free stereoscopic camera

#1

Hi everyone

 About half a year ago i created a camera rig to render stereoscopic (s3d) images and a shortfilm. I have come back to the rig lately, added some functionalities and made it more stable. Now i would like to present it to the community hoping you will find it useful. It's key features are:
 
    1. parallel cameras – no keystone distortion
    2. unlocked target and focus positioning
    3. one-click optimized anaglyph preview
    4. unlimited number of stereocameras in scene
    5. animatable floating frame
    6. adjustable ranges
 
 I am not a programmer and the rig is definitely not bugfree! But i think it does what it promises, and that's creating s3d images. Please give me a lot of comments, critiques and ideas for improvement.
 
 you can get it at my website [http://davidshelton.de/blog/?p=69](http://davidshelton.de/blog/?p=69) accompanied by a description of all the functions or download it at scriptspot [http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/3dhippie-stereocam](http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/3dhippie-stereocam) 

 Want to see it in action first? There's a couple of video tutorials coming up on vimeo about the rig and stereoscopy in general. But right now there's only a quick introduction (for some reason the audio seems to be in bad synchro but I'm on to it :) ) [http://www.vimeo.com/6234518](http://www.vimeo.com/6234518). 

Anotther video you should watch is "Broken" [vimeo.com/5082118](http://vimeo.com/5082118) which has been rendered with this script, and has actually won a price for stereoscopic storytelling at the invazion09 contest.
 
 Here are some additional examples that have been rendered using the rig:
 [img]http://davidshelton.de/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/monsterstereo.jpg[/img]

 [img]http://davidshelton.de/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/truck_fframe_stereo.jpg[/img]
 
 If you enjoy stereo 3d as much as i do and own a pair of anaglyph glasses you will hopefully enjoy this rig. Especially since it's free. I will be updating this thread whenever there's a new version and will try to implement as many user requests as possible. 
 
 bye David
#2

Briilliant.Cheers,i’m sure alot of people will get alot of fun(and serious usage:)) out of this.

#3

Looks very good, but what are the advantages to “Cross Eyed Mary” ?

http://www.maxplugins.de/r2010_files/habware/XIdMary_Max2010.zip

from Habware which provides a lot of 3D anaglyph functionality?

#4

I never tried to make a better plugin for stereo 3d than any existing ones, i just wanted to get my hands dirty on programming one myself. So I have got to admit, that i haven’t thoroughly tested Xidmary. It’s also really hard to find any information about that plugin.

I do find the user Interface of my camera rig somewhat more intuitive. All functionality is found inside of the main controller and you don’t have to use video post or batch render. If you hit anaglyph preview you get instant feedback on the depth of your scene (and it’s an optimized anaglyph which essentially uses green and blue components instead of red).

You get a bunch of presets and control over your scene. The rig provides planes that show you where the 3d will work best with the camera settings you’ve chosen. And they update with any changes you make to FOV or renderimagewidth.

My rig also offers a floating frame which is a standard in the s3d movie production nowadays. It is very flexible and you can animate each corner individually!

And since it’s all a rig and not a plugin you can work with the individual components. This might be usefull if you wanted to have a single image in the back of your render. Using the environment tab is no option anymore when creating s3d images, because it would be in screenspace with no depth at all. With this rig, you can easily apply a texture to the farRange Plane.

I bet XidMary has a lot of useful functionality that i don’t even know. There are always going to be other plugins that have their advances over the others, so in the end it’s up to the individual user to compare for himself and choose what he prefers. The one real advantage i see with Xidmary is that it might be more production proven. But, hopefully, this is going to change :slight_smile:

#5

Don’t be to timid… your rig looks really good! :thumbsup:

#6

Hey Dave,

your rig is really great! Floating frame here I come!
And thanks for linking to my website! :slight_smile:

#7

I want to render stereo for nVidia 3D Vision. (http://www.nvidia.com/object/3D_Vision_Main.html) Do you know if this script will work for that? Thanks.

#8

Hi all i have updated my camera-rig a little. check it out at http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/3dhippie-stereocam

  • new preview functions (side by side (crossviewing or fast connection to stereoscopic player), interlaced (e.g. Zalman monitor))
  • uses 3dsmax quick render routine -> render progress bar visible + render elements working
  • Far and Near Ranges have a more complex positioning routine. The ranges keep the exact pixel disparity. e.G. You can place a bitmap with a sky on the farRange and the rendered image will keep a pixeldisparity of say 20 pixels whatever changes you make to the camdisparity or the focus.
  • smaller increments with the presets (will implement custom presets in future)
  • builds a lot faster

hope you enjoy it. Please report as many bugs and requests as possible.

@markdc: Unfortunately i don’t know how to program a preview directly for nvision. But you can render the image/movie to disk and then use the stereoscopic player to view in 3d.

#9

Interlaced preview. AWESOME!

Thanks :slight_smile:

#10

I can’t get the previews to work. It gives an error.

#11

Try creating a second camera and look if the error persists. Restart max and try on a different scene maybe.

What version of max are you using? What’s the error message?

#12

Hi David.

First of all, thanks for the excellent rig!
I downloaded your updated version (10/28/2009) from scriptspot because we had a problem with making previews after saving and reloading a scene in max2008. I can’t recall the exact script error anymore but I think it was the “–Type error: Call needs function or class, got:undefined” Johnfreefly also reported on scriptspot.

Unfortunately, now we actually have worse problems with making previews with the new version. In max 2008, I get the MaxScript Rollout Handler Exception “–Unknown property: “UpdateRegion” in undefined” in line 81 “EditRenderRegion.UpdateRegion()”. That even happens in a fresh scene where I just run the script to create a stereocam and nothing else. As soon as I press preview, without changing anything beforehand, I get the Exception.

In max2009 SP1 (Creativity Extension), a preview gets rendered but it seems to be just the picture of the right cam, not an anaglyph or interlaced image. Even the sidebyside is just the right cam side by side. After it’s done rendering, only the right cam has a render window left open, unlike in the old version where I had to manually close the two left and right render windows. It does actually render the left cam but overwrites it with the right, so I guess that’s where the problem lies. The optimized anaglyph does get the expected tint so the conversion is working, just the second image seems to be missing.

I made sure that the startup script is in the startup folder for both versions. I hope you can figure these out because your rig is too awesome not to use.
Thanks!

#13

Thanks for complimenting my rig :-). I will take a thorough look at the errors by installing older versions of max on my computer (I currently use 2010). Hopefully i will solve the problem pretty soon.

#14

Ok, I think I was able to fix the version for 2009. I have attached it to this post. Please confirm if it’s working for you. It does, however, not work for max 2010 anymore (which is really weird actually but I’m on to that :-)).

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to obtain a valid max 2008 license so it’s difficult to evaluate the problem, but the new script might also work inside of max 2008 correctly. I’d be glad if you could give me some feedback on that as well.

#15

Thanks alot for the timely fix.
It works like a charm in max 2009, we wish Autodesk themselves would have your support ethics, for a free product nonetheless.
Max 2008 now throws a “–No ““display”” function for undefined” in line 86.
I guess you really do have to make a version for every release if you want to provide backwards compatibility. For us it’s fine now, as long as we have one version in which we can easily preview the cam but now you know what works and what not.

#16

Hi everyone. A lot of people have asked for vray physical camera support, and although i’m currently very buisy and don’t use vray myself, i did find the time to implement the feature. You can get it at scriptspot http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/3dhippie-stereocam or at my website http://davidshelton.de/blog/?p=69&preview=true&preview_id=69&preview_nonce=6ed963a20c. Simply replace the old script.

  The workflow is essentially the same as before, only difference: if you have a vray physical camera selected the script will create a stereorig with vray cameras instead of standard cameras. that's it. You can now create stereocameras with all the cool stuff like exposure control, white balance, bokeh effects etc. The script works with max 2010 and 2009.
  
  It comes with a few limitations, though: Please do not touch film gate or zoom factor but leave them at their default settings. Also be aware that adding distortion, offsets or vertical shift to the image will result in a bended 3d effect. It's fun to play with, but introduces keystoning wich is to be avoided in a professional production.
  
  As always, looking forward to your feedback and images.
  
  enjoy, David
#17

Is there a way to render the whole limeline in polarized version?
How?

#18

Is there a way to render the whole limeline in polarized version?
How?

    No that's not possible, sorry. It's only a preview functionality. But i wouldn't recommend using such a feature, anyways, because you would loose all freedom at the compositing stage. 
    
    If you want to watch your animation with interlacing try using the stereoscopic player ([www.3dtv.at](http://www.3dtv.at)). You can input a left and right video quite easily. If you rendered two imagesequences you will, of course, have to create two videos first (e.g via RAM player).
    
    If you must create an interlaced videofile i would advise you to look into the "3d glasses" effect inside Adobe After effects. It will do the combining for you.
    
    hope these suggestions were a little helpful :) . 
    
    David
#19

Wheiraucher your advises were helpful and frustrating at same time.

I mean, how is the best way to produce interlace(polarized) renders?

Render both cameras and composite later? How? Which is the measure to slide the render from each other to cause the 3d effect?

Is there some tutorial available?

Thank you and congrats for your tool.

#20

Can you point me some tutorial?