3D shooting and editing

[elmuz]

Hi all,
I was looking around for guides on how to shoot/edit 3D video. If you could suggest me any article or guide I'd be thankful.
Basically what I'm going to do is filming with two identical cameras on tripod a quite static scene. I'm definetely a newbie about it...
I was looking for:
1) Shooting angle between camera in relation to the subject distance, and everything concerning safe margins/distance in order to avoid distorsion...
2) A tutorial/guide for Premiere in order to create an anaglyph video...

Do you know any resources?

elmuz

[guns1inger]

A quick google search comes up with

http://digitalcontentproducer.com/cameras/revfeat/3d_cheap_0715/
http://magazine.creativecow.net/article/stereoscopic-3d
http://3dvision-blog.com/premiere-pro-cs5-stereoscopic-3d-video-editing-with-dave-helmley/

And plenty more. Try dropping shooting editing 3d video into a google and having a read.

[Cornucopia]

elmuz,

Alot depends upon your shooting style & topic, and upon your budget.

Do you already have either?:
A. A stereoscopic camera (like Panasonic AG-3DA1 or Fuji FinePix W3)
B. A standard camera with a Stereo3D lens adapter device attached (like NuView or Canon's)
C. 2 standard MATCHING cameras mounted in such a way as to get (very) slightly differing views (commonly side-by-side or angled with beamsplitter/mirror, but there are other ways )

If this is all new to you, and your budget is REALLY LOW, I'd suggest the Fuji FinePix W3 if you don't already have the 2 cameras. If you do, there are somewhat inexpensive specialty mounting plates to set up side-by-side shooting (I can even give you specs for you to mill your own - I did). When starting off, side-by-side versions of 2cam are much simpler to learn.

In addition to all the usual stuff that needs to be set up for a monoscopic shoot (focus, white balance, etc) you have 2 very important things to consider in a stereoscopic shoot: Inter-camera image ALIGNMENT and SYNCHRONIZATION.

The alignment is painstaking, but can be done, especially if you have test cards and a reference viewing monitor (hopefully being viewed stereoscopically). EVERY thing needs to be aligned except the horizontal placement.

Synchronization is much harder unless you have Pro cameras that have Genlock. Look into the SteFraLanc to see how to best sync non-pro cams.

I suggest you try shooting parallel and orthostereo (exact eye distance), if you can, first to get used to it before venturing to hypo- (smaller than eye distance) or hyper-stereo (larger than eye distance). Since that distance is pretty small anyway, you probably need to start with smaller cams. Once you understand parallel shooting, try converged (toed-in) shooting. Start with the 30-to-1 rule (interaxial distance = 1x, Main foreground subject distance = 30x).

That's enough for part 1. I'll talk more about editing later tonite...

Scott

[Cornucopia]

Part 2.

There are a number of things to consider with editing S3D. Some of them, such as StereoGrading to avoid excessive Parallax Disparity with the display or avoid Window Violations and to sculpt the changes in depth range and Virtual screen distances, are not for novices.

***

Therefore, you'll want to do a more simple grading prep, adjusting any alignment problems which weren't covered in shooting (that's why I mentioned its importance before). A good freeware tool for this is StereoMovieMaker. It even has some helpful autoalignment tools.

Exporting your "prepped" separate dual intermediate files from SMM, your best next bet as a novice would be to use the Proxy-Replacement method in your editor. This is where you put all your LEFT files in a "LEFT" folder and all your RIGHT files (being named the SAME as your LEFT) are in a "RIGHT" folder. You then edit in a standard (monoscopic) process. Save your EDL. Render/Export your LEFT master. Then, close out the application.
In Explorer, SWAP the left & right folders.
Then, open the app again, allowing the app to redo the thumbnails & metadata. It's thinking it is using the LEFT files still, but since it isn't, you want to make sure it fully understands them (the RIGHT files). Since you already have the finished EDL, you just Render/Export your RIGHT master.

Now, you could reload both the L+R in a Premiere template that provides a 50% overlay with color channel masking on each layer (Red & Cyan, etc), but it probably is easier (assuming you don't need any special Premiere export format features) to just load both L+R back into SMM and pick anaglyph output.

From that point, you can use nearly any app you prefer for converting/encodign/compressing to your final format.

***Note: the above assumes your L+R are already completely synchronized (like I mentioned it's importance before). If they aren't, you need to fix that first. Load your raw L+R files in pairs to Premiere and use the 2-layer 50% overlay method like I mentioned (though you don't really need the color channel masking here) and LINE you files up in sync with some obvious marker (you are using a clapper aren't you!!???) and then trim head and tails for each so that they are identical in time of origin and length. Export each to a good intermediate format with identical specs. Then go back to my 2nd paragraph...

Clear as mud, eh? And lots of extra time spent (and more intermediates)!!

It gets better when you start acquiring better tools (think $$$).

That's enough to get you started. Let me know if you have more Q's...

Scott

[Cornucopia]

Part 3.

If you can, preview, view and review as much as possible IN 3D. Use anaglyph if you have to (like there's little alternative for you budget or something). I've gotten quite good at the cross-eyed method, so I rarely use anaglyph when I dont have my active or passive glasses. I don't like the inter-occular color disparity of anaglyph anyway.

I suggest getting Mendiburu's "3D Movie Making: Stereoscopic Digital Cinema from Script to Screen" (though I think his ideas and suggestions miss out on some clever techniques, there isn't enough thought to the future, there isn't anything about the semiotics/language/syntax of 3D vs. 2D, and it's already out-of date by not really covering Home3D and BluRay3D).

Scott