RealD 3D Support Thread

[JMatthews]

Hi all,

I wanted to start this thread to help answer any questions you may have around the RealD 3D integration in the May UDK release.

FAQ:

What kind of hardware do I need?
Any display that supports Side by Side 3D will work. This includes all 3DTVs and most PC monitors (I use the LG passive eyewear monitor and Playstation active eyewear monitor in my office).

How do I enable 3D?
There is a console command you can use in game.
reald togglestereo

When I view it on a TV, the 3D is too much. Can I reduce it?
Yes. There is a console command for setting your display size. It is:
reald stereowidth <value>, where "value" is 2x the screenwidth in cm. Note, these values can be estimates, so 100-200 is good for PC monitors and 400-500 is good for TVs.


If you have any other questions, please post here and I'll try to stop by and answer as often as I can.

Thanks,

John Matthews
Product Manager
RealD


***UPDATE***

Confirmed compatible 3D monitors:
Samsung S23A750D
LG Cinema 3D D2342
Playstation 3D Monitor

(I'll list more as I get confirmation).

I also posted a Youtube 3D video showing off what our DBA technology does to a scene. You can find it here: http://youtu.be/9DPecoytPHc

[darthviper107]

How can you set the stereo convergence?

[JMatthews]

How can you set the stereo convergence?

Stereo convergence is handled automatically with our AutoCAM feature.

[darthviper107]

I've noticed in some other 3D games like Tridef 3D that they seem to have a similar feature but it can cause problems, like in SWTOR when it gets to cutscenes and it switches views there's often a second where it adjusts which can be awkward. Is there any delay like that with AutoCam? I'm guessing AutoCam would be great for gameplay but with a cinematic I think it might be better to have control over the setting for each view.

[JMatthews]

I've noticed in some other 3D games like Tridef 3D that they seem to have a similar feature but it can cause problems, like in SWTOR when it gets to cutscenes and it switches views there's often a second where it adjusts which can be awkward. Is there any delay like that with AutoCam? I'm guessing AutoCam would be great for gameplay but with a cinematic I think it might be better to have control over the setting for each view.

We've designed AutoCAM to handle quick cuts like you see in cutscenes. But we've exposed the Separation and Skew camera values to developers if they really want to manually tweak things. From what I've seen so far, it hasn't been necessary.

[darthviper107]

Cool, I'll have to test it sometime with one of my old projects

[atheeni]

I have an Acer 3D monitor... I am currently using the 3D Vision shutter glasses and the synchronization cube that goes with them. The computer I have uses a GeForce GTX 560 graphics card. Is there a way to override the default 3D NVidia driver to use realD instead or do I need to buy a different shutter glass system for it? Or is this only a feature available for passive displays and not shutter displays?

[darthviper107]

Turn off 3D vision and then you need to go into your monitor settings and set it to use side-by-side.

[atheeni]

ok thanks, I'll give that a try.

[AppManCrothers]

Hi all,

I wanted to start this thread to help answer any questions you may have around the RealD 3D integration in the May UDK release.

FAQ:

What kind of hardware do I need?
Any display that supports Side by Side 3D will work. This includes all 3DTVs and most PC monitors (I use the LG passive eyewear monitor and Playstation active eyewear monitor in my office).

How do I enable 3D?
There is a console command you can use in game.
reald togglestereo

When I view it on a TV, the 3D is too much. Can I reduce it?
Yes. There is a console command for setting your display size. It is:
reald stereowidth <value>, where "value" is 2x the screenwidth in cm. Note, these values can be estimates, so 100-200 is good for PC monitors and 400-500 is good for TVs.


If you have any other questions, please post here and I'll try to stop by and answer as often as I can.

Thanks,

John Matthews
Product Manager
RealD

What's "Side by Side 3D" ?
Is there any documentation on the 3d system because I couldn't find it in the official documentation ?

[AppManCrothers]

Hi all,

I wanted to start this thread to help answer any questions you may have around the RealD 3D integration in the May UDK release.

FAQ:

What kind of hardware do I need?
Any display that supports Side by Side 3D will work. This includes all 3DTVs and most PC monitors (I use the LG passive eyewear monitor and Playstation active eyewear monitor in my office).

How do I enable 3D?
There is a console command you can use in game.
reald togglestereo

When I view it on a TV, the 3D is too much. Can I reduce it?
Yes. There is a console command for setting your display size. It is:
reald stereowidth <value>, where "value" is 2x the screenwidth in cm. Note, these values can be estimates, so 100-200 is good for PC monitors and 400-500 is good for TVs.


If you have any other questions, please post here and I'll try to stop by and answer as often as I can.

Thanks,

John Matthews
Product Manager
RealD

What's "Side by Side 3D" ?
Is there any documentation on the 3d system because I couldn't find it in the official documentation ?

[darthviper107]

What's "Side by Side 3D" ?
Is there any documentation on the 3d system because I couldn't find it in the official documentation ?

3D works by replicating what your eyes do normally, which is to see two images that are a little distance apart. Each eye sees a different image and then the brain puts the two images together to create depth perception.

RealD creates these two images. Then your display has some way of sending the correct image to the correct eye. Usually it uses active shutter technology, where the glasses are electronic and the lenses black out in sync with the screen where it will alternate between each eye and each image, it does it so fast you can't tell it's happening.

Side-by-side will output an image which combines the two images side-by-side. Then you set your display to interpret it as such and it will separate out the images and then display it properly in 3D.

Only issue is that it lowers the quality of the image since the two images are each half the screen size. So instead of two 1080p resolution images, you've got two 960x1080 images. Using NVidia 3D vision allows for frame-sequential 3D where instead of sending the image at once it sends each one after the other. But being able to do this is because they created the display drivers as well, whereas RealD is implemented just within the game software.

[RoadKillGrill]

Thanks!! I noticed the RealD stuff while tweaking the inis and then looked at what May UDK added.

The 3d works pretty good, it runs much better than the i3d driver and has less artifacts. The birds in the EpicCitadel only render on one eye.

I'm using a HMD-T1 had to force it to use side packing.


I would like some official documentation I couldn't find any going over any of the RealD 3d besides a few press releases and this thread.

[AppManCrothers]

3D works by replicating what your eyes do normally, which is to see two images that are a little distance apart. Each eye sees a different image and then the brain puts the two images together to create depth perception.

RealD creates these two images. Then your display has some way of sending the correct image to the correct eye. Usually it uses active shutter technology, where the glasses are electronic and the lenses black out in sync with the screen where it will alternate between each eye and each image, it does it so fast you can't tell it's happening.

Side-by-side will output an image which combines the two images side-by-side. Then you set your display to interpret it as such and it will separate out the images and then display it properly in 3D.

Only issue is that it lowers the quality of the image since the two images are each half the screen size. So instead of two 1080p resolution images, you've got two 960x1080 images. Using NVidia 3D vision allows for frame-sequential 3D where instead of sending the image at once it sends each one after the other. But being able to do this is because they created the display drivers as well, whereas RealD is implemented just within the game software.

Wow thanks for in-depth description DarthViper!
So to enable it we can use the console command as described by the Author of the thread ?
Do we need glasses to see it ? And Can any map work with it or do we need to set-up a special camera system for it? Sorry for all the questions but I you always provide such detailed answers. You should be authoring the UDN

[RoadKillGrill]

Wow thanks for in-depth description DarthViper!
So to enable it we can use the console command as described by the Author of the thread ?

That or go in the UDKEngine.ini and change StereoEnable from false to true, thats where I found it.

Do we need glasses to see it ?

Depends on what you are viewing the output on, in my case the Sony HMD-T1 is a head mounted display its not exactly glasses. There are glassless screens to view 3d content but I do not own any to give a direct example. The output device must be able to be forced to side-by-side. My VG278H is 3dVision and provides no way of forcing it to side-by-side so it doesn't work with the RealD.

And Can any map work with it or do we need to set-up a special camera system for it?

Any map in UDK works, just need to turn it on and its 3d. There is a few effects that do not work but that is true with all 3d converters I've tested. It runs better than i3d driver I couldn't compare it to 3d Vision directly due to limitations of the screen.

[darthviper107]

I haven't messed with it before, but it seems the console command is something that would work, you can probably also set that in the .ini settings. When you create a game that would use it you would then create your Options screen with a setting that would enable the 3D like what the console command would do.

Normally you would set a convergence point, which is the point that the cameras are pointing at, like how your eyes focus on something they end up a little cross-eyed. What this does is that everything in front of the convergence point appears to come out of the screen while everything behind it ends up going into the screen, most things have it set to have everything go into the screen. RealD has its own automatic control for doing that so you don't have to set anything for it to work, I think the only setting (from the first page) is to set the depth (which would control how far apart the cameras are).

[AppManCrothers]

Thanks guys, awesome

3d games here I come

[oskaroh]

"any side by side" means my LG interleaved 3d stereo mode monitor (polarized glass) wont work?
well I tryed by only shows side by side.... is there a way to enable interleaved?

[darthviper107]

It only outputs side-by-side images, so you would need to have a monitor where it has a menu option to interpret the 3D image as side-by-side. Most monitors support it. Interleaved is just another way of presenting the two images together, rather than displaying the two images next to each other it instead splits them into strips and alternates between them. The monitor still needs to be able to interpret that type of image in a similar way to how it would interpret a side-by-side image.

[geodav]

What kind of hardware do I need?
Any display that supports Side by Side 3D will work. This includes all 3DTVs and most PC monitors (I use the LG passive eyewear monitor and Playstation active eyewear monitor in my office).

with a 6 year old monitor (benq t720) and a 3 year old laptop (gf9600) i doubt the above helps, but it would help if people posted hardware that works

[JMatthews]

"any side by side" means my LG interleaved 3d stereo mode monitor (polarized glass) wont work?
well I tryed by only shows side by side.... is there a way to enable interleaved?

Hi Oskaroh,

I have an LG Interleaved 3D monitor at my desk and it works great. In the menu options of the Monitor, you can find a 3D option for Side by Side. Just enable that and you're good to go.

Cheers,
John Matthews
Product Manager, RealD

[PythonN1NJ4]

Is the RealD integration also available to UE3 licensees, or just UDK?

[darthviper107]

Everything in UDK is in UE3, though not the other way around

[JMatthews]

Is the RealD integration also available to UE3 licensees, or just UDK?

Yes, our technology is available to all UE3 licensees.

http://www.unrealengine.com/en/partners/

[voodooRod]

Yes, our technology is available to all UE3 licensees.

http://www.unrealengine.com/en/partners/

I'm using the UDK, does this mean that I cannot change the depth settings via scripting? I haven't seen any documentation on how to control RealD via UDK. Is the capability to do so only available to the licensees?

Thanks

[RAKSHASRAJA]

I'm using the UDK, does this mean that I cannot change the depth settings via scripting? I haven't seen any documentation on how to control RealD via UDK. Is the capability to do so only available to the licensees?

Thanks

I don't know if this thread is still "alive", but i go give it a try anyway...

Although the RealD Game Development Toolkit seems to be integrated in UDK, i recently downloaded their Toolkit on their website; i got 3 *.pdf files with quite a bit of scripting-like info, like for example about "camera offset" and "camera skew". Only thing is... i'm not into (Unreal) scripting at all, so unfortunately all this info is quite a bit of abacadabra for me.
I do like the 3D effect using RealD in UDK, but i would want certain objects to pop out of my screen a little more; a large negative camera disparity seems to cause objects really popping out. It seems RealD's autoCam keeps most objects onto and/or into the screen. Can somebody help me out here?

VoodooRod... maybe these *.pdf files are what you are looking for?!

[JMatthews]

I don't know if this thread is still "alive", but i go give it a try anyway...

Although the RealD Game Development Toolkit seems to be integrated in UDK, i recently downloaded their Toolkit on their website; i got 3 *.pdf files with quite a bit of scripting-like info, like for example about "camera offset" and "camera skew". Only thing is... i'm not into (Unreal) scripting at all, so unfortunately all this info is quite a bit of abacadabra for me.
I do like the 3D effect using RealD in UDK, but i would want certain objects to pop out of my screen a little more; a large negative camera disparity seems to cause objects really popping out. It seems RealD's autoCam keeps most objects onto and/or into the screen. Can somebody help me out here?

VoodooRod... maybe these *.pdf files are what you are looking for?!

Hi Rakshasraja,

We do expose camera parameters to anyone who wants to fine-tune a specific scene.

In the console window, here are the necessary commands:

"reald camera toggle" - Enables/Disables AutoCAM

"reald camera auto" - Enables AutoCAM

"reald camera fixed" - Disables AutoCAM

"reald camera lock" - Freeze the cameras at their current Sep & Skew

"reald sep <value>" - Manually set camera separation

"reald skew <value>" - Manually set camera skew

"reald zlock" - Manually set nearest and farthest point limits. AutoCAM stays on.

"reald zmin <value>" - Manually set nearest point
In world units, set the farthest point. Zmax point will have a separation of Dmax (in mm). Points father than Zmax will have stereo separation values larger than Dmax.

"reald zmax <value>" - Manually set farthest point
In world units, set the nearest point. Zmin point will have a separation of Dmin (in mm). Points nearer than Zmin will have stereo separation values smaller than Dmin, and pop out of screen if less than 0.

"reald dmax <value>" - Manually set Dmax
Dmax sets maximum allowed disparity at Zmax point. Increase for more depth.

"reald dmin <value>" - Manually set Dmin
Dmin sets minimum allowed disparity at Zmin point. Setting to negative value makes objects pop out of screen.


For your situation, I would first enable ZLock to manually adjust your nearest and farthest points. Leave Dmax and Dmin alone and set Zmin to a point past the object you want to stick out of the screen.

After the scene is done, be sure to re-enable AutoCAM: "reald camera auto"


Hope that helps.

Thanks,
John Matthews
Product Manager, RealD

[Demon80DZ]

Hi,

Stereo mode is actually twice renders a picture from different points of view (for left and right eyes). But, why fps in stereo mode is the same fps in normal mode? Hence the question - RealD is real 3D or it is work on 2D picture?

There is a console command for setting your display size. It is:
reald stereowidth <value>, where "value" is 2x the screenwidth in cm. Note, these values can be estimates, so 100-200 is good for PC monitors and 400-500 is good for TVs.

I'm using Sony HMZ-T1H. What display size I need to set?

Thanx.

[darthviper107]

Side by side would halve the resolution, so if you normally run a game at 1920x1080 then 3D side-by-side would have the two images in that resolution, so 960x1080

[Demon80DZ]

darthviper107, halve resolution, but perspective projection (and everything else) calculating twice.

Reald in 2012-07 and 2012-11 UDK versions are strongly differs? Unfortunatelly we must using UDK 2012-07 by reason of Perforce integration.

PS. And what about recommended display size in Sony HMZ-T1H?

[JMatthews]

darthviper107, halve resolution, but perspective projection (and everything else) calculating twice.

Reald in 2012-07 and 2012-11 UDK versions are strongly differs? Unfortunatelly we must using UDK 2012-07 by reason of Perforce integration.

PS. And what about recommended display size in Sony HMZ-T1H?

We've heavily optimized the second render so we don't halve the frame rate. On a modest PC, you shouldn't see much of a performance hit with RealD enabled.

As for screensize for the HMZ-T1H, I'd recommend keeping it at the default. If the stereo effect is too much, you can try increasing it in steps of 100 until you get something that's comfortable. But I'd think you should be ok with any value between 100-400.

Thanks,

[Demon80DZ]

Thanks JMatthews!

What is the physical meaning of the "display size"?

[RAKSHASRAJA]

Hi Rakshasraja,

We do expose camera parameters to anyone who wants to fine-tune a specific scene.

In the console window, here are the necessary commands:

"reald camera toggle" - Enables/Disables AutoCAM

"reald camera auto" - Enables AutoCAM

"reald camera fixed" - Disables AutoCAM

"reald camera lock" - Freeze the cameras at their current Sep & Skew

"reald sep <value>" - Manually set camera separation

"reald skew <value>" - Manually set camera skew

"reald zlock" - Manually set nearest and farthest point limits. AutoCAM stays on.

"reald zmin <value>" - Manually set nearest point
In world units, set the farthest point. Zmax point will have a separation of Dmax (in mm). Points father than Zmax will have stereo separation values larger than Dmax.

"reald zmax <value>" - Manually set farthest point
In world units, set the nearest point. Zmin point will have a separation of Dmin (in mm). Points nearer than Zmin will have stereo separation values smaller than Dmin, and pop out of screen if less than 0.

"reald dmax <value>" - Manually set Dmax
Dmax sets maximum allowed disparity at Zmax point. Increase for more depth.

"reald dmin <value>" - Manually set Dmin
Dmin sets minimum allowed disparity at Zmin point. Setting to negative value makes objects pop out of screen.


For your situation, I would first enable ZLock to manually adjust your nearest and farthest points. Leave Dmax and Dmin alone and set Zmin to a point past the object you want to stick out of the screen.

After the scene is done, be sure to re-enable AutoCAM: "reald camera auto"


Hope that helps.

Thanks,
John Matthews
Product Manager, RealD

Dear John,

I didn't had a chance to thank you earlier! Thanks a ton for your great help! Your advice works like a charm in my case!
Is it an idea for the UDN maybe to add the above UDK RealD Console Commands to their documentation?!

One, maybe stupid, question i have... zmax, the farthest point, is this visually the farthest point (so, the farthest point u can see through the camera) or is it the farthest point, there where the map ends (the very end of the entire environment)?!

Thanx again,
RAKSHASRAJA

[JMatthews]

Thanks JMatthews!

What is the physical meaning of the "display size"?

It's the physical width of your display. In other words, if you placed a ruler (or measuring tape) along the width of your display, how wide would it be?

[JMatthews]

Dear John,

I didn't had a chance to thank you earlier! Thanks a ton for your great help! Your advice works like a charm in my case!
Is it an idea for the UDN maybe to add the above UDK RealD Console Commands to their documentation?!

One, maybe stupid, question i have... zmax, the farthest point, is this visually the farthest point (so, the farthest point u can see through the camera) or is it the farthest point, there where the map ends (the very end of the entire environment)?!

Thanx again,
RAKSHASRAJA

Zmax is the farthest visible point. Ideally, this needs to be dynamic (moving from indoors to outdoors, for example) in order to achieve the most depth in a scene. This is why our AutoCAM handles all that. However, there may be creative instances where you want more control over those values, so we expose them for you to tweak.

EDIT: I'm working on updating our website with this info (reald.com/gaming). Should be live in a few days. I'll get with Epic and update the UDK docs, too.

[superpage]

Hi, JMatthews:
Does reald support iOS? I've got a 'Hasbro My3D' device, I want made something support that device using UDK, but when I set
[RealD]
StereoEnable=true
in the INI file, It seemed reald does not working, does it not support iOS yet? (the setting works fine on PC)

[JMatthews]

Hi, JMatthews:
Does reald support iOS? I've got a 'Hasbro My3D' device, I want made something support that device using UDK, but when I set
[RealD]
StereoEnable=true
in the INI file, It seemed reald does not working, does it not support iOS yet? (the setting works fine on PC)

Hi Superpage,

Unfortunately, we don't yet support iOS. Currently, we only support PC for UDK. For UE3 Licensees, we also support Xbox 360 and PS3.

[superpage]

Hi Superpage,

Unfortunately, we don't yet support iOS. Currently, we only support PC for UDK. For UE3 Licensees, we also support Xbox 360 and PS3.

OK, thanks JMatthews. I hope RealD can support iOS in future.

[silverwizard]

A noobish question from a noob UDK enthusiast:

I hope to use UDK with an HMD+tracker. I have solved the tracker issue, and now I shift my focus on the stereo 3d issue. I need two monitors for the stereo 3D, so I was hoping to have UDK run at a large resolution that encompasses the 2 monitors and have the separation exactly at the middle, so that the left monitor would correspond to the left eye and the right monitor to the right eye. However, when I toggle stereo on, the two side-by-side images are distorted, i.e. compressed along the horizontal axis. Thus, the circle in the HUD appears elliptical and so on. Is there a way to set the resolution of each side in the stereo display?

[Linkinworm]

hey, just been messing with some of the skew and sep options, what id like to know is can i do something like reald skew +.01? and bind that to a key? i ask this because not 3d is not a one size fits all situation so id like to bind a key to adjust these options in small incriments