Warp wrote:
>   Btw, did you watch it in 3D? It was the first 3D movie (of the modern type)
> I watched, and it worked surprisingly well. Better than I expected.

Yes, we did.  We got to the theater at 6:30 hoping to see the 8:30 imax 
film, but it had sold out while we were asleep, so we settled for the 9:00 
regular digital 3D movie.  Pretty good 3D, yes.  They've finally mostly 
gotten over 3D-just-for-3D's-sake kind of scenes. (Every movie seems to 
still throw in one or two gratuitous such scenes, tho, like the arrows in 
this one.)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Forget "focus follows mouse." When do
   I get "focus follows gaze"?

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"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message 
news:4b4f5ac8$1@news.povray.org...
> I don't mind simple, but cliche got to me. I'm sure you can think of 
> several other well-known stories with essentially identical plots. :-)

Well.. one or two, yeah. :-)

> Agreed. I almost never see a long movie without looking at my watch, but 
> I'll admit there have been a handful like that. Indeed, I think that might 
> be one of the reasons Transformers2 was so enjoyable while still being 
> utterly stupid at the same time. :-)

I really liked Transformers 2, although most of the time I couldn't tell 
whether it was the good guys or the bad guys getting blown up. The juvenile 
humor was a nice touch, too; as though they were saying, "Yes, we know 
exactly what kind of movie we are."

> It's definitely a keeper. I'm hoping they actually filmed the scenes they 
> cut[1] and plan to include them in the DVDs.  I also expect this will be 
> one of the first 3D movies available on 3D disk players when such are 
> invented.

I know a guy who is already planning to get a 3D TV as soon as he gets a 
chance, in the hopes that he'll be able to get a Blu-Ray (or some 
equivalent) of this movie whenever it becomes available.

I don't know if the current spate of 3D in cinema is going to be a fad or 
not, but I think this movie did a really good job of showing how it can add 
to the performance without being an in-your-face gimmick (well, mostly...). 
I do wish there was some way to create a screen made up of semi-transparent 
layers (or something) so that 3D films could be done without the glasses, 
though.

--
Jack

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"Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote in message 
news:4b4f7553@news.povray.org...
>  Btw, did you watch it in 3D? It was the first 3D movie (of the modern 
> type)
> I watched, and it worked surprisingly well. Better than I expected.

We saw it in 3D, once on a regular screen and once on I-MAX. I think the 3D 
really added to the picture.

Gotta be careful, though... my girlfriend and I loved it, but her mom and 
sister (who went with us to the I-MAX) are both subject to motion sickness, 
and some of the aerial sequences made them have to take off the glasses. Her 
sister even got physically ill, unfortunately. To be fair, though, this was 
on January 1 and we had all partied quite a bit the night before, so that 
may have been involved.

--
Jack

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Captain Jack <Cap### [at] comcastnet> wrote:
> Gotta be careful, though... my girlfriend and I loved it, but her mom and 
> sister (who went with us to the I-MAX) are both subject to motion sickness, 
> and some of the aerial sequences made them have to take off the glasses. Her 
> sister even got physically ill, unfortunately. To be fair, though, this was 
> on January 1 and we had all partied quite a bit the night before, so that 
> may have been involved.

  I suppose having played first-person shooters for quite many years
accustomes oneself to fake 3D (even though in the movie's case it's a
lot closer to real three-dimensionality as perceived by the brain).

  I think that it's the conflict between something looking like it's
closer or farther than the screen, even though the image really is on
the screen, and thus the eyes focus closer or farther, while still
noticing at some level that the object is not *really* at that distance
because it's just an image projected onto the flat screen. Each eye
getting a different image, creating a very credible 3D effect, helps
fool the brain quite a lot, but I think that still at some level the
brain sees the conflict, which might be what causes the motion sickness
in some people.

  I didn't feel any such thing, though. At certain points it was a bit
difficult to focus properly because it wasn't immediately clear where
to focus, but for the vast majority the 3D effect looked very good and
very real.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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NO SPOILERS IN THIS MESSAGE

Captain Jack wrote:
> I don't know if the current spate of 3D in cinema is going to be a fad

Only after 3D blu-ray is available. Right now, it's big because it's the 
only way to see a 3D movie.

> I do wish there was some way to create a screen made up of semi-transparent 
> layers (or something) so that 3D films could be done without the glasses, 
> though.

There is. You just have to hold your head really still. It's more a monitor 
than a TV, in that sense.

There's also apparently work on a 3D TV using jitter-3D like
(link has a naked butt in one of the images, so NSFW maybe)
http://www.well.com/~jimg/stereo/stereo_list.html
to make for 3D you can view from wide angles. Apparently if you do it at 
just the right speed, you can't see the wiggle.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Forget "focus follows mouse." When do
   I get "focus follows gaze"?

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Captain Jack wrote:
> Gotta be careful, though... my girlfriend and I loved it, but her mom and 
> sister (who went with us to the I-MAX) are both subject to motion sickness, 

I'm told that much of that has to do with the fact that altho it's stereo, 
it's not actually 3D, so there's still only one plane that's in focus no 
matter how you try to focus your eyes. If it bothers you, you have to look 
at mostly the areas that are in focus and try not to watch the scenery.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Forget "focus follows mouse." When do
   I get "focus follows gaze"?

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On Thu, 14 Jan 2010 16:09:18 -0500, Captain Jack wrote:

> I don't know if the current spate of 3D in cinema is going to be a fad
> or not, but I think this movie did a really good job of showing how it
> can add to the performance without being an in-your-face gimmick (well,
> mostly...). I do wish there was some way to create a screen made up of
> semi-transparent layers (or something) so that 3D films could be done
> without the glasses, though.

One thing that I'm wondering about this film in 3D - do they get the 
focus right?  One of the problems I've read about current 3D technologies 
(well, most of them going back in cinemas to the point it was introduced) 
is that the focus is constant - things near and far are in focus, and 
that can induce eye strain because your eyes tend to want to focus on 
specific things, not everything (as I recall).

Jim

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"Jim Henderson" <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote in message 
news:4b4faf1a$1@news.povray.org...
> One thing that I'm wondering about this film in 3D - do they get the
> focus right?  One of the problems I've read about current 3D technologies
> (well, most of them going back in cinemas to the point it was introduced)
> is that the focus is constant - things near and far are in focus, and
> that can induce eye strain because your eyes tend to want to focus on
> specific things, not everything (as I recall).

IMO, if there was an award for getting DOF right in a CG film, Avatar would 
win it. You really need to see it, it's really so well done that it's hard 
to describe, because I can't think of another film to compare it to. The 
film looks like it was shot with real lenses (which it sort of was... the 
built a special "camera" that let the Cameron walk through the CG set, 
"seeing" the plants and setting up his shots using simulated lenses).

There's some great "making of" articles at www.cgsociety.org that show some 
of the work that went into it.

--
Jack

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"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message 
news:4b4fa1b4$1@news.povray.org...
>
> I'm told that much of that has to do with the fact that altho it's stereo, 
> it's not actually 3D, so there's still only one plane that's in focus no 
> matter how you try to focus your eyes. If it bothers you, you have to look 
> at mostly the areas that are in focus and try not to watch the scenery.

I was in Disney World about a year ago, and I went to an attraction called 
"Soarin'" at Epcot. It involves an I-MAX type of screen, but the seats are 
moved out into the air above the floor and close to the screen to make it a 
more immersive experience. Most of the film involves flying shots that seem 
quite real. I found myself a bit dizzy at times, and would occasionally look 
to my left or right at the other audience members to remind myself that I 
wasn't actually aloft. :-)

--
Jack

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I'm glad other people can enjoy it.

Personally, I didn't.  The writing was so offensively bad that I almost 
walked out in the middle.

I've long ago passed the point where I can enjoy a movie just because it 
looks good.  I think the Final Fantasy movie finished that off for me... 
that was the last time that I forgave a movie it's faults just because 
it looked cool.

In all, I shouldn't be surprised at the poor quality.  Cameron's two 
best movies came out more than 20 years ago, and it's been more than ten 
years since his last feature film.  I think he just fell out of practice.

...Chambers

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