Do You Have a Secret Immunity To 3D Movies? 495
An anonymous reader writes "Not everyone who fails to be wowed by the latest Hollywood wave of 3D movies is necessarily criticizing the movie or the 'gimmick.' The author states: 'At least 12% of people have some type of problem with their binocular vision but less than five percent have severe visual disabilities, making appreciation of 3D tricky or impossible... For the 12%, two-eyed vision can be improved with supervised vision therapy. If anyone else out there, like I did, suspects 3D is a giant con, then perhaps a trip to the optometrist is due.'"
Alice isn't 3d. (Score:3, Informative)
A simple test (Score:5, Informative)
1. Hold both your arms in front of you with your hands about a foot (0.3 meters) apart.
2. Make fists with your hands.
3. Extend the index fingers of both hands towards each other.
4. Bring your index fingers close together and attempt to touch their tips precisely together.
If you can do it, you can enjoy 3D movies.
If you cannot, go to a vision therapist [visiontherapy.org].
You can also try the above test with one eye closed. You will almost always fail at step 4.
Re:It is a con (Score:3, Informative)
I can't see stereograms but can see 3D movies (Score:2, Informative)
Don't forget eyeglasses effects (Score:2, Informative)
Some people can see 3D just fine with contacts but with eyeglasses only their central vision gets good 3D.
I have good depth perception when I look at something straight-on but I find 3D distracting when wearing glasses especially when I'm not looking straight at it.
The cheesy red-and-blue 3D is even worse with my particular pair of glasses. Chromatic abberation [wikipedia.org] is NOT your friend.
Re:A simple test (Score:2, Informative)
This really only seems like it would work if your arms were different lengths.
Different lengths at random, from one second to the next, even.
Otherwise, my fingers line up whether I have both eyes open, one eye open, or no eyes open.
Immunity, No, Migraines, Yes (Score:4, Informative)
I would love to be able to watch 3D movies, but the parts I want to look at (background action) are always blurred and I walk out of the theater with a head-banger of a migraine. My wife is the same way, except she claims that she does not watch the background like I do. An example of interesting background action would be "Natural Born Killers", not anywhere near a great movie, but the background scenes tell the rest of the story as the foreground limps along.
When 3D is as focused as 2D, then maybe I'll try again.
Re:So-called 4D movies (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Not sure about the hype (Score:3, Informative)
I can *see* the 3-D but it does not "immerse" me any more than 2-D.
I have to disagree, but with some conditions. Watching Avatar in IMAX 3D, I definitely felt that the movie WAS visually more immersive in most scenes than it was in 2D. Several times it almost caught me by surprise when I realized I wasn't looking through some window into the world being presented and was instead just looking at a flat screen.
That said, the 3D image was most effective when used in medium-deep fields. The 3D images of things popping out of the screen (trees, the little camera, etc) was much less immersive (and, in some ways, actually disruptive) while the depth-of-field in wide shots and things like the falling ash and things in the distance was incredibly well done.
Basically, for narrow shots and closeups, 3D doesn't really help immersion, but for medium/wide shots, backgrounds, and environments it's amazing.
Re:Not sure about the hype (Score:1, Informative)
Here is a snippet [findarticles.com] of the joy you missed.
Re:Special 2-D glasses needed (Score:4, Informative)
It makes sense because the colour filters are used to make sure that each eye only gets light from one set of lines on the image; each eye is effectively just measuring intensity of light that gets through the cokour filter of the glasses, and has no need to distinguish between colours.
Re:I have an alergy to dreadful 3D (Score:4, Informative)
My eyes went buggo (real medical term)
Erm, I never heard the term "buggo" so I googled. [google.com] Nothing. So I googled wikipedia [google.com], and guess what?
There is no such word that I can find.
Re:Your brain associates 24fps with film. (Score:3, Informative)