Why 3D Will Never Ever Work

[Silversurfer]

So why will 3D content never take off? It's not the silly glasses or the lack of content. It's not even that we all kinda hate it. According to Academy Award-winning editor Walter Murch: it's evolution, baby.

Murch, writing to renowned film critic (and prominent 3D antagonist) Roger Ebert, says that 3D's primary failure is our own eyeballs. Specifically, how millions of years of human development have taught them to focus:

The biggest problem with 3D, though, is the "convergence/focus" issue. A couple of the other issues — darkness and "smallness" — are at least theoretically solvable. But the deeper problem is that the audience must focus their eyes at the plane of the screen — say it is 80 feet away. This is constant no matter what.

But their eyes must converge at perhaps 10 feet away, then 60 feet, then 120 feet, and so on, depending on what the illusion is. So 3D films require us to focus at one distance and converge at another. And 600 million years of evolution has never presented this problem before. All living things with eyes have always focussed and converged at the same point.

It's not that we're incapable of this optical trick—which Murch likens to patting your head and rubbing your belly at the same time. It's that it's hard. It gives us headaches. It makes us queasy. Every time we encounter a 3D effect, our brains need a few milliseconds to figure out the dimensions of each shot. Repeated for every edit over the course of a 90-minute film, and our eyes and brains tire out.

If anyone would know, it's Murch; he's the only film editor in history to be nominated for an Academy Award for work done on four different editing systems, and he counts Apocalypse Now and The English Patient among his credits. He's even edited a 3D film! So if his final takeaway is that the technology is "dark, small, stroby, headache inducing, alienating"? I'm gonna listen. Especially when he's got evolution on his side. [Ebert]

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[Likay]

Learning to see 3d and develope the ability to focus on a single plane isn't too hard but it do need to be practiced. Like learning bicycle.
I think he forgets the most important thing though: Immersion.

[cybereality]

You know what? Your all retards. 3D is bad ass! Just because your sorry stomaches can't handle it. I saw Avatar in RealD 3D and it was awesome and looked great! If you think less then you have some issues. Period. The more people invest in 3D and it's movies, the more advanced it will get and soon you won't have to wear those stupid glasses which wouln't be so bad if they were designed to look better and made universal (ie. oakley sunglasses designed to also be used in theatres.) It pisses me off when you rant on something that could change the way we watch movies, drive cars, play games, etc. Stop bitching about it and make it cool so it could evolve and stop comparring RealD 3D to that stupid red and blue crap that doesn't work!! If you don't think 3D is cool then go watch your stupid 2D crap and shut up!

Best. Comment. Ever.

[android78]

this guy makes some very good points... but in my opinion, getting used to the difference in focus to convergence is well worth it. Its not that different to when you start wearing. prescription glasses.
One solution to this would be to dramatically increase movie brightness and wear pin hole glasses. I wonder if anyone has tried this?

[Fredz]

You can learn the ability to accommodate and converge your eyes on different planes, but there is still a physical limit to what your eyes can do. As I've said numerous times on this forum in the past, when the difference between distances of accommodation and convergence is superior to a threshold (1/2 to 1/3 diopters according to researchers) you'll start experimenting eye fatigue or pain.

You can do nothing about it and it's still the major blocker present in all stereoscopic techniques, until it is resolved 3D movies will never give a true to life representation of the physical world.

Still, anybody here (included me) can still attest that this limitation doesn't prevent 3D movies or games from giving us a perception of depth which is a major plus compared to 2D content. But this article raise a very good point (even if incorrectly explained), it's about time the discussion is slowly shifting to real problems instead of minor ones like dorky glasses and brightness loss.

I hope the next points that'll be raised will be centered on other valid concerns, like orthostereoscopy which I guess is what the "smallness" term related to in the article, or the use of off-axis cameras instead of toe-in in live action scenes that give a better representation of reality.

[tritosine5G]

This guy talks about large scale cinema.

Sad but looks like we won't see apocalypse now conversion. I'd get them redraw the entire movie. Look's like everyone behind that movie bashes 3D. Damn.

BTW what the heck is that horizontal strobing? 24hz?

[android78]

BTW what the heck is that horizontal strobing? 24hz?

You know when the camera is panning in the cinema, you see the movement doesn't look smooth? that's what he's talking about... that is more noticeable with 3d. Probably why Cameron is pushing for a higher frame rate now.

[tritosine5G]

Ah well. I have this novint falcon controller now, i can rotate the camera at any speed and 120hz 3D is very good.

To me it looks smoother than 2D 60hz , and eye is less picky about details or... IDK.

[Silversurfer]

this guy makes some very good points... but in my opinion, getting used to the difference in focus to convergence is well worth it. Its not that different to when you start wearing. prescription glasses.
One solution to this would be to dramatically increase movie brightness and wear pin hole glasses. I wonder if anyone has tried this?

good point android 78, I'm glad i submitted this article because i think it's important to hear both sides of the argument which this forum allows us to do.
I always learn something new from the knowledgeable answers here which may be repeated, but that's okay I have the memory of a goldfish due and poor concentration due to my chronic illness and this forum saves me having to wade through long winded Ph.D. papers , or the like, regarding this subject.
also these knowledgeable answers and opinions helps us all to qwell or legitimately be cautious as regards any lingering fears regarding a future 3-D purchase.

[cybereality]

Well the focus/convergence thing is a real issue, and I know I sometimes have problems focusing on things with too much pop-out (its just a double-image). Although if I take a real object, I can focus on it close up. So there is an element where your brain doesn't want to accept it due to the focus/convergence mismatch. But I don't feel this is a valid reason to discount 3D altogether. It is just something we need to improve. There are other technologies that exist, such as holographic or volumetric displays, that do not have this issue. However they are years away from supporting 3d movies or games. But the concepts are out there. Its only a matter of time before we have practical solutions. Would these critics be the same people to say motion pictures would never work, just because at the turn of the century they didn't have sound or color? How foolish would that have been?

[yuriythebest]

**reads article, then throws away all 3d equipment**

[Okta]

Gizmodo... if it wasn't so sad it would be funny. We know you cant see/handle 3d, get over it, the vast majority of the rest of us can and think it looks great. How many anti-3d articles have they posted now?

[Fredz]

Your not fair to them, even if they have quite a bad background history on this subject. It's the first time I read one of their article that isn't complete nonsense and which adresses actual problems with stereo 3D.

Even if it's incorrectly explained, I think it's quite nice that they changed their stance and started using valid arguments. Now I just hope this trend will continue in the future, this field won't make progress if we deny that there are problems.