3D Gaming*

[Arwin]

Another interesting problem with 3D is subtitles. My English is near-native level and I never look at them, but if you watch a movie (same for a Game with subtitles) in 3D, you have to put the subtitles somewhere in space. Now we already learnt from Game UI that you shouldn't put it at the plane of the display, but always a little in front or (preferably) behind it. From talking with people who do need the subtitles however, they have some issue with it.

The biggest problem with subtitles in 3D is that you actually look in the distance and then back to the subtitles. This is far more tiring in 3D than in 2D because in 2D you keep looking at the same plane, just at different parts (they have done tests where you can see a graph of people looking at a movie with subtitles, and the movements are quite impressive - even people who say they don't look at subtitles look at them quite a lot, apparently, at least in 2D).

It's going to be quite tricky to solve this one, I think for 3D, particularly since subtitles are more or less generic. They may have to make the depth of the subtitles controllable, bringing them into the front or the back more depending on where the focus of the movie is. E.g. if you have a voiceover narrating over a panning vista shot, put the subtitles in the sky at a fair distance. If you have a closeup of one or two people talking, then put them all the way in the front. Right now though Bluray allows control over where to put the subtitles in the x-y space (which I think together with the hi-def fonts is a great and underestimated improvement of BluRay over DVD), but I wonder if they put an option for z location in the 3D spec.

 

[tabs]

Avatar had subtitles at some cinemas. I never saw it at one of those, but it would be interesting to find out how they tackled that problem there, but I can't find any 3D screenshots of it.

 

[Arwin]

Good point - Avatar had a few sections where they speak 'native', didn't they? So I must have watched the subtitles there. Both 3D movies I've seen had it, and they basically had the subtitles at a fixed position in space, but they didn't bother me much. I thought that was because I just don't look at them much, but maybe you also do get used to it quickly anyway. Will have to try another movie soon.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Yes of course, it could be pretty awesome. It will either halve the framerate or the resolution though. And you'd need glasses capable of only showing half of the images.

In some cases the player will be seeing more black than image, no? Vertainly 4 player on the same screen would be one frame shown, 3 occluded for all players. 1/4 brightness, and perhaps more notable flicker.

Good point - Avatar had a few sections where they speak 'native', didn't they? So I must have watched the subtitles there. Both 3D movies I've seen had it, and they basically had the subtitles at a fixed position in space, but they didn't bother me much. I thought that was because I just don't look at them much, but maybe you also do get used to it quickly anyway. Will have to try another movie soon.

Something that always bugs me with subtitles is that they sit at the bottom and you have to stop looking at what's going on in order to read them. How's about subtitles that are local to the speaker, near their head (I think the TV series Heroes did this) at the same visual depth? Viewers would to some degree naturally look at the speaker for facial clues.

 

[Arwin]

Something that always bugs me with subtitles is that they sit at the bottom and you have to stop looking at what's going on in order to read them. How's about subtitles that are local to the speaker, near their head (I think the TV series Heroes did this) at the same visual depth? Viewers would to some degree naturally look at the speaker for facial clues.

Yes, this is why I liked BluRay - BluRay allows you to place subtitles whereever you want. It's not used that much yet, but you see it happen here and there. And yeah, this would be why I was interested to see if BluRay 3D supports placing subtitles variably in the depth plane as well as x-y.

 

[patsu]

Thanks to slider, finally found a 3D Monitor: http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/19/asus-23-inch-vg236h-3d-monitor-gets-reviewed-pricey-but-a-rea/

On sale now for a penny under $500 (which includes the complete $180 NVIDIA 3D Vision kit), this 1080p display has also managed to hit the test bench over at Hot Hardware. Critics over there found that it was amongst the nicest looking TN (boo) panels out there, and that the third dimension had no issue popping out on command.

Now, make it bigger, like 27" or 30".

 

[ERP]

Thanks to slider, finally found a 3D Monitor: http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/19/asus-23-inch-vg236h-3d-monitor-gets-reviewed-pricey-but-a-rea/

Now, make it bigger, like 27" or 30".

Acer, Alienware and LG make monitors with the same panel.
It's marginally better than the panel in the older 22inch Monitors by Viewsonic and Samsung.

 

[patsu]

I see. I was told later that the Acer SKU does not have HDMI. Is there a 27" - 30" 1080p HDMI 3D monitor on the market today ?

 

[ERP]

You're right, the Acer doesn't have hdmi. You should make sure that you can actually use 3D over HDMI on the ASUS. I believe the others require a dual-link DVI connection.

This statement in the press release leads me to believe it can't do 3D over HDMI

" as well as Dual-link DVI ports for 3D playback."
Confirmed from Amazons page
1 VG236H’s 3D feature can only be activated via Dual-link DVI cable connection with a NVIDIA 3D Vision Kit, a compatible NVIDIA-GPU graphics card, a PC with Microsoft Windows Vista/7 OS, and NVIDIA 3D Vision drivers installed. Moreover, the resolution/timing must be set at 1920x1080@120/110/100Hz.

There is nothing that big with 3D support at the moment. So far we've seen two panels/electronics combos about a year a part, unless PC 3D market suddenly takes off it might be a while.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Something that always bugs me with subtitles is that they sit at the bottom and you have to stop looking at what's going on in order to read them. How's about subtitles that are local to the speaker, near their head (I think the TV series Heroes did this) at the same visual depth? Viewers would to some degree naturally look at the speaker for facial clues.

Fansub anime releases sometimes take the liberty of placing subtitles in varous places. Usually around the edges of the screen as they don't want to occlude what is going on.

So there's a variety of problems with placement of subtitles anywhere but at the bottom.

1. When placed at various places around the screen, it gets tiresome and difficult to read subtitles, as they are no longer in a predictable place. You can't look around the screen (say at scenery or non-speaking person) and then instantly look down to quick read, then resume looking at the movie. Instead you'll be faced with having to constantly hunt for where the subtitles will appear. Take the time to look around at the scenery (if the Cinematographer is any good) and you'll have no idea where the subtitles might pop up.

2. Placing it anywhere other than the bottom of the screen is going to occlude either action going on or the work of a good cinematographer. Usually the least interesting bits of a movie are going to be at the bottom of the screen.

I suppose as a director/cinematographer you can attempt to craft your film such that absolutely nothing interesting is happening in proposed places for subtitles, but that'll then provide strict restrictions on where actors can be, where scenery can be, what the cinematographer can film, etc...

I fear films would end up much the worse if steps like those were taken.

Regards,
SB

 

[Arwin]

I see. I was told later that the Acer SKU does not have HDMI. Is there a 27" - 30" 1080p HDMI 3D monitor on the market today ?

Nvidia is just in the process of upgrading its 3D solutions to support the new HDMI 1.4 / 3D standards. You can get a device for $40 I believe that you can attach to existing cards to support this - I don't know if there are new cards announced already that do this by default. But it may be worth checking that out, because that may make it even more relevant to hold out for a monitor that supports the same kind of interfacing by default. The big advantage here is that you'll have a 3D system that can be used with both Nvidia PC drivers and glasses, consoles/3D bluray players etc. Would be much better if you could use the same glasses across the board.

I'm not 100% up on the state of things here, but it may be worth checking out.

 

[Simon F]

Avatar had subtitles at some cinemas. I never saw it at one of those, but it would be interesting to find out how they tackled that problem there, but I can't find any 3D screenshots of it.

Just saw Toy Story 3 in 3D and that had subtitles which were easy to read. I was too engrossed in the film, though, to pay attention to what Z plane they put them in.

Having said that, the end credits also used different Z depths for different parts of the text and all of that was easy to read. Perhaps it doesn't really matter that much.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I saw Toy Story 3 last night and it was the first creation in 3D that to me actually benefited such that the 2D experience will be missing something. I was surprised at how much DOF they used, which seemed to be to focus the viewer on what they wanted them to look at, instead of allowing the usual wander-eye 3D viewing. Juddering on fast-moving scenes is still terrible, but hopefully faster framerates in games should solve that. Lack of brightness is still an issue.

 

[Arwin]

Could you mention what system you were watching on?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Dolby 3D.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

I didn't really see any judder on TS3 at all. Was sitting relatively close to the screen too, but it worked pretty fine for me...

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Mostly it was good, but sweeping shots were troubles. eg. The train scene at the start, panning right to left. There was another scene I can't recall, but I made a conscious observation that the zoom into the screen was very smooth, but when the motion switched sideways, suddenly everything was doubled up.

Laa-Yosh - what do you think about the use of DOF in 3D? It seemed quite natural when viewed, but then breaks the user's freedom to explore. I noticed a couple of scenes where I was looking somewhere, it was out of focus, and I realised the creators had a particular place they wanted me to look, which felt a smidgeon contrived but did make those scenes very well 'photographed'.

 

[patsu]

Nvidia is just in the process of upgrading its 3D solutions to support the new HDMI 1.4 / 3D standards. You can get a device for $40 I believe that you can attach to existing cards to support this - I don't know if there are new cards announced already that do this by default. But it may be worth checking that out, because that may make it even more relevant to hold out for a monitor that supports the same kind of interfacing by default. The big advantage here is that you'll have a 3D system that can be used with both Nvidia PC drivers and glasses, consoles/3D bluray players etc. Would be much better if you could use the same glasses across the board.

I'm not 100% up on the state of things here, but it may be worth checking out.

Thanks for the tip. I was looking out for either Hdmi 1.4 or Display port monitors. Is there a hdmi-to-display port adapter ?

 

[Laa-Yosh]

DOF is completely independent of 3D in my opinion, an artistic tool that the director may decide to use depending on his/her goals. It's a physically based effect which would be impossible to counter with a real 3D camera, so it makes sense to use it in CG as well. I don't recall finding it disturbing in any scene... Then again it's a matter of personal preference I guess.

 

[Arwin]

I didn't really see any judder on TS3 at all. Was sitting relatively close to the screen too, but it worked pretty fine for me...

You guys may have seen it with different projectors. I think some projectors support higher framerates for Movies, and some rendered movies are available also in a 60fps version? Not sure, but I recall reading something about this.