Gizmodo Goes 3D [3D]

We’ll remember 2010 for much of reasons. The iPad. The bacon thing finally got old. Teabaggers. And it was the year Hollywood and electronics tried to tug us into another dimension: 3D got big.

It invaded movie theaters-it gave the impression of every other blockbuster begged you at the tip of the trailer to determine it in 3D. It starting working its way into our homes, as the first 3DTVs became affordable . Gaming went 3D too, in a fashion of speaking, with every console pushing into three-dimensional space with motion controls. YouTube . Magazines . Even porn .

3D makes an alluring promise: a entirely new level of sensory immersion. Not simply truer-to-life fidelity with more pixels, like higher definition, but a controlled near-hallucination that literally screws with our mind. It’s what game designers and entertainers had been driving toward since the beginning of their craft. It’s hard not to nerd out over the theory, and the technology that may make that happen suddenly becoming sorta-kinda affordable and available. It’s a little bit slice of sci-fi dreams like the holodeck made real.

Then there’s the cynical side. It’s all a money grab. TV and gadget makers need newer, flashier technology to sell en masse, now that HD is ubiquitous. Hollywood should squeeze every dollar it may out of ticket sales, now that they bank on several pictures a year to make billions of greenbacks to subsidize the remainder of the industry.

Oh, and 3D straight away? It’s not that groovy. You wish stupid glasses. It’s an expensive add-on. It doesn’t always work . And exceptional 3D content is a rarity. Most of it sucks . And that problem is already potentially ruining 3D .

I was really hoping Tron: Legacy will be the next big evangelist for 3D, since there hasn’t been a wonderful poster child for it since Avatar. Sitting within the IMAX 3D theater, the complete time I kept thinking how nothing popped in 3D, regardless of how badly I wished it to. Don’t get me wrong, Tron: Legacy is visually lush. The technoscape is lovely and ambitious. But you don’t must see it in 3D.

We really need to be occupied with 3D. We’re convinced that it can be incredible. So that’s what this week is set: Exploring our hopes and dreams for 3D, but with a heavy dose of two-dimensional reality.

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This post is tagged: dimensional space, game designers, imax 3d theater, motion controls, movie theaters, sensory immersion, slice of sci fi