Editing in 3D

[DDirector]

OK, I am just doing some school projects in media class, and I was thinking of shooting it in 3D. It will be in red/blue.

Basically its going to be a 5min or so short film. But, I don't know the editing parts.

How do I edit two video clips?

I want to make it in 3D, but also have a 2D version because when the show it to the school, no one will have glasses, but my class will. So, it'll just be something cool. Im willing to learn new things.

So, how do I edit 2 clips for 3D, and also be able to have a 2D version?

Editing Software:
I doubt we will use Final cut.
I have some of my own software, Adobe premium CS4, After Effect

[Stephen Gentle]

After Effects has an anaglyph (red/blue) plugin called 3D Glasses that lets you do that - you wouldn't be able to edit in 3D as far as I'm aware, so you'd do it in 2D, bring it into After Effects, apply the filter and then you'd have to go through and tell it where the footage for the other eye was for each clip.

[Mark L. Pederson]

Basic choices are:

Edit in 2D. Choose one "eye" - edit - then conform the other eye to your cut.

If your two cameras have matching timecode (they should) this is pretty simple.

Avid Media Composer - I saw a long demo of cutting stereo in MC 4.0 at IBC and was totally impressed. I THINK current version of MC supports stereo - but I have not checked. Avid stereo workflow has you make a single stream (side-by-side, etc.)for editing, but holds meta-data of both "eyes" in the MXF - and the NLE can display either eye or stereo during cutting. In the demo I saw - they use Meta Fuse to create the single stream - Meta Fuse is a bit clunky for me - we're gonna use Clipster to create these MXF files.

CineForm Neo 3D plug-in for FCP. I have not tried it - my understanding is that it creates a single stream interleaved (48 fps) - every other frame is left eye, right eye. This gives you full raster for each eye - but you have to work in CineForm codec and the plug in is twice the cost of the NLE.

Stereo 3D Toolbox is a new plug-in for FCP. There is a free demo - it's still on my never-ending "test this asap" list ... haven't got to it yet.

[Campbell Goodwille]

Basic choices are:

CineForm Neo 3D plug-in for FCP. I have not tried it - my understanding is that it creates a single stream interleaved (48 fps) - every other frame is left eye, right eye. This gives you full raster for each eye - but you have to work in CineForm codec and the plug in is twice the cost of the NLE.


Just to clear that up, Neo3D saves one eye as metadata (rather than interleaving them). The decoder then allows you to choose different stereo output options and to do some quite advanced stereo correction which is all saved as metadata and can be used in your conform (though won't be compatible with after effects)...

Suggest you do you edit as normal in Premiere then conform in after effects and use the 3D glasses tool as suggested. You might want to investigate doing the anaglyph yourself (with filters) as you'll get better results than the 3D glasses plugin if you do a properly optimised version. You can use AE to do all the necessary corrections to your footage. If you're unclear on the basics of stereo, then I suggest buying a book about it first as it's a wee bit more complicated than you might think! There are some good ones out there...
Good luck!

[istvanttt]

....

Editing Software:
I doubt we will use Final cut.
I have some of my own software, Adobe premium CS4, After Effect

Tim Dashwoods Stereo3Dtoolbox is a very nice product to use for your purpose. You can not only correct the geometrie and see it immediatly in anaglyph but you can also edit it directly if used as FCP pug-in.

Tim made some nice video-clips to explain the sw. Look if its this what you are interested in.

http://www.timdashwood.com/stereo3dtoolbox/Tutorials.html

Have a nice weekend
Istvan

[DJ R]

Dashwood plugin is great. I wish he would also make a plugin for Color.

[Tim Dashwood]

Dashwood plugin is great. I wish he would also make a plugin for Color.

It would certainly solve a lot of workflow workarounds if I could figure out how to turn on more than one layer at a time in Color.

In the meantime I'm adding a whole slew of new features to Stereo3D Toolbox and should have v2.0 ready in early 2010.

[DJ R]

Sounds Great Tim... Looking forward to any new features. Current version is working very well.

[Dave Blackham]

The Stereo 3D tool box looks good on the demo but I wonder what advantages are tehre in using the neo3D software.

Are either products a viable option for HD 3D online finishing tools or should another system be used ?

thanks,

Dave

[Dave Blackham]

Guys, thanks for the info so far......

Dave

[David Wilson]

I would just like to chime in and reinforce Mark's calling attention to the CineForm 3D products. We are in the early stages of editing a one hour long documentary we shot in 3D using Prospect 3D (just released PC version of Neo3D).

I cannot say strongly enough how (even this far into the editing) this piece of software has been excellent. We use Premiere and are able to see everything in 3D exactly as we edit. It may seem at first that this would not be so important but it truly is. The stereo parameters become every bit as important in making editorial decisions as composition/camera motion etc. and the decisions we find ourselves making are very often dependent on the 3D information.

We shot mirror box side-by-side on our Red so our final image is 1920x1440 for each eye (we want a 4:3 project ratio) and the results thus far are astonishing to us. We had thought our 3D was pretty good out of the camera but the spatial Orientation capabilities of Prospect allow us to make the best 3D images we've ever made and I've been doing stereo work for more decades than I care to admit.

We are using inexpensive Zalman monitors which employ micropolarization and edit wearing circular polarized glasses so we are able to see our results with full color grading in 3D as we go. Once we have a cut we simply export full resolution right and left eye streams from the stereo muxed timeline.

I have not used but have heard great reports about Tim's software - I just felt this discussion was incomplete without calling attention to the CineForm 3D products as well.

I didn't mean this to sound like a testimonial but I've imagined having this capability for over two decades and it seems like a miracle to me.

David

[Rudi Herbert]

I cannot say strongly enough how (even this far into the editing) this piece of software has been excellent. We use Premiere and are able to see everything in 3D exactly as we edit.

Fully agree about Cineform, simply amazing!
About 2 weeks ago I decided to start messing with 3D for the first time in my life and was overwhelmed by how complex everything seemed, but went ahead anyway and downloaded the Cineform Prospect 3D trial version and started playing with a colleague's footage. It was the easiest transition I've made into a new technology, I mean, I was editing and creating perfectly good 3D in 10 minutes. If you want to start working with 3D in the most intuitive way, get Cineform, it is not cheap, but so worth it! I also checked several tutorials from Tim Dashwood about his 3D toolset and it is an excellent option for those on the Mac.


We are using inexpensive Zalman monitors which employ micropolarization and edit wearing circular polarized glasses so we are able to see our results with full color grading in 3D as we go. Once we have a cut we simply export full resolution right and left eye streams from the stereo muxed timeline.

David

Can you be more explicit about this set up, what are these monitors exactly and what model/brand of glasses are these? I've been using the anaglyph option and getting better 3D than it has any right to give, but I'd like to move up the ladder. What display option would this fall under in Prospect 3D, interlaced, what? Thanks.

[David Wilson]

The monitor is a ZALMAN TRIMON ZM-M220W - 22". We paid $250 for our at Frys. The monitor comes with glasses which are circular polarized. Circular is good because if you tip your head you don't loose polarization as you do with linear polarizers. Another advantage is that the widely available RealD glasses are also circular.

One possible draw back to the Zalman monitor is that there is a somewhat specific channel (north-south) from which it needs to be viewed. It isn't terrible at all and the monitor adjusts easily to get your normal sitting position just right for viewing - but it is a consideration.

Yes, the P3D setting for such a monitor is interlace, but now that I've gone on and on about this... I'm actually having trouble getting the Premiere program monitor to sync with the interlace of the monitor. Everything else that I use. FirstLight, Stereoscopic player etc. all sync fine. I'm sure it's something I'm doing wrong.

I'm remarkably happy with the monitor and it is very helpful to see all of the pieces together (stereo, color etc.) but, I agree, anaglyph works amazingly well. There is some color loss, of course. I was talking with the guys at RealD and I was surprised to hear that they use anaglyph to get the 3D all worked out. That was 6 months ago, however, and all of this has changed so fast...

For presentation in our 14 seat theater we are using a (remarkably affordable) Mitsubishi 73" DLP that produces a very beautiful 3D image. These screens require active (liquid crystal shutter) glasses but give a very clear, entirely ghost-free image.

It's a good moment for this kind of image making...

[Rudi Herbert]

Thanks a lot David!

One last question. What sort of graphics card do you yourself use, or one would need to use, to be able to feed the monitor the appropriate interlaced image?

Thanks,

[David Wilson]

Thanks a lot David!

One last question. What sort of graphics card do you yourself use, or one would need to use, to be able to feed the monitor the appropriate interlaced image?

Thanks,

Rudi,

I'm using a quite plain vanilla Nvidia quadro fx560 that works just fine. I'm pretty sure the Zalman has both vga and dvi inputs - I'm using dvi. The miracle to me is the micropolarization of the monitor. There is absolutely no hint of it when using the monitor for standard 2D applications. It only comes into play when you feed it an interlaced signal. If you are very close to the monitor you can see the interlace but at a normal viewing distance it all but disappears.