What it takes to properly convert a 2D movie to 3D
By Ben Drawbaugh 
posted April 8th 2010 11:47AM
posted April 8th 2010 11:47AM
Anyone who saw both Alice and Clash of the Titans will tell you that all dimensionalization isn't created equal. While most didn't realize Alice wasn't actually shot in 3D, reviews of Clash were titled like "the first film to actually be made worse by being in 3D." While the dimensionalization of Alice took four to six months, Clash was done in eight to ten weeks -- as well as being converted by different companies. We can't blame 'em for trying though, as In-Three tells 3DCineCast blog it uses four to six hundred people while wearing 3D glasses 50 to 75 percent of the day, and costs about 80 to 100 thousand dollars per minute to do dimensionalization properly. Which is just crazy as well as makes us wonder how that's cheaper than just using 3D cameras. The good part about doing it in post processing though is it gives the creators more artistic control as the dimensionalization is done by hand, frame by frame. Of course the concern is that people will see movies like Clash of the Titans in 3D and write off the dimensionalization process all together, or worse 3D entirely.
@SolidSnake LOL
@plyx I'll bet 3-D sucks for folks with eye patches.
Also, I think Lucas should focus on getting us HD 2d versions of his movies before he works on 3D, comon Ep III was shot in 1080P back in 2004, its 2010 already...
@Standingfast
George Lucas shouldn't even be allowed to TOUCH the Original Trilogy.
@Dr Blight
Haha, well said.
@Standingfast
Or focus on creating the supposed final three episodes. (e.g., Episode 7: The Return of Jar Jar Binks)
Are there any studies or polls that say how many consumers actually are asking for 3D content? I have yet to meet someone who really cares for it. Just curious.
@xJuice
THANK YOU. I still have yet to have found a single person... on the net, known personally, friends, family, co-workers, who actually are excited about 3D anything.
I wonder how they do this with live broadcasts...
@PlatinumSkeet They actualy Record in 3D using 3D cameras...
@PlatinumSkeet
Damn dumb question of the day -1...
Regarding 3D you just can't compare Alice with Avatar. I really enjoyed the 3D of Avatar. With Alice there was almost no 3D, and if there was it was very hard on the eyes, and at a certain moment even sickening... If you're gonna make a 3D movie, please do it the right way!
"The company In-Three originally formed with the intent of converting classics like Star Wars to 3D -- yes Lucas says he wants to do all six"
BLASPHEMY! I can not believe this.
@Prevacator
What's not to believe? That asshole is looking for every way he can think of to re-release 4-6 to milk as much money as he can out of the franchise. When he's wasting away in a nursing home, he'll approve a Blu-Ray remaster of the original films with no CGI editing, and Han will shoot first. Until that day, we've gotta expect another crummy release with one more "feature" than the last release every 2 1/2 years.
Avatar was way too long and named incorrectly, should have been called what it was Ferngully 3D
How to train your Dragon was a far better 3D experience
@Ruffy WASNT IT! I walked out like "that was so familiar... furn gully" not many people have seen it, but those who have KNOW its a nearly 100% rip off.
@Ruffy
Thats what I'm saying... if you're going to blow up 3D into an event like Avatar, that shit better have a story that rivals Crouching Tiger or Blade Runner, something where people will go, "Oh, this 3D stuff is SERIOUS". Instead, you give them great efx but a cruddy story, people think you're investing everything into the fx and trying to bank off that instead, people then tend to dismiss it as a gimmick to cover up your holes.
And Step Up 3 in 3D? Harold and Kumar 3 in 3D? Re-releasing Titanic in 3D? Making movies like those in 3D takes away from its legitimacy, not give it credibility.
I told all my friends this: Avatar wants to be Star Wars (New Hope) or LotR, but it will be remembered as the Jurassic Park of 2009. Look, take the Matrix. Love it. But where is it now? Do fans do cosplay and clamor for Matrix crap like Star Wars and LotR fans still do today? Nope. You're either legend, or you're last year. Avatar was last year.
@Ruffy
You guys should really start a Ferngully fan club. I knew some 8 year old girls nearly 20 years ago that probably would have signed up then. :P
Kidding aside, Avatar is being accused of borrowing from like 10 different movies. If it takes 10 movies to describe another movie, I think it's done a decent job mixing it up. There's not much new under the sun these days. Almost everything that comes out is a new take on something we've already seen. Personally I think Avatar was able to make movies feel fresh again, even though it was a familiar story.
I've often wondered about how they can take 2D and generate 3D from that as you would essentially have to create portions of the image that don't exist in order to create the other eye perspective. Turns out that's exactly how they do it- They pull out all the elements, paint in stuff in the backgrounds that are missing, and recomposite. The article is a great read- Thanks Engadget.
wow 1,5 Frames per Day per worker......
Saw Up and Alice and felt like I was watching a pantomime with the characters acting in front of a painted backdrop. There was no depth at all except the characters being layered differently to the rest of the scenes.
The falling leaves and butterflies are also getting old.
Use Cameron's cameras or GTFO.
I will gladly avoid 3D. Give me the wondrous 2D art form that cinematographers work hard to produce.
@kjb434
What about the 3D art form that cinematographers and engineers worked hard to produce (like Avatar) so that we can see using two eyes as they were intended; with depth?
Based on the comments I guess I am in the minority here. I originally enjoyed watching Avatar in 3D but found some of it hard to watch (the out of focus backgrounds for example). But watching it in 2D afterward was a disappointment. It was an ok movie but not great.
In contrast I really enjoyed the 3D in Alice as well as the movie (I thought the characters were much better than Avatar). I didn't notice any of that blurry background that annoyed me in Avatar. Plus all the movie previews were in 3D. *grin*
Looking forward to seeing dragons I guess.
PS The theater I go to is IMAX 3D if that matters.
@wobbl
I liked Alice, too - specifically FOR the 3D (the effect on the cat was awesome) and I am in the crowd of people that figured it must have been filmed in 3D. Everyone that went with me to Alice (twice) said they liked the 3D.
I haven't seen Avatar (Fern Gully/Pocohontas comparssions have pretty much put me off the story) so maybe I don't know what I'm missing from "good" 3D or maybe the difference was iMax vs Real3D (I saw in Real3D).
The 3D in the Legend of the Guardians trailer also looked spectacular - I'm in the crowd of people excited for 3D content. Actually, Coraline opened me up to what 3D can do when it's not there just to entertain throwing eggs at the audience for jump effects.
"3D" movies feel wrong to me since the filmmakers still won't let me truly choose for myself which object in the scene to focus on. Avatar had me seriously squirming in my seat when suddenly parts of the screen would be pulled completely out of focus.
Maybe it's my eyes that are faulty, or maybe no one has shown an implementation of 3D technology that validates its existence yet.
I would just like to note that this post could have done with a good editor. Punctuation is lacking and quite a few sentences are confusing. Sadly, this is not the quality of writing Engadget usually delivers. Sorry, not trying to be a troll, I just friggin' CARE.
So true, I didn't even notice that Clash of the Titans was in 3D even with glasses, at least Alice in Wonderland was acceptable.
Amazing that a director would prefer this over a real 3D camera... I would like to know more.
'Alice' was awful.. Truly the 3D was worse than stuff I had seen ten years ago... Avatar I would like to see, but if Alice is as good as you can get with 3Disualisation®:-) then it is truly a piece of crap.
I prefer going to the repertory cinema and watching movies on film, with visible film-grain and all, over head-ache inducing 3D immersion! But I feel it's a dieing tradition - like record players and tube amps - no one cares about the "feel" of film anymore.
Mocha is a pretty cool program btw. If I remember correctly some dude was converting Nosferatu to 3D with the help of it. There was an article in the Imagineer Systems website.
wow I actually thought it was gonna explain the process..kinda lame..
The big difference is in Alice everything was rotoscoped then projected back onto 3D geometry and the backgrounds were cleaned up. Even with that is paled in comparison to Avatar as many things in Alice still looked like 3D cards in space. Alice's 3D process almost bankrupted CafeFX who did a lot of the demensionalization work for any complicated scenes.
Clash farmed out a lot of work to India for roto, the conversion process was done here but they just did 3D depth maps to create the image and they did not clean up the back plates so you often got a double image effect of seeing the original 2D character peeking out behind his 2.5D self.
Personally I think the process is crap. Just shoot the movie 3D, you have as much control and it is much easier to work with 3D footage shot 3D especially using a tool like Ocula from The Foundry.
The reason studios do the 2D to 3D conversion now is just pure greed. Conversion studios overcharge for the work and then outsource a lot of it for slave labor fees and make large profits and the main studios know they will make more money at the box office if their movie is "3D" than if it was just released 2D.
It is like IMAX where it is usually just upscaled 2K and 4K plates.
3D should be kept as proper 3D, with 2 cameras.
Mocha is just roto and tracking software
What is wrong with you guys?
The best 3-D movie by far is "Comin' at Ya!"
I don't know why anyone would pay to see a 2D film "3D-ified". Even with hand control of the process, all they're doing is cutting out bits of each frame and minutely sliding them around to create a parallax effect.
You're getting to see a bastardized version of a movie which wasn't intended to be shown that way. It's like movie colourization and the effect is likely to be just as fake.
@krazygoat
Since you seem to know what you are talking about, I would add that even a movie shot in 3D needs a significant amount of post work just to get the CG elements to work out properly. I know you know that but for anyone else reading its important to point out.
It is interesting that both Alice and Clash used the same basic toolset (mocha, photoshop, Fusion), but the people, quality control, and technical direction were vastly different. Clash outsourced their content to Prime Focus in India. Very poor quality control, and poor technical direction, combined with a very short production schedule hurt the production. Alice (cafefx) was done by people who care but it was all unknown territory so it was painful and expensive. I think the takeaway here is that there is no cheap way to do the conversion and people (producers) should stop thinking that 'for a few more bucks we can generate a re-release' (read: $$) when the reality is that the budgets for 3D should be greater than the budget for the original post work (it is in fact more work, in some cases, a lot more).