-notch. Maybe they did not convert every spec of dust on the floor into 3D, but the overall presentation did look genuinely stereoscopic. In some cases the depth looked even more impressive then some native footage I have seen in other films. In particular: the party at the rich guys house (first scene of the movie) looked very good. The whole crowd of people were in 3D, the translucent glass look correct, the bars on the stairs, etc. Also the establishing shots of his mansion looked nice. The main car chase scene was nicely done (including the reflections on the windows) and looked more impressive then say the chase scene in Bolt, which was a native stereoscopic film. Also the close-ups with the live-action actors looked really good, with depth in the nose/facial-features (ie they were not just cardboard cutouts). There was even a scene near the end where they run through a grass lawn (right before they jump in the car tire) and the grass looked correct. Overall a top-notch conversion and I had no complaints.

That said, I would much rather the studios produce true stereoscopic films, so I don't want to give the impression that 2D->3D conversion is the be-all-end-all. You are still going to lose information you will never get back and even the best artists in the industry with the best AI-algorithms will not restore. It also seems like a whole lot of work when you could have just used 2 cameras to begin with. However I think there is a place for 3D conversion. Namely in the fact that we have over 100 years worth of 2D video material (even more for photography) and all that could benefit from quality conversion. You see, I want to see S3D take off, and honestly we don't have enough content at-the-moment. Television stations like Sky in the UK want to start 3D broadcasts as early as next year but with what content? If we have good conversion software/techniques then we can raid the vaults and obtain a sizable amount of content in very little time. Classic movies can also have a broader appeal than unknown new IP, so doing a conversion for something like Star Wars (and releasing it *only* in 3D) could be very successful. I just don't think you should be so quick to discount the usefulness of post-process 3D conversion.

And in the interest of full-disclosure I should mention that I am actually developing 2D->3D conversion software myself (basically a freeware version of the proprietary software used to convert those films) so I would very much like to see the 2D->3D conversion process validated. Not sure if that biases my opinion, but I thought I should mention it.

[manicrabbit]

Hi!

I actually enjoyed G-Force and also UP. However I am not too technical and not really well trained in 3D yet so I cannot comment negatively about anything.

[clydd]

HI Cybereality,
I like your point of view as well. And I am completely all for using 2d-->3D conversion for older blockbusters and even older classic films for the "novelty" value.
I probably have mentioned this in the document someplace.

However the reason for that document is for one main purpose: Some of the Biggest COnversion Studios are WRONGLY either directly or inderictly telling Hollywood Directors and Marketing teams out there that their new 3D films SHOULD be shot in 2D and converted later.

This stinks of vested interest on the part of these Conversion Studios and also plays on the Laziness or stubborness of cinematographers who do not at this stage want to learn anything new (stereography) and so are subscribing to the 2d -->3D thing.

It gets much worse, these people then go one step further and say conversions are Superior to shooting in native 3D! (this is not an exxageration on my part but a documented fact).
One of the biggest myths that they have spun is, that shooting in 3D is prone to giving people headaches due to the fact that "depth" is created at the shooting stage, and they claim that in 2D-->3D conversions, depth and "viewer comfort" can be done later.

..What they fail to recogninze is, that by giving a Carte Blanche to Directors to shoot in 2D, the movie IS shot for 2D .. i.e with all the scene changes, cuts, etc all happening FOR 2D.
This is a greater source of Nausea, Audience Discomfort and other things than actually visualizing and shooting in 3D on set. When they "try" to control this after the 2D film has been shot ... what you get is the "flat" look 2D that some audiences complain about even in IMAX. (because they have compressed the 3D budget to an extreme)


Naturally, these conversion houses know nothing about (ior if they do then they are hiding the info from directors) about Parallax offsets, Floating Windows, proper stereoframing while shooting, and of the many hardware tools already out there that can visually warn the Cameraman of "bad" parallax.

I wish you the best on the Soft you are writing. I still say yes - These kind of tools are much needed! as, if you shoot in stereo 3D, and you do find that something is amiss you can at least have the chance to correct *that scene* with conversion.

What I'm against is blanket "shoot in 2D convert in post approcach"

Regards,
(Ps. I used to create 2d - 3d conversions for the past 6 years .. but that was because there was no alternative for Autostereoscopic 3d screens)

[cybereality]

There is an article on PopularMechanics that gives a rough overview of how the guys at In-Three did the G-Force conversion:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technol ... 25700.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Clydd: If you go to the In-Three website you will see that they are not saying that conversion is the right fit for every situation and even recommend filming with a dual-cam rig for certain content: http://in-three.com/multimodegen3dcontent.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.