Disney Digital 3-D is a brand used by the The Walt Disney Company to describe digitally animated three-dimensional films shown exclusively using digital projection.
The first film released using this technology was 2005's Chicken Little. For this release, the computer-animated film was re-rendered in 3-D by Industrial Light and Magic and exhibited in Real D Cinema format using Dolby Digital Cinema projection systems.
Disney re-released The Nightmare Before Christmas in a remastered 3-D version on October 20, 2006. Disney has announced plans to release a 3-D version of its computer-animated feature Meet the Robinsons, opening March 2007.
History
In 2006 at least 6 animation films will be releasing in 3D digital or 3D IMAX film presentation, as part of their distribution schedule. Meet the Robinsons is the next Disney animation film to use the Disney Digital 3D release format, due out March 30 2007. At least 500 theaters are expected to be equipped by then for digital 3D. Exit polling shows that the 3D was well received, and very comfortable to view. The film was not actually designed for 3D, and only minor changes were made, at the suggestion of Disney executives to "deepen" a few of the 3D screen effects. Much more intentional use of 3D will be built into the next Disney 3D offering. It should be pointed out that all computer graphic images (CGI) used to make modern "3D" animation films, contain adjustable images, where the camera position can be shifted at will. It is fairly easy to create a second camera point of view, to match to the original view with some offset. These two views are then blended in the brain to present an in-depth stereoscopic view of the scene. It would be far more difficult to create 3D from a regular "flat" 2D image of the real world or actors. Disney has stated that it expects to make a 3D stereoscopic version, as a consumer option on all upcoming future CGI animation features. Recent technology will also allow HD distribution of 3D on disks after mid 2006.
How It Works
Audiences viewing a film presented in Disney Digital 3D are given a pair of plastic 3d glasses that may or may not be disposable. The glasses have circular polarized lenses, each polarized differently. Circular polarization allows much greater head movement than linear polarization without loss of 3-D effect or ghost images. This increases audience comfort and reduces or eliminates "3-D headache" present in other 3-D systems, especially those relying on film projection. The movie is projected digitally, with a single Christie DLP projector (other digital projection technologies would work as well if fitted with the proper equipment) at 144 frames per second, six times as fast as a normal movie. Every 1/24th of a second (the projection frame rate for normal 2-D movies on film) the two scene views called "right eye" and "left eye" are each shown 3 times (6 flashes of image on the screen matching the 6-times-higher projection rate), giving each eye a flicker-free image. In front of the projector lens, an electronic device, the Z-Screen, developed by Lenny Lipton, from Stereographics, inserts a polarizing screen that matches the polarization of either the right lens or left lens of the glasses worn by the audience. When the left-eye-matching Z-Screen is in place, the viewer's right eye sees nothing at all (or almost nothing) while the left eye sees a normal looking frame. For the next frame of the movie, the Z-Screen swaps the polarizing screen to match the right eye lens in the glasses worn by the audience. Now the audience sees nothing (or nearly nothing) with the left eye and a normal but slightly shifted version of the frame in the right eye. The brain knits together the alternating left-right perspectives into a seamless 3-D view of the movie scene.
The single projector setup has a number of advantages over previous 3-D systems:
- It produces full-range color unlike red/cyan 3-D that relies on cardboard glasses with red and cyan color filters. The red and cyan filters cause a huge loss of available colors that makes watching red/cyan 3-D movies annoying and disappointing.
- It eliminates most "ghost images" caused by the left eye seeing a bit of the right-eye frames and vice versa.
- It eliminates any form of temporal (time) or spatial misalignment of the left-eye and right-eye frames that plagued previous 3-D projection systems relying on movie film. The mechanical jitter of the film in the projector and the poor frame-to-frame match-up generated most of the dull headache 3-D side effect caused by the eye muscle strain -- along with the lame red/cyan 3-D system and the much improved, but still slightly flawed horizontal/vertical polarization system seen for the last 20 years or so in motion simulation amusement rides, IMAX 3-D and in limited other venues (EPCOT Center, Disney World, etc.).
The main fault of polarized 3-D systems for movies is a loss of screen brightness that 95% of the audience will not notice, especially with modern powerful digital projection systems.
Confusion
Less than 100 theaters across the US are equipped to show the movie in 3D. Many viewers were not even aware of the 3D version because many people assumed Disney Digital 3D refers to the 3D modelling of the CG characters, not the 3D stereoscopic presentation of the movie.
Titles
| Title | Year of 3-D release | Notes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Morty Lumor | 2001 | digitally animation and live-action horror and comedy film remasterd for 3-D | Chicken Little | 2005 | digitally animated film re-rendered for 3-D |
| The Nightmare Before Christmas | 2006 | 2-D stop-motion animated film remastered and converted to 3-D | |||
| Meet the Robinsons | 2007 (planned) | digitally animated film re-rendered for 3-D |