3D Gaming*

[MfA]

Yeah, projectors do flicker, but a (theoretical) plasma TV with a polarizing filter would not

Hmm? Plasma is not sample and hold ... plasma flickers at 600 Hz. Interleaved LCD with polarization (like Zalman Trimon) would not flicker.

I don't really see what's so bad about flicker though ... I personally never found flicker an issue on CRTs above 70 Hz (and modern CRTs have very fast fall off, so they were actually dark a lot of the time in between refreshes)..

 

[patsu]

Will be running some performance analysis on PS3 3D games this weekend, including these two plus others:

http://is.gd/d7TrM

http://is.gd/d7Tyj

That's a raw HDMI 1.4 3D framebuffer for you!

At some point, you'll probably need to run a usability test of 3DTV + 3D app + 3D controls (Move, Kinect)

 

[patsu]

http://www.multichannel.com/article/454268-DirecTV_To_Launch_N3D_Channel_July_1.php

DirecTV plans to launch what it's billing as the world's first 24-hour 3DTV channel, sponsored by Panasonic, on Thursday, July 1.

DirecTV and Panasonic representatives declined to identify specific programming that will be available on the N3D service before it launches.

Previously, the companies named several programming partners it was working with to supply content for N3D, including AEG/AEG Digital Media, CBS, Fox Sports/FSN, Golden Boy Promotions, HDNet, MTV, NBC Universal and Turner Broadcasting System.

In an interview earlier this month, Steven Roberts, DirecTV's senior vice president of new media and business development, said the satellite operator will initially focus on making sure the primetime block -- 7 p.m. to midnight Eastern, to cover East and West coasts -- "is filled with content that people will want to watch on an ongoing basis."

...

EDIT:
3D cameras from Sony:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/01/sony-nex-5-and-nex-3-can-shoot-3d-panoramas-with-new-firmware/

The Japanese giant has just outed a promised firmware update for its ultra-slinky NEX series of shooters that will allow users to shoot 3D panoramas. Panorama stitching was already one of the touted features on these cameras, but with a little extra software magic they'll now be able to collect "depth information" as well.

Likely a depth-based 3D photo ?

 

[V3]

Pardon my words, but that article is just ... nonsense! It doesn't even read its own links - lazy-eye is not strabismus at all. There is only a specific kind of strabismus that is not directly related to a present physical abnormality that has to be corrected or fixed either surgically or through glasses/lenses. This type of strabismus, furthermore, is treated among others with vision therapy, something for which you could probably even employ modern 3D displays. It sometimes means that one particular eye needs more training, and the other one is therefore blinded. 3D in the form of shutterglasses could even cure this problem as a side-effect, for all we know, because the eyes get the information intermittently rather than at the same time.

There is just no scientific basis behind this link, or even half-decent journalism, if I can learn/confirm all this in just 20 minutes of browsing links through a link they post themselves. Bah.

Well that's hopeful. I went to see the 3D demo today and it was quite funny. Kids around me were wowing to the 3D effects while I was questioning the salesman if my glasses is on or not ? It was some Samsung LED 3D, with a really high price tag.

The glasses were quite slick, when off it has yellowish tint, when on it's like sunglasses, I wish they make the glasses a tad bigger so the frame of the glasses doesn't impede with the viewing experience.

Well onto the my viewing experience, I just couldn't get the 3D effect, I swapped several glasses even with one of the kid and t just don't see any different from your normal TV. Well after the demo vid, they put on Monster Vs Aliens 3D, it looked the same as I've watched it at home on the plain 2D TV. I even try to change my viewing angle and distance but nope, nothing. but I pressed on.

After about 15 minutes watching the movie, I can begin to see depth, its like looking at an aquarium; it was quite weird to be honest. But nothing jump out of the screen and this depth I was seeing was rather intermittent, sometimes I can see it, sometimes it reverted back like plain old 2D TV.

It was really weird. Nothing jump out of the screen, it's like these characters were sitting in a small box, it's just damn odd and felt so wrong, that I couldn't begin to point a finger at what. The intermittent-ness of this depth was really driving me mad.

At best my experience was like playing old 2D games with really nice parallax tricks that give that sense of depth. I wonder if I pressed on longer, I'll see something pop out of the screen. But I stayed there for nearly an hour before I had to leave. The price tag was quite steep to take home the set for experimentation, plus I would probably get the Panny 3D Plasma instead of the Samsung. But I thanked the salesman for the great demo and got his card.

I really didn't pay attention to Image quality but I think the flicker kind of annoyed me momentarily here and there. Overall, it sucks to be me, seeing the joy that those kids around me were having. Maybe when PS3 gets more 3D games out I might jump to 3D TV and see if it can fix my eyes.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Seems to me that you have some serious eyesight issues, you should see a doctor about it. Like your brain switches off one of your eyes or so.

 

[V3]

Seems to me that you have some serious eyesight issues, you should see a doctor about it. Like your brain switches off one of your eyes or so.

Ohh yeah, that I already know. I've depth perception problem. I am just curious if 3D TV can help cure me or not.

See this test

http://www.mediacollege.com/3d/depth-perception/test.html

I always fail this test, I get different result depending when I took the test, sometimes is the left eye, sometimes the right. If 3D TV can fix me, I'll buy a set next week or something because those eye specialists all have tried and failed since I was a little kid.

 

[ERP]

I'm not an opthamologist, but I see one quite frequently.
It's not uncommon for the brain to heavily prefer one eye over the other, it's especially common if you have a convergence problem (lazy eye). Doctors give kids exercises to practice convergence if it's diagnosed early. With adults they either prescribe glasses with a prismatic correction, or tell you to deal with it.
If one eye is considerably weaker than the other, the same thing can happen, but this is usually easily addressed with glasses of an appropriate prescription.

I've wondered if 3d tv's or the like would end up being equivalent to the exercises they give kids, it's certainly true that practise with stereo gaming ups the maximum ammount of convergence that a user can tolerate.

 

[Entropy]

Avatar makes a great point - in the opening few minutes it uses depth of field, which looks incredibly wrong in 3D. In the several hours that follow, Depth of Field never comes back.

DOF is a property of photographic lenses and capture - human eyes, being very wide angle and with a relatively small aperture, just don't have much of it. I have been operated for cataracts in both my eyes, meaning that I can't focus at all. When I wear glasses that focus my eyes on infinity, everything from under a meter or so to infinity is perceived as sharp. ( Of course, people with healthy eyes move their focus automatically as they survey their environment, and with the help of their brains perceive everything to be sharp regardless of distance without even being aware of the little refocusing required.)

The whole point of 3D rendering is to enhance the sense of presence and immersion. DOF, being an artifact of photographic capture, breaks the illusion.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Interesting, Sony may have a harder time trying to sell 3D to consumers in their own country rather than abroad. According to a survey at Kakaku.com (japanese site), 70% of respondents don't intend to buy a 3DTV. Out of those that didn't want to get a 3DTV, 70% said it was due to the requirement of wearing glasses.

Just reinforces my feeling that it's at least still about 3-5 years too early. But it seems the industry likes to go on a 3D push every 10 years or so. This is certainly the biggest push for 3D, but I'm not sure it's goign to be enough just yet.

Also seems, economy might be headed down again here. At a time when business is usually up for the business sector I'm working in right now, there's a lot of companies in the area that are suddenly taking a downturn. Considering this sector lives and dies by the demand generated by tech and automotive industries, it's got me a bit nervous.

If things do go down, there are a lot of companies that might take a massive loss this year due to trying to push 3D.

Regards,
SB

 

[patsu]

It's the half-empty or half-full syndrome.

If you look on the bright side, the survey shows 30% intend/willing to buy. That is good enough for early adoption. You can't expect majority of Japanese to buy 3DTV. The vendors (Panasonic and Samsung) already sold out all their initial 3DTV inventory, and have increased production. Sony only launched their 3DTV recently. It's been slightly more than 3 months old for 3DTV.

On a broader level, 3DTV sets are getting lumped with mid- to high-end HDTV sales. You will get a 3DTV set with or without intention to view 3D content.

The problem with some 3D glasses is that their battery cannot be recharged, and most are uncomfortable. I think we still have some way to go, hopefully the industry are committed for the long term. They have to keep innovating (to seed future growth) even in bad times. It won't work if everyone expects quick bucks. As long as 3D movies continue to roll, kids will build up their viewing habits even in this downturn. With 3DS, they will get hooked even more.

I remember Blu-ray fared worse in early surveys due to the HDM war. I also think that 3D monitor may get substantial attention from early adopters. Like Blu-ray, there will be ups and downs throughout 3DTV's lifetime.

 

[V3]

I'm not an opthamologist, but I see one quite frequently.
It's not uncommon for the brain to heavily prefer one eye over the other, it's especially common if you have a convergence problem (lazy eye). Doctors give kids exercises to practice convergence if it's diagnosed early. With adults they either prescribe glasses with a prismatic correction, or tell you to deal with it.
If one eye is considerably weaker than the other, the same thing can happen, but this is usually easily addressed with glasses of an appropriate prescription.

Yes I'm familiar with some of those excercises, but I just kept switching eyes, my specialist say I just like using only one eye at a time, it's not that one is weaker or anything.

I've wondered if 3d tv's or the like would end up being equivalent to the exercises they give kids, it's certainly true that practise with stereo gaming ups the maximum ammount of convergence that a user can tolerate.

Well you know it kinda work for me ( I could see a bit of depth) even for a moment, if I watch it for 2 hours everyday, I wonder if I'll get stereoscopic vision eventually. I just got to attend those 3D demos more often. I'm really waiting for things to settle a bit before getting a 3D TV set. I'm just too tired to deal with the quirks of being an early adopter.

 

[Entropy]

Well you know it kinda work for me ( I could see a bit of depth) even for a moment, if I watch it for 2 hours everyday, I wonder if I'll get stereoscopic vision eventually. I just got to attend those 3D demos more often. I'm really waiting for things to settle a bit before getting a 3D TV set. I'm just too tired to deal with the quirks of being an early adopter.

Or you could play any number of games with balls, do stuff with your hands that require precision positioning, et cetera. you don't have to sit on your butt watching a screen.
In conjunction with my cataract problems, I lost my 3D vision, first by loosing the eyesight of one eye, and then a couple of years later, the other. While there are tricks you can use (size, coverage, touch, moving your head and so on) in various situations, I found for example playing badminton immensely frustrating since there is often no background to judge size and speed against. Not to mention threading a needle, or trying to do detail glueing where you can't move the object around to find the right spot.

In everyday life though, it was surprisingly rare that I had to reflect on my lack of depth perception.
I imagine that if the problem had been there since childhood, using compensating behavior and simply avoiding activities that require stereoscopic vision would have become more second nature.

 

[_phil_]

V3 : you still can try with anaglyph on your PC.Or cross-eyed.The best might be to test with the software i spoke of earlier, with it you can interactively play with the paralax.

 

[patsu]

DF has another 3D article up:

PlayStation 3D: Performance Analysis
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/playstation-3d-performance-analysis-article

EDIT: Oops, Arwin posted it in the DF tech thread.

 

[Billy Idol]

Yesterday, I experienced 3D TV. Got to a mall, where a Sony worker lurkes around. He showed me (of course using a Sony TV) some 3D stuff: soccer, movie and finally some short clips of games...was non-playable stuff, stored on a 3D demo disc!

I have to admit, that it was really cool. Although the games looked a little bit blurry (he stated that he did not update his player with the newest software...which is the reason the player does not re-produce the real images...so I am not completely sure if this is all right?!).

Soccer looked cool and very sharp with good colors. Although, it seems to me that fast moving stuff...like for instance the soccer ball looked a little bit weird with some kind of ghosting.

The Sony TV costs about 2,800 swiss franks with a new model arriving in weeks.

Is there a common consensus at B3d which 3D TV gives the best quality for gaming?

 

[patsu]

That's the old demo. You should be able to play WipeOut HD and other 3D games now.

We didn't discuss 3DTV quality per se. My personal favorites are Panasonic Plasma, Sony and Samsung (in that order).

 

[Billy Idol]

That's the old demo. You should be able to play WipeOut HD and other 3D games now.

We didn't discuss 3DTV quality per se. My personal favorites are Panasonic Plasma, Sony and Samsung (in that order).

Do you mean the panasonic plasma vt20 ??

 

[patsu]

Do you mean the panasonic plasma vt20 ??

I'll find out tomorrow.

 

[grandmaster]

Currently there's no 3D video playback built into PS3, so any videos you do see are limited in terms of resolution (stereo 720p scaled to 960x1080 per eye). At least that's how I was told to encode 3D video.

This will improve.

 

[Billy Idol]

Currently there's no 3D video playback built into PS3, so any videos you do see are limited in terms of resolution (stereo 720p scaled to 960x1080 per eye). At least that's how I was told to encode 3D video.

This will improve.

Ah!! So the Sony worker was right, when he stated that he did see the original 3D gaming stuff and that it looked like night and days compared to the shown vid (which was indeed rather low resolution with colors off)!

I mean, I just saw some few glimpses of 3D gaming...and I liked it. I can imagen now that this enhances the experience, especially if a game is designed with 3D in mind!!