"Use your spectrum to explore the fantastic world of 3D television"

[PeteProdge]

An advert in the first issue of Your Sinclair...



Not sure how this could have worked.

Whenever I had a pair of those red/blue 3D glasses - usually from the odd '3D edition' of an IPC comic such as Whizzer & Chips, I used a couple of felt-tips (blue and red) to create 3D cartoon drawings. For the bulk of the image, you had to have a mix of blue/red. I just can't see this working on the Spectrum, a computer that's so prone to colour clash.

Did anyone buy this?

[Ast A. Moore]

There were a couple of games that used anaglyph mode to create a 3D effect. 3 Deep Space was one of them. Wanderer is another (arguably better) example.

[Ralf]

I guess it didn't get popular.

Since games have existed, developers tried to make full 3D games and created different glasses and helmets for it. In most cases it was a failure which ended with gamers feeling like going to puke after a few minutes of gameplay

[djnzx48]

Seems like not even YS knew what it was come 1993:

Spoiler

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/mag.php ... 11&page=33

It must be Stereoscopic Television in the archive, but the year's wrong if it was first advertised in YS 1. (Edit: or Electronic Holograms - I guess those two should probably be merged.)

There are some examples of stereoscopic images here that you can try, but I'm not sure how well they actually work.

[Hank Scorpio]

I used a couple of felt-tips (blue and red) to create 3D cartoon drawings.

Did using blue and red pens work?

[PeteProdge]

I used a couple of felt-tips (blue and red) to create 3D cartoon drawings.

Did using blue and red pens work?

Yep. Essentially, I was just doing what the comics did...



You draw everything in red and blue.
Position the red to the left and blue to the right if you want to make it foreground ('pop out').
Position the red to the right and blue to the left if you want to make it background ('sunk in').
Keep the red and the blue in same positions if you're wanting it to remain at the level of the paper.

So yeah, the image above depicts what you can do, quite well.

You can really exaggerate the distance between the red and blue positioning if you want to go to extremes, although things worked better when you were a bit more subtle.

[ZXDunny]

It didn't work well due to the huge difference in luminosity that the CRT used between red and blue/cyan. You had to use white PAPER at the very least, but although the graphics did work, there was significant ghosting.

And yeah, colour clash didn't help at all.

[hikoki]

What about the other complementary colours? white/black, blue/yellow, green/magenta
Would it be possible to use these three pairs with the same glasses? Using a lot of black might help with colour clash.

EDIT

As explained in this article, one can use different colours than just red,cyan which work with red-cyan glasses all the same. http://personales.upv.es/rmullor/Anagli ... glifos.htm
So there may be a stronger compromise between CRT monitors and the Spectrum palette.
One could also play with the Radastanian clashless mode from the ZX-Uno or the equivalent for Next.

[4thRock]

The Spectrum is really a bad choice for 3D anaglyphs due to colour clash.
You can use Gigascreen and display two screens, one red and another cyan, but I can imagine the headache after a few seconds!

Anyway, the best colours for anaglyphs are red and cyan, but I recommend using red and green glasses for extra blue filtering

[Ast A. Moore]

On a small TV—and most of us had a small TV back in the day—the best 3D technique would be your simple eye crossing. No gadgets, no flickering, and hardly any more color clash than normal.

[hikoki]

Does anyone recall if Anaglyphic Chuckie Egg worked well with glasses?https://web.archive.org/web/20141116201 ... c3dce.html

That PC game can be downloaded from here

[IvanBasic]

I found this topic since I am learning and testing anaglyphs in a BASIC game. The games above mentioned I am afraid that do not work so well (my craft glasses work with some YT anaglyp vids, but not with those games). Check 2011 Crap compo, there is a better 3D attempt there.

So far I found some principles that makes the 3D effect work. White background, black objects, red and cyan for anaglyphs, and simple shapes. Cyan and red shadows must be just 1 to 4 pixels width, more pixels make graphics ghosting.

A simple game with bricks and moving platforms is my goal.

Meanwhile check Capitan Sevilla 3D in YT, not a Spectrum version but a good example.

[Pobulous]

A better option for 3D on the Spectrum might be using sunglasses with one lens removed.
The apparent depth of objects will vary depending on their speed and direction (left/rght) of movement.

It doesn't work well with background planes, as further away items would need to be moving faster than nearer ones.
It could be used effectively with foreground layers.

It works due to the darker image being delayed in being processed by the brain, so that eye will see a moving object where it was in a previous frame.

Which eye needs the darker filter depends on which way the nearer objects are moving, so you'd need to experiment.

On the plus side it does away with extra attribute issues and works even with monochrome graphics.
Not sure what happens with vertically moving objects, as your eyes will see those at different heights :/

The BBC did a 3d-night special using this technique in the 90's - by rotating the camera around the actors so the background and foreground were moving in opposite directions.

[4thRock]

I found this topic since I am learning and testing anaglyphs in a BASIC game. The games above mentioned I am afraid that do not work so well (my craft glasses work with some YT anaglyp vids, but not with those games).

You have two problems. One is the quality of the colour lenses.
Red cellophane is usually decent, but Cyan leaks too much. So better use Green.
Green filters much better and also works with red/cyan anaglyphs.

The second problem is attributes. Those will force you to separate objects by 8 pixels or more.
You might get around it by using multicolour graphics to alternate red/cyan on diferent lines. But not from Basic....

[FFoulkes]

In most cases it was a failure which ended with gamers feeling like going to puke after a few minutes of gameplay

That used to happen to me only when playing C64 games.

[Sparky]

Those glasses always caused me nausea, I'm sure I wasn't the only one.

[1024MAK]

You are all aware that your eyes are not spaced far enough apart to actually see objects beyond short range in 3D?

The brain uses the slightly different view from each eye to form an internal image in the brain of the world that you ‘see’. That’s the way the brain works for short range objects.

However for medium range and long range objects, the eyes only see a 2D image. The difference between each eye being insignificant. So the brain uses it’s learnt knowledge from past experiences to work out and produce an internal image of the world based on shadows, perspective, relative size (based on what the brain expects the object to be) and motion.

Also, people with only one normal eye can still manage to get through life without walking into lamp posts etc.

This is the reason certain optical illusions work, they exploit how the brain works to trick you into seeing something that does not exist.

Simple ‘man made’ 3D affects are simply making use of how the brain works. However, as with many other things in life, not everyone has had exactly the same experiences. So the 3D ‘affect’ may not work well for everyone…

Mark

[IvanBasic]

You have two problems. One is the quality of the colour lenses.
Red cellophane is usually decent, but Cyan leaks too much. So better use Green.
Green filters much better and also works with red/cyan anaglyphs.

I use red and blue cellophan, 3D effect is OK but with some "ghost" color around objects. It filters better the cyan than blue in the Spectrum.

Maybe I test green, but I would like to solve it using glasses with colours which many people could find easily or already have at home.

The second problem is attributes. Those will force you to separate objects by 8 pixels or more.

Yes, that is how I did it, not bad but graphics will have very simple shapes using chunk graphs. Objects located in the background can be together since they do not need red/cyan, and only objects in forefront (static or moving platforms) need this character at each side, and movement is character based, of course.

[4thRock]

Do try green. It filters as good as red so you get ghost free images.
And it's about the same density as red, so both images will be equally bright.
Trust me on this, red/green works much better.

Keep using Cyan on the Spectrum because it works with both sets of glasses. There's no gain in using green on the screen.
Here's a mockup of an anaglyph using 8x1 attributes (red/cyan on alternate lines):


Does it work ?

[spider]

Must say I was not aware of any Speccy games that actually had the ability to do this ie: set a 3D mode for use with red/cyan spectacles

I vaguely also remember I think CH4 in the UK did a 3D night too as well as the BBC.

My other memory of the only time wearing a pair of these was going to see many many years ago "Jaws 3D" at the cinema. I just looked and it was 1983, omg where has the time gone

[1024MAK]

I could never get on with the red/cyan spectacles. But the current Odeon cinema RealD 3D spectacles do work well with modern 3D films.

Wikipedia has more information on the RealD 3D system, link.

Mark

[hikoki]

So far I found some principles that makes the 3D effect work. White background, black objects, red and cyan for anaglyphs, and simple shapes. Cyan and red shadows must be just 1 to 4 pixels width, more pixels make graphics ghosting.

A simple game with bricks and moving platforms is my goal.

Do it!
It'd be interesting if gameplay was affected by the 3d effect.

I have a pair of 3d polarised glasses that the cinema sold to watch Jean-Jacques Annaud's film about wolves. As I was totally unimpressed, I'd like to adapt them according to your artisan instructions. I'd say you use coloured acetate sheets.

I may experiment the technique drawing over some of these doodlebugs.

https://youtu.be/x6lxVs_prx8

[IvanBasic]

Do try green. It filters as good as red so you get ghost free images.
And it's about the same density as red, so both images will be equally bright.
Trust me on this, red/green works much better.

Keep using Cyan on the Spectrum because it works with both sets of glasses. There's no gain in using green on the screen.
Here's a mockup of an anaglyph using 8x1 attributes (red/cyan on alternate lines):


Does it work ?

If I find green glasses or cellophan I will try, keeping cyan/red for graphics.

Your anaglyph works, yes, with not much ghosting. Thanks for the advises.

[IvanBasic]

Do it!
It'd be interesting if gameplay was affected by the 3d effect.

I am doing it. For progressing along the screen, jumps must reach certain platforms, those closer to the player.

[MatGubbins]

Do try green. It filters as good as red so you get ghost free images.
And it's about the same density as red, so both images will be equally bright.
Trust me on this, red/green works much better.

Keep using Cyan on the Spectrum because it works with both sets of glasses. There's no gain in using green on the screen.
Here's a mockup of an anaglyph using 8x1 attributes (red/cyan on alternate lines):


Does it work ?

Yes, it does the job very well with red/blue (various editions from 3D DVD releases and free with cereal boxes/magazines from the 80s and 90s).

I've tried it with the red/green glasses that came free with Crash issue 46 and there is a little bit of ghosting with the cyan to the right side of the image.