In the past 12 months, 3D has become the new black in cinema with every major studio releasing at least one three-dimensional film. But for all our CG technology and on-screen wizardry, we’re still forced to cling to our lenticular goggles to see it with, take them off and you’re left with a movie that looks like the cameraman had the tremors. For a while that was also true in the relatively new arena of 3D gaming, luckily for most gamers appearing geeky was nothing new, but now (as MediaKick’s superb and very prolific E3 coverage has revealed) with the announcement of Nintendo’s 3DS device, providing a 3D gaming experience without having to look like Austin Powers seems to be the start of a whole new triple-dimensional revolution.
Providing a 3D image, or (to be insufferably pedantic) autosteroscopy, traditionally used specially adapted glasses which, most commonly through the use of colour filtering on anaglyph (red and cyan) images but more recentely through polarised lenses, block out one image of a 3D film, shot with two very similar but ever so slightly different angles, for each eye. As each eye receives a slightly different image, the brain attempts to marry the two angles into a comprehensible image and the effect is the appearance of depth.
However, this system has always depended on the ability to isolate one particular angle for one particular eye, relying on the glasses to do so. This is a perfectly fine trade-off for cinemas, where you go for the specific purpose of watching a movie and are in a suitably adapted environment to do so, but serious questions have been raised to the quality of 3D films in the home and how much people, who may only casually watch films, will want or use the 3D technology. For example, the increasing number of people who use the internet and watch TV or movies simultaneously suggests that, as 3D technology relies on peoples eyes remaining focused on the images, and behind filtering lenses, it would not be as successful or appealing as it has been in the cinema.
The same can be said for gaming, though it’s much harder to be multi-tasking whilst playing a video game (especially if you’re a man), the growth of so-called “casual games”, as you commonly see for the Nintendo Wii, making video games, as the name suggests, a casual pastime, ridding the world of these headache inducing specs seems like a good idea; the Nintendo 3DS is the first serious attempt at making that happen, by utilising ‘parallax barrier technology’. Parallax Barriers come in the form of a thin and (apparentely) transparent layer that is fitted in front of an LCD screen that is fitted with thin “slits” that filter out an angle to each side so that one eye sees only one angle and the 3D image is perceived. A massive drawback of this is that the full effect is only visible from a very precise angle with an extremely low margin of error, requiring anyone attempting to see a film in 3D to sit as though they are experiencing some manner of rectal insertion. With the growth of games, also announced at E3, to use movement controls, such as Microsoft’s Kinect, this is a totally opposite paradigm to the one sharply taking effect.
The recentely announced Nintendo 3DS uses the same parallax barrier on it’s upper screen to produce a three-dimensional image to the player, and carries all the limitations of the technology, though it does away with the glasses. From observation, no clear effort has been made by Nintendo to combat the disadvantages of using parallax barriers, with Nintendo president Satoru Iwata insisting that the screen angle is perfectly suited for the way the average gamer would hold the device naturally, though this only mitigates the problem somewhat and the limitations are still very evidence. Although, a number of potential solutions, shown off by developers at E3 could be seen on later models of the 3DS; such as utilising the camera, face recognition algorithms and an automatically adjustable screen to constantly move the 3D screen to the correct angle as the player’s head (and thus angle of vision) moves.
It seems that 3D technology is continuing to develop just as any massively new innovation would, it has some limitations but looks very promising. Nintendo has jumped the gun a tad and released the 3DS almost, it seems, as an experiment and a “field test” would do wonders for accelerating the development and understanding of how 3D technology in gaming will be used. But for now, at least, the gamer is stuck with the glasses, unless they want to entirely boycott the upcoming motion-wars between Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft.
As you’d expect, my coursework has severely depleted my reading, moreso than usual, but I have managed to dish up a few quips. Firstly, I have long-since finished Screen Burn by Charlie Brooker and found it to be a delightfully dejected book, despite it essentially being four years of Brooker’s weekly Guardian columns packaged into one book, starting at 2000 so the TV shows he reviews are a tad outdated and exist as a mere wisp in my memory – the first one mentions the departure of Ricky Butcher in Eastenders who, as I understand it, has since returned, left and returned once again. I have since purchased Brooker’s ‘The Hell of it All’ which is the same format but was released this year and opens in 2007, perhaps something I can be more atuned to.
I have since started reading, for perhaps the second or third time, Oranges are not the only fruit by Jeanette Winterson. This semi-autobiographical novels tells the story of a girl who has been a devout member of the Christian faith her entire life because of her adoptive mother, a frightfully narrow-minded person who clings . This girl grows up and becomes attractive to another female member of her church, and the novel deals with her own acceptance of her sexuality with her faith, as well as the complex reactions of those around her. The book has some seemingly over-exaggerated depictions of religious practises, but given that this is based on Winterson’s real experiences, this is likely not overstated – however, the book is not an plain and simple criticism of religion, as the protagonist maintains her faith throughout, but is simply a critique of people taking the teachings of religion, using Christianity as an example, too seriously and the impact that can have. The relationship is, unsuprisingly, tested by Jeanette’s revelation but a glimmer of hope at the end tempers the dramatic events of the book with an uplifting ending.
There are a variety of ways that 3D works, the common feature in all is studios film two different views of the same thing (much how human eyes see objects), then the process that follow depend on the type of glasses that will be used. Some flick the view from each lense on and off continuously so that the eyes keep seeing two different aspects which the eyes will translate into one image and thus 3D. Other ways, including the one I used for my test, include colourising each view if the glasses have certain colours (such as my test glasses, pictured) which used a red/cyan setup. In the latter example, the colour of one aspect is washed out by the lens so that the viewer sees two slightly different views in either eye, again translated into one image by the brain.