Why Is 3D So Bad?
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2018-05-06
·
1,161 words · ~5 min read
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3d video it's one of those things that we're constantly being promised is going
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to be better than ever from hollywood blockbusters that you have to pay an
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extra seven bucks to see in realty to the nintendo 3ds which works without
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even needing those dorky glasses but the consensus among moviegoers and
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gamers alike is that current 3d offerings are more than a little bit
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underwhelming with words like unnecessary distracting and
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sorry nausea inducing used to describe the experience so why is it in 2017
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nearly a hundred years after the first 3d feature film hit the theaters that 3d
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consumer technology is still so terrible
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well it turns out that the human brain is pretty hard to trick into thinking
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that something is actually real and immersive when it's really just a
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projection on the flat surface you see when we look at an object in the
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3d space of the real world
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our eyes are just trying to focus on that object alone but when we're looking
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at a 3d movie or a video game our eyes
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need to stay focused on the screen while they're simultaneously trying to focus
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on the object now because the virtual objects look
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like they're somewhere between the screen and our faces it's not something
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we're all used to doing in the real world and it's a very tough problem for
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our brains to figure out how to resolve and of course the sharply defined edge
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of the screen doesn't help the sense of immersion either meaning the resulting
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3d image looks less than realistic and that's also where the queasiness i
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mentioned earlier comes in so let's talk about some of the problems that
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specifically affect movies the real d branded 3d system that you commonly see
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in movie theaters works with dual projectors and glasses that polarize
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light in different directions for your left and right eye so each eye gets a
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slightly different image to fool your brain into thinking that it's seeing
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something three-dimensional but unfortunately filtering out half the
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light has led to complaints that modern 3d movies are not only unconvincing but
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they're also way too dark to enjoy so given the price a little buyer's
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remorse is understandable home solutions have also been fraught
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with problems requiring bulky powered glasses which you can learn more about
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right up here very expensive television sets pricier
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copies of the same movie or at the very least a halving of the vertical
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resolution so that each eye only sees what it's supposed to
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oh yeah and everyone watching has to look like a dipstick there's also the
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minor matter of how these movies are produced in the first place some films
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are produced specifically with 3d in mind a dual lens stereoscopic camera rig
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that can capture 3d images natively is needed for the best results avatar was a
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notable example of this done correctly and animated films can have this effect
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applied with virtual cameras after the fact now although doing this doesn't
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eliminate all the problems associated with 3d it generally makes for a more
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pleasant experience than the many other films that were actually shot in 2d and
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cheesily converted to 3d later on you
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can think of this a little bit like how video games ported from console to pc
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are so often disappointing which you can learn more about up here well except a
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little worse and speaking of games what about the 3ds
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well thanks to nintendo's use of a parallax barrier which is a series of
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slits placed over the back light illuminating some pixels towards your
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left eye and some towards your right eye there are no brightness issues and you
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don't need glasses but unfortunately the physical slits can severely restrict
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viewing angles which is why the 3d effect doesn't work nearly as well if
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you tilt your screen more than just a little bit when you combine that with
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the system's lower resolution and lower refresh rate than what you get at the
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cinema it isn't surprising that many people were instead clamoring for a
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clamshell style 2ds which of course nintendo ultimately did
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give us and desktop pc gaming in stereo 3d had a similarly short 15 minutes of
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fame in the form of NVIDIA's 3d vision which required a supportive monitor a
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supported graphics card specific glasses and validated games for the best
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experience so it's probably not surprising it didn't take off now with that said with
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the rise of high quality vr headsets like the oculus rift and htc vive
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consumers are beginning to enjoy 3d experiences at high refresh rates
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without flat projection screens that fill their entire field of vision
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helping to alleviate some of the issues we've discussed but with vr tech still
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attempting to catch on with game developers and other content providers i
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do wonder if we'd just be better off waiting for someone to invent a
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real-life version of the star trek holodeck if we really want convincing 3d
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