I have gotten all worked up for making 3d renders.  I bought some red/cyan glasses and made some basic images using this format. 

The problem?  Well, of course you lose so much in color going this way, and a lot of times it seems like stacked 2-d images, instead of real 3-d.

I don't want to buy a 3d television for viewing stills...

I don't want to play 3d games.

So how can I make and view 3d images on a normal lcd monitor without color loss?  I don't want to cross my eyes.

I'm not against some special glasses, but I haven't seen any that work, based on reviews.

well there is a way that's not too fun but has 0 color loss.

take the 2 original images side by side and put a card between your eyes extending to the monitor.  this is like the way they did it back in the early photography days, or like the viewmasters.  but man!  not fun on the neck or the eyes.  however, no crossing of eyes, so none of that headache.  naturally if you were crossing eyes to see your pics, you'd want to switch sides with them.

i don't feel like any of the 3d's in my gallery seem like stacked 2d images, but i know what you mean.  so so much 3d out in the public is that cheap stacked stuff...especially video covers, posters, stuff like that.

maybe you could use some leading lines in your pics, or possibly less separation. sometimes that helps bring out the curvature of the objects.

also, here is the craziest, most expensive, least practical alternative.  you can order clear lenticular lens paper.  there are programs out there that help to calculate the weave for each particular depth of lens you are gonna use, since you'll have to blend the two images together in strips.  if memory serves, there was a free software to do it a few years ago...there may have even been a photoshop method.  it's been a while since i looked into it.  (i used to do 3d lenticular photography.)  so you weave your image, tape the lenticular lens to over monitor, and kick back. 

the lenticular stuff can be so freakin fantastic when a good photo or cg image is used.  no eye strain period.

there were a few lenticular monitors made a few years ago.  i lost focus of what was going on there.  the move to glasses these tv guys have done is a big red herring.  lenticular is the way to go with this.  glasses will cause eye strain with regular use.  i believe they're doing it deliberately as a lead in to lenticular tvs so they can capture money from the 3d afficianados twice.  don't even get me started about the different formats they use or the cost and frailty of the glasses.  (i still want one bad though : )  )

there was even talk of simulated lenticular lensing in lcd screens at one point, which seems really cool to me. 

there was also at least one laptop a few years ago that had a lenticular monitor.

if you don't mind the viewmaster style you can print your image to slides and order the viewmaster mounting sets.  these are totally pretty, never caused me any eyestrain at all. 

Hey, your stuff is definately coming out Poppier than mine.  What's your technique, if I might ask?

What about 3d movies that use non-colored glasses?  Could the same technique be used on stills?

Nance learns a new word!  What an educational place.  

...I wonder how long until I can slip "lenticular" into a conversation ;-)

Hello,

    The only way to look to at stereoscopic images without using free viewing (either parallel or cross way), without red-cyan anaglyph conversion, without expensive 3D-TV and without color loss is to purchase a folding cheap stereoscope ($ 3.50) for computer use. Here is the link:

http://www.3dstereo.com/viewmaster/lor-pix.html

   You will have to generate two pictures and to combine them in a single parallel pair (left image to the left and right image to the right). The best way to do that is to use a stereoscopic computer program. My preference is for "Stereo Photo Maker" free program. Very easy to use. Here is the link:

http://stereo.jpn.org/eng/stphmkr/index.html

Awesome, ordered!  Can't wait to get out of red/cyan world.

i'm sorry for the late reply william i wasn't around

i shoot at 50 mm (supposedly the human eye focal legnth).  depending on how far away from the subject i am i will separate the image .06 to maybe .1 in x.  of course make scenes deep if you can. 

if you shoot at higher focal legnths then you're not actually seeing things the way people see them and might get some confusion there.  lower focal legnths will look distorted, which is cool when you want it of course.  the longer the focal legnth, the probably larger the eye looking at it.  use a long focal legnth on a city scene to look at it like god might : )

and to check the separation i render each side in flat lined anti alias and combine those.  the lines really really help big time in deciding if your separation is too much or too little.

oddly enough i use a lot less separation than many genuinely professional people do.  there are a lot of 3d movies that give me big time eye strain, and i can never fully resolve certain scenes.  by this i mean spy kids, some horror films, etc.  i like the separation in monster house a lot that is just about perfect.  i'm a big fan of zemeckis anyway, he's doing a good job in 3d.  (i always liked him though, before he did 3d too.  he's just a fantastic director.  check out the scene in contact when jodie foster's character as a child runs to get her father's medecine.  or that opening scene!  just amazing.)  i think people overcompensate big time when making 3d.  you don't have to have a knife stab your eye in every single scene.  the pleasure of 3d is there without jabbing at me.

that viewer kicks butt i'm gonna get it too.

chek it out...if you parent the aux camera to the main camera with some separation and set the window to give you a split window in l/r, then you should be able to see things in 3d as you play with them!  (with that viewer) lenticular, dude!

Hello,

   If you want to generate the image pairs from your scene, you can use my Python script. I also write a movie generator. The most complex script is one that calculate the stereobase (distance between cameras) using the Bercovitz formula. Here the links to all these scripts:

Stereo image generator

http://market.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/details.php?item_id=62715

Stereo movie generator

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/details.php?item_id=63140

Stereobase calculator

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/details.php?item_id=62961

  On the DAZ forum, I also wrote a tutorial to lean cross viewing using the mask method. Here is the link

http://artzone.daz3d.com/wiki/doku.php/pub/tutorials/production/stereo