www.newsweek.com/id/237110

I don't know if all of you like his movie reviews, but I think he sums up the current 3D market pretty well.  It has one "good" film (Avatar) and a lot of other ones were 3D was added on (poorly)  to get more money out of the movie goer.  I saw how to train your dragon yesterday in 2D.  I got an early show.  I saved myself about 7 dollars (2 for early show, 5 for not having 3D).  Guess what?  The movie still looked fine.  So 2D films still look good and they are cheaper.  I really think that movie industry is trying to shoot itself in the foot by doing a lot of bad 3D... but at least it's better than the old red/green glasses.

This is something I hope doesn't come to the poser/daz rendering market for awhile.  People are already complaining about things not looking right in 2D.  Mat are wrong.  Products are wrong (V4 and all the complaints about her, K4 not looking right).  Lighting is wrong.  Just image how bad it could be if we had a (bad) 3D version to worry about.

But if 3D did start featuring in the galleries, does anyone think that the majority of it will look nice or not?

Have you looked in the galleries recently? there's diamonds to be found in amongst the coal but you have to really search for them.

Actually, everyone I know who's seen How to Train your Dragon in 3D has said it was outstanding, and we heard the same thing about Disney's Alice in Wonderland film.

I saw Monster Vs Aliens at Best buy on one of the new 3d Tvs, and it looked killer!

 I saw both How to Train your Dragon, Alice in Wonderland AND Avatar in 3D. They all looked super IMO. 

That said, I was amazed on all three occasions of how fast the "wow" effect faded.. Right when the movie started you felt like you had things coming in your face.. but 15 minutes into the movie, you didn't really notice it any more. Not because it wasn't there, but I guess your eyes/brain gets used to the idea and doesn't actively notice it.

I'm planning to see Toystory 3 in 3D as well because.. well it LOOKS cool... but I just watched avatar tonight on a regular DVD at home, and it looks great even without the 3D, too :)

Whenever it's available for Poser, we'll probably see a lot of "in yer face" sorta pics.. I have made a few stereographic pics myself (the red/blue kind) and well.. they're fun, but mostly a novelty.

I agree with that Trekkigrrl, spectacular as it was the novelty of the 3D in avatar soon wore off. Mind you, I wish that latest star trk film had been in 3D. Now that would have been something.

The thing that the studios dont seem to get is that AVATAR worked by drawing you in, not rushing out to meet you. Instead, we get these "3D" films that are akin to the last-generation Viewmaster slides, a sort of not quite really 3D but sorta maybe.. when instead it looks, as Ebert points out, like a pop up book.

And I have no doubt whatsoever what the first 3D images in Poser will be. LOL

Thing about 3D films is that directors are finally learning how to make them.

It sounds easy (just replace the normal camera with a 3D one), but it isn't.  For instance, a standard camera technique is to focus (literally) on what you want the audience to look at.  Trying that in 3D is one of the things that cause viewer headaches because their eyes will likely be roaming over the screen, including areas that are out of focus at any given minute, which causes eyestrain because the visual system is trying to compensate for something that it can't compensate for.

The better directors are figuring out you can't do that.  You might have to film a scene with an infinite focus range, just like reality is.

I've always enjoyed 3D products. The new 3D films are more immersive than their 2D counterparts. Even a 3D buff like me eventually stops noticing the effect and gets more into the experience of the movie. Past that point, it's hard to say what specific affect the 3D is having and whether removing 3D would then change the feeling of the movie.

I'll agree with Ebert that great movies, that were never made in 3D, were not diminished by the lack of having that extra dimension. I'd also say that, if they were made in 3D, they would still have been great movies and might have been a bit better had they been in 3D. The elements that make a movie good: writing, acting, and directing, are not dependent on technology. For a movie like Casablanca, 3D wouldn't mean much, but Titanic's scope would look good in 3D and the original Star Wars in 3D would certainly take advantage of the technology to be better. Using 3D, as a gimmick, does not make a bad movie better.

The new 3D movies are doing a better job of keeping the focal point fairly steady. I remember seeing Capt EO at Disneyworld and not being able to see the 3D affect because they kept zooming it in and out of the screen. I probably only saw the 3D effect about a third of the time and every time I started getting the 3D in focus, the movie would shift what I was looking at to another focal point. and I'd lose the 3D again. That's not happening with the 3D films I've been watching lately.

 Yeah, 3D and all computer imaging is ruining Hollywood motion pictures. Did Birth of a Nation or Trip to the Moon need CGI? No, it didn't even need sound or COLOR!!! We should get back to the good old days of making movies and stop using all this technology. In fact we shouldn't even use cameras. They ruin the experience of performance and the business of acting. Instead of paying artists to work seven days a week laboring on effects they should be hiring more actors to perform Avatar live in each city. Those computer people are only trying to trick you out of your money while they sit for days/months in their fancy Aeron wheel-chairs pretending that they do it for the enjoyment of others. If they think its so great they should do it for free.
I know a lot of producers would agree with me about the last part. 

(end of sarcasm)

Of course the illusion "wears off". It has to disappear for the movie to work. You don't sit there aware of watching 24 still photographs flash by each second. If you did you would never get involved with the story. 

Do be clear I'm not trying to elevate Dr. Tongue's 3-D House of Pancakes as high art. But I am surprised to hear such a negative outlook on the biz inside a forum for computer graphics. 
 

Small bit here...

The absolute best movies IMHO always had the following bits in common:

* An excellent story to back it all up
* Competent use of lighting
* Good composition in every scene (or at least the vast majority of them)
* a rhythm - that is, the story is carried at a good pace (see also why most of the 2nd book of LOTR was removed from the movie series)
* an avoidance of over-stimulation - that is, you give viewers time to recover in between intense scenes of drama, action, or whatever. It also allows build-up.
* sound (usually present, but IMHO not always necessary) matches pace and mood.
* enough believability (no, not probable, but always in some way/aspect/condition possible) to suspend disbelief, even if only for a little while.

Now the crap, campy movies that I love ever-so-dearly? I love them because they go out of their way to violate as many of these bits as possible, but you always know that up-front, and pretense got thrown out the window long, long before the opening credits. :)

But, okay... look at those bullet points up there again. Notice that gimmicks aren't needed or necessary? Yeah, thought so.

Sometimes, good ideas can be strangled in very short order.

Does anyone else remember the 'Matrix' spin-move thingy? Remember how when you first saw it, it was like "holy shit that was cool!", but as world+dog incorporated it into their own releases, it just looked like crap? 3D is a lot like that. You see it used competently, and are impressed. World+Dog tries to cash in on it, even when it doesn't make sense to do it... and suddenly the technique is crap.

Okay, how about that voice-shifting thingy that was originally used in a Cher (I think?) song a few years back? Now every bit of unadulterated crap that oozes out of the recording industry's festering anus includes voice-shifting, to the point where figuring out lyrics would compare to cracking Project Ultra back in WW2, and any sense of melody got shot in the gut long before the microphones got warmed up. You get to the point where every song with that technique in it grates on the ears. (Note that I'm not a Cher fan, but I thought the voice shift thing was pretty cool).

Point is, there is a bit of danger in over-use, poor use, and using it to cover up crap cinematography (or audio, or whatever).  It happened with 3D back in the 50's and 60's, back when 3D required funny paper glasses with red and blue 'lenses'. It may well happen again.

I liked the 3D in Avatar, it does enhance it because Cameron didn't go crazy and tacky with it, but used it as a tool, compare the two versions.
it's just his film SUCKED beyond visuals and some acting, as the plot was dire dripping blue moldy cheese slop! :/

"Blade Runner" is, IMHO, the greatest film ever made, good 3D would have nehanced it as it's os incredibly immerive, it would have been sensory overload and go down in history for it's power.

However, you sure don't NEED 3D all the time
COmpare "The French COnnection" espeiclaly the chase scene, to most recent films
French COnneciton blows the dickens out of them, it's raw, rough, real, drag syou inand visceral.
Modern films are so damn slick it's like eating plastic. Everyone's perfect pretty, camera work is so smooth and film looks so perfect, ugh.

Look and listen to the great actors of cinema. they had incredibly rich voices, real interesting HUMAN faces, not gawd damn Barbie dolls.
Grrr.

want to hear and see a fantastic actor who never got the recognition he deserved?
Valentine Dyall.
damn what a voice.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j88a_2NE0UM

go to about 3 minutes in, he plays the doctor (which for those who know..is ironic hehe)

sorry, frequent rant of mine ;)

what i believe is that the 3d effect is designed for a limited range of interpupillary distances
amd a limited range of depth-of-focus and lens accomodation, hence it can only work (as currently
designed) for a portion of the viewers.  the others either won't be able t see it, or they'll get head-
aches and eyestrain.  hence it's necessary for the shills to inflate its potential, even if
it's not going to work for some unknown fraction of the population, because of the huge sums
of cash involved in forcing the public to buy into it.  like the real estate bubble or the south seas
bubble.

My big problem with it is that there are a few instances like CGI where it might have some value, but everyone is rushing into it where it might not be appropriate or even detract from the film.  Avatar looked fine but I've heard movies like AIW and the CotT remake suffered in their 3D incarnations. 

Re: Blade Runner...

Nah - at least not in Ridley Scott's version. There's no way to improve on it IMHO (in spite of numerous attempts by studios to try with "remastered director cuts", the 'alternate ending', etc).

Now a lot of SciFi could probably use it, but not as an end in itself.

 Whether it's the Matrix-spin, bullet-time, jumping to Light-speed or even
Alfred Hitchcock's dolly-in while zooming out effect
they will lose their surprise once you've seen them.

Even reality, while completely mind-blowing when experienced for the first time becomes just another day once you've been around the sun a few times.
You're asking yourself, *what next? 

*While there are people working overtime to come up with something you might find stimulating, others are betting it isn't going to be in a movie.

We've seen a slew of reality shows created to break the predictability of the dramatized script and a massive growth in games to erradicate the passive nature of watching. 

After that it all just becomes Sports or watching Sports. And the cycle of More/Better/Different continues in the fashion cycle of entertainment.*