I got an email from a reader asking how 3D movie makers make things feel like they are coming out of the screen. The best answer I can give is that to achieve this effect, you show a lot of depth and dimension when you are actually shooting the video. In other words, have a very distant background, and have the object you want to leap out of the screen positioned a lot closer to the camera. This causes the background to have a narrow parallax effect, and the item in the foreground to have a wide parallax effect.
Here’s a sample video showing the effect, and you will need your red/cyan 3d glasses to see the effect – Check it out! I Got’s me a block of wood Yo! BOOYAH!
httpvh://youtu.be/ekua0h2r8Iw
Below is a screen capture from the video. If you look closely at the tip of the block of wood you can see that the gap between the left/red channel of video and the right/blue channel is quiet wide. This distance makes the object appear close to the viewer. If you follow along the length of the piece of wood towards my hands you will notice that the distance between the red and blue channels narrows. This narrowing gives the feeling of depth and dimension, tricking the viewers brain into thinking I am further back in the field.
If this video was shot in 2D and you wanted to convert it to 3D, the perspective of the parallax (The Wood coming out at you) would be lost, and the effect would not be as dramatic. You probably could rebuild it using something like Adobe After Effects, but it would be a MAJOR MAJOR undertaking. The quickest, and easiest way to achieve this effect, is to create it and shoot it in 3D.
I have been looking at sites and blogs lately that describe how to make a 3D Anaglyph (viewed using Red/Blue Glasses) picture from a 2D picture using the channel mixer in Adobe Photoshop, and I was wondering if this method could also be implemented in Adobe Premier Pro? After a little bit of testing, and finding a few video’s on Youtube about it, I decided to give it a try.
This video is shot in 720p Hi Def, with great audio, and it does a great job conveying what it is like to be so close to one of these fire breathing monsters. Please check out z400hauls other videos too!
To begin, open Premiere Pro (If you don’t have it, you can download a fully functioning 30 day free trial from Adobe.com) and create a new project. As z400hauls source video is 720P at 30fps (Frames Per Second), I am going to stick with this for my 3D transformation settings.
Once you have created the appropriate editing environment for your videos specs, import your source/donor video by selecting the file menu, dragging down to “Import” and selecting your file.
Once you have it in Premiere Pro, Drag it to the timeline.
The next step is to create a second video track from the first, so we can make the left and right channels required to trick our brains into seeing 3D. To copy the video track only (because we don’t need two identical audio tracks) click the video in the timeline to highlight it (Notice the audio track will highlight as well), then right click it and select “Unlink”. This will unlink the video and audio tracks.
Now you can click on the video track to highlight it only, and the audio track will stay unselected. When your video track only is highlighted, right click it and select “Copy”.
The next step is a little tricky, so follow carefully. Premiere Pro is a bit like Photoshop, in that it uses Layers to build up the scene. If you were to select “Paste” from the edit window now, it will place the copied video on the same track as the original one, which doesn’t help us. We need to place the copied video onto a separate layer, or track, in order to achieve a stereoscopic effect. If you look closely, you will see that video track 1, and audio track 1 are highlighted, and are a different color from the other spare blank tracks that Premier Pro set up for us when we created the document.
This means that these tracks are active and are the ones we are working on. As we want to put video onto video track 2, click the blank area in the video track 1 and audio track 1 attributes bar to deselect them, and then click the blank are next to where it says “Video 2” to Activate/Highlight this track.
Now that we have Video Track 2 selected, we are nearly ready to paste in the second video channel. Premiere Pro will place the video wherever the play head (red vertical line) is, so to make sure our two video tracks line up, press the “Go To In” button to make sure the play head is at the very beginning of the timeline.
Now that the play head is at the beginning of the timeline, and Video Track 2 is selected, click edit from the menu bar, and select “Paste”. Now you have two video tracks! WOOHOO!!!
Now comes the fun part! Our next task is to separate the color channels, and create the “Parallax” effect. This is what tricks our brains into thinking that what we are seeing is 3 Dimensional. As we are creating a Red/Blue Anaglyph 3D effect, we need to separate the red and blue colors in our 2 video tracks. At this point, we will define “Video 2” track as our left/red channel, and “Video 1” track as our right/blue channel. To separate our colors, we will be using the “Color Balance RGB” effect. Open “Video Effects” then “Image Control” and drag and drop the “Color Balance” effect icon onto Video 1 track, and then again onto Video 2 track.
First, lets do the left/red channel. Click the video in the “Video 2” track to highlight it, and in the “Effect Controls” window set the green and blue channels to Zero. This will leave only red.
To create the “Parallax Effect”, whilst in “Effect Control”, click the little triangle next to “Motion” to expand this option so we can tinker with its settings.
As this videos dimensions are 1280px x 720px, you can see next to “Position” that the center point of the video is at 640px on the horizontal plane, and 360px vertical. To create the Parallax, we need to offset the left channel to the left of the screen slightly. To do this, simply adjust “640” to “638”. This will move our left channel 2 Pixels to the left of the screen.
We are now finished with the left channel for the moment, so lets make it invisible, so we can get to work on the right channel. To make it invisible, simply click the “Eyeball” icon in the attributes field as shown below.
Your video preview window should loose the red tinge, and be restored to normal. Next, Highlight the Video 1 track (Right/Blue) in the timeline, and set the red to zero in Color Balance, leaving blue and green at 100. Then, enhance the Parallax by moving the Right/Blue channel 2 Pixels to the right. Again, click the triangle next to “Motion” to expand and reveal the options, and set the horizontal plane to 642. If you have done everything right, your video preview will now look all Blue-Ish.
It is now time to bring the left and right channels together and create the Anaglyph. Go back to the Video 2 (red/left) track’s attributes area and make it visible again by clicking the eyeball icon. Your video preview will turn red again. If you click the eyeball repeatedly a few times you will see that not only does your video turn from red to blue, but it also moves position – Yes! That’s the Parallax Effect – You have made a 2D video 3D!
YAY YOU!!!!!
To finish up, we need to blend them together. This is where Premiere Pro borrows from Photoshop. Blending is what makes Photoshop so powerful. With your Left/Red channel visible (Eyeball Icon clicked so the video preview window has the red tinge), click the little triangle next to “Opacity” in the “Effect Control” panel. Click the drop down menu next to “Blend Mode” and select “Screen”.
VOILA! ANAGLYPH VIDEO!
Using these settings, the 3D effect is only mild. To really make a strong 3d Parallax Effect, you move the left and right frames further apart. Instead of 638 for the Red/Left channel, and 642 for the Blue/Right channel, try 636 for the left and 644 for the right, or 630 for the left and 650 for the right. Experiment with these numbers until it looks right for you.
But BE CAREFUL – Don’t push these numbers to far, because you can make the video really blurry.
To save and export the video, select file, export, media from the menu bar. I will be exporting it in exactly the same format as I imported it, but you can play with these settings if you want to export your video in a different format, or for another device.
Once you have exported your new Anaglyph 3D video file, All you need to do now is put on your Red/Blue 3D glasses, turn your volume up to 11, and enjoy this AWESOME video from z400hauls in 3D!
If you, or your friends pass out, or barf, try reducing the Parallax Effect by moving your Red/Left and Blue/Right fields closer together 🙂
So now you have created your 3D video file, its time to watch it back and see how it looks. If you try to open it using Quicktime or Windows Media Player, you will see your two camera feeds simultaneously in “Side by Side” format.
In order to see the 3D effect, and watch your video in 3D you will need to use a player that is capable of handling Stereoscopic Video files. There are quiet a few out there, but my Favorite is called BINO. I like it because it is really easy to use, can play your side by side video file back in lots of different flavors of 3D (like red/cyan, amber/blue, green magenta), there are versions for Windows, Mac and Linux/Unix, and the best part, its completely free!
You can download BINO from the bino3d.org web site HERE.
Once you have downloaded, extracted and installed BINO you can launch it, and from the file menu select your Side By Side video file, and the player will appear. You now need to set only two parameters, you need to tell BINO what kind of file it is you want to play, and how you want it played back.
In the “Input” drop down menu, select “Left/Right Half Width”, and in the “Output” drop down menu, select the display method that corresponds to the 3D Glasses you will be using to watch the video. I have the ones with the Red and Blue lenses, so I use Red/Cyan High Quality mode. Now, just push play and see how you did.
You can make your video go full screen by double clicking the playing video. Double clicking on it again takes you back to window mode.
Earlier this week one of my favorite movies “The Scorpion King” was on TV, and as I recently bought a new digital set top box with USB recording capabilities, I thought I would give it a try. I remember when I saw The Scorpion King at the movies it was in a very widescreen aspect ratio, and it looked great! But, as soon as it started on Sunday night, I could tell something was not right. Rock Johnson looked more like a character from Avatar than the WWF! He seemed over 10 feet tall and as skinny as a broom handle, which as we all know, isn’t the case!
My suspicion is that someone at the TV station got lazy, or maybe a setting in my set top box was wrong, but the bottom line is I have a 2+ gigabit video file of one of my favorite movies, and it is virtually unwatchable because the aspect ratio is way off.
Thankfully, there is a nice easy way to straighten things out. Now, If I intended to watch the video file on my computer, I would use VideoLAN’s VLC Player, because it’s free, it plays practically everything, and it has nice built in feature’s that amongst dozens of other tricks, will adjust your movies aspect ratio on the fly, so no re-encoding is required.
VLC Player falls into my “I can’t Believe it’s free” category. No matter what OS your running, they have a player for you that will knock your socks off. But if you want to watch that distorted video file on something like a WDTV, or plug a USB key into your flat screen TV, your gonna have to re-encode it and repair the problems.
Luckily, my set top box records in MP4 format, so my tall and skinny video file will drop straight into a really cool, and again FREE program, called MPEG Streamclip, which is what I am going to use to fix my aspect ratio problem in my video file.
Thankfully, MPEG Stream not only fixes tall and skinny video’s, but short fat ones too 🙂
To get started, if you don’t have it already, get your free copy of MPEG Stream clip right HERE! You can do a bunch of cool stuff with it, it’s free, so there is no reason not to have it in your video tool kit! Once your installed, FIRE IT UP!
Once the main window is open, drag your wonky video clip into it, and you will see a preview window.
To begin reshaping, open the file menu and select “Export to MPEG-4”, or if you want to cross encode to another format, you can choose it here instead.
Once you have selected your preferred export format, a new window will pop up where you can adjust your settings, and de-distort your movie.
As you can see from the above capture, my video was recorded in 720px wide by 400px high, so I am now thinking I really do need to go and take a look at the default settings on my set top box. To start repairing the problem, I clicked “Other”, left the width at 720px, and started to play with the vertical height. After I changed the setting, I clicked “Preview” to see if my changes made the aspect ratio better.
A new window popped up and the movie started to preview, and I noticed a secondary window which looked like it had already begun encoding, but this doesn’t appear to be the case. It seems to me that it is just encoding your preview while you are watching it, but its not the final pass.
If the preview looks good, or even if it doesn’t, click the stop button after you have assessed your changes. If you want to re-adjust your settings, you can go back and do so, or if you are happy with your changes, go ahead and click “Make MP4” in the bottom right hand corner, and give your FIXED video a new unique name.
Like most video encoding, it will take some time to process the file and apply your changes. But when it’s done, everything will look like it should again.
Almost all of us were, and are still using Windows based computers, even though we have locked ourselves firmly into the Apple world by buying iPhones and iPads. I am sure you have noticed (Like I Have) there are definitely some issues that arise by being “Multi Platform”. Slowly but surely, the software writers of the world are delivering apps that allow your iPhone and Windows 7 Laptop to co-exist a little more seamlessly.
For over a decade now, all of the home video I have, all of my DVD backups, TV programs I have recorded, in other words, my entire video collection is in AVI format. My movies are in DIVX format (I bought Dr DIVX years ago to rip my DVD’s and have stuck with it), and everything else is in XVID. That’s just the way it has ALWAYS been! And I sure as heck aren’t going to convert them all to Quicktime, I’ll be dead before it finishes re-encoding.
Enter Buzz Player, or in my case, Buzz Player HD for iPad. Buzz Player is an app for your iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad (Even iPhone 3GS) that will allow you to create folders, copy movie files to your device, and play them seamlessly without the need for jail breaking your device! And my favorite part, it will even stream from your network shares!
To get started watching AVI files on your iPad/iPod Touch/iPhone, download the correct version of Buzz Player for your device from the iTunes app store, and in my opinion, the nominal fee of $2.99 for this app is ridiculously low for the functionality it provides.
Once it is installed and open, you can start creating and organizing folders for your local media (media that is physically on your device), or if your like me, your gonna want to start watching stuff from Desktop and your Media Server. To watch stuff from other devices (In my case, my Western Digital WDTV Live Hub) click the icon that says “SMB/FTP”. This will query your home network and display a list of all devices that are set up to serve media on your home network. It also tells you the protocol they are using to serve.
I noticed that some devices appear more than once, and I expect that is because they broadcast different services that they are able to provide. I selected my WDTV’s Samba feed, and was asked to input credentials.
As my network shares are not password protected within my own home network, I used “Guest” as my username, and left the password blank, and was able to connect easily. I tried to click “Connect As Guest” but that didnt work. I guess my WDTV needed to have at least the username of Guest. If your shares are password protected, this is the place to enter them to gain access. Don’t worry, Buzz Player can remember your devices and logins if you want it to, so you only have to do it once. Just remember to add it to your source list before you disconnect.
Once you have connected, you can see a list of all of the available drives/folders/files being shared.
Now, Its just a matter of selecting the file you want to watch from the appropriate directory, and selecting it. What comes next is pretty cool! Buzz Player asks you if you want to copy the file to your device, or if you want to watch it from a stream! YEAH BABY!
In my case, Im happy to watch the stream, so when you click play, it spends a few seconds buffering the file, and then starts to play your video!
As you can see from the above screen cap, I’m streaming Family Guy “Death Has A Shadow.AVI” over Samba, and watching it flawlessly on my iPad!
Buzz Player supports: .mpv, .mov, .mp4, .m4v, .3gp .avi, .divx, .dat, .vcd, .wmv, .bin, .iso, .vob, .mkv, .rmvb, .ogg, .flv, .swf, .rm, .ts, .nsv, .ram, .vfw, .mpg, .mpeg, .m1v, .m2v, .dv3, .gp, .mqv, .ogm, .ogv, .asf, .dvr-ms, .m2t, .m2ts, .rec, .bik, .dv as well as many audio codecs.
**HINT** – If your playback is choppy and/or breaks during playback, CHECK YOUR NETWORK!!!!!! I’ve seen a lot of people slagging this app because they cant stream a 2GB 720HD video over their 802.11g networks! VIDEO FILES ARE HUGE! Your network might not be capable of streaming it in real time, so COPY it to your device, and then watch it uninterrupted.
3D video is becoming popular again, and with the tools already available to most of us, its pretty easy to get started making your own 3D movies. There are a lot of programs available that will take your current 2D video and convert it to 3D with varying levels of success, but if you are interested in actually filming in 3D using a stereoscopic camera set up, this is the article for you.
Getting started making 3D can be a bit confusing for beginners. But if you have a PC and a couple of web cams, you are two thirds of the way there. It is really helpful if your webcams are the same to, and a lot of webcams are available in twin packs now as well (one for you, one for your friend), so these are a good place to start.
I had a security camera set up at the last place I lived, and two of the cameras are identical. For 3D filming it is critically important that both cameras are aligned, and looking at exactly the same view. I joined the two together by screwing them to a flat piece of steel at their mounting point, and they lined up quiet well.
In order to achieve the 3D effect your cameras will need to be spaced about 65mm apart. You can technically use any two cameras, but it just makes it a lot easier if they are the same. Once your cameras are mounted together its time to connect them to your computer. If they are USB cams just plug them in, but in my case I had to use a Pinnacle Dazzle for the left camera, and a Easy Cap USB interface I got from Ebay for the right camera, in order to be able to use them. My cameras have a coaxial cable output, and the Dazzle/Easy Cap act like adapters that allow me to plug the cams into them, then they plug into the computers USB port. Once you are all plugged in, the next step is to download a program that will let you view your cams, align them, and eventually record your video. I looked at a lot of programs, and there is only one that gets my thumbs up, and that is Stereoscopic Multiplexer. The only down side is that it doesn’t record audio, so you will need to use a stand alone audio recorder to capture the sound, and then ad it back in processing later. You can download the program and try it out with no restrictions other than a watermark in the image. If you really get the hang of things and want to buy it, you can, and the watermark will be removed. But if you just want to try this out and experiment, you can download it and test it at no cost.
Once Stereoscopic Multiplexer is installed, open it up, and the configuration wizard starts. This is where you can tell it which camera is going to be the left camera, and which is going to be the right camera.
The next step is to select a capture format.
This is basically telling the program the format and quality your webcams can deliver. In my case, my cameras are PAL, and the image size they deliver is 720 pixels wide by 576 pixels high, so I use YUY2 720×576 pixels. The next few windows are OK to leave at the default settings, so keep clicking OK until you get to the preview window. If everything has configured correctly, you will now see a preview window of what your cameras see.
As you can see from my preview, I spent a lot of time making sure the image from the left camera is identical to the right. The pole on the right of the view is the same distance from the edge of the frame in both, as is the positioning of the back of the chair on the left, and the doggy bowl at the bottom.
Now that everything is lined up, its time to start recording. When you click the red record button another window will appear asking you how you want the video compressed.
If you have a fast processor the Cinepak Codec by Radius seems to be pretty good, but in my case I have to record uncompressed. Its a lot faster, but the file sizes are huge. I use Ojosoft Total Converter to compress the videos once I have finished shooting, so the file sizes are more manageable. Make sure you have your preferred compression method highlighted, and you have given your file a name and a “save to” location before you try to click start, otherwise it wont work. Below is a sample of the raw video footage I captured.
httpv://youtu.be/xn0DCKzFw7Q
Stereoscopic Multiplexer is great because your left and right cam footage is in sync, and saved side by side into one file (Hence the frame size of 1440 x 576 when recording from two 720 x 576 cameras). If you were to use two regular video tape cameras, you have to try and match the videos so they both play at exactly the same time, which is not impossible, but is difficult and ads more steps to the process.
Now it’s time to process the raw video – Stay tuned for Part Two!
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I got an email from a reader asking how 3D movie makers make things feel like they are coming out of the screen. The best answer I can give is that to achieve this effect, you show a lot of depth and dimension when you are actually shooting the video. In other words, have a very distant background, and have the object you want to leap out of the screen positioned a lot closer to the camera. This causes the background to have a narrow parallax effect, and the item in the foreground to have a wide parallax effect.
If this video was shot in 2D and you wanted to convert it to 3D, the perspective of the parallax (The Wood coming out at you) would be lost, and the effect would not be as dramatic. You probably could rebuild it using something like Adobe After Effects, but it would be a MAJOR MAJOR undertaking. The quickest, and easiest way to achieve this effect, is to create it and shoot it in 3D.
