ABSTRACT
Stereoscopic rendering is not new. In film, it has been used for years to make experiences more immersive and exciting, and indeed, the first theatrical showing of a 3D film was in 1922 [Zone 2007]. A cinematographer can design scenes for film that take advantage of the 3D projection without unduly taxing the audience, intentionally avoiding the various inherent issues that exist with a limited field projection of stereoscopic content. Further, an editor can trim unwanted frames or even modify the content to mask objectionable content within a frame. Interactive stereoscopic 3D (S3D), however, is fairly new territory. Those same problems that filmmakers consciously avoid must be handled by clever programmers or designers. Sometimes, this means changing some camera angles, or adjusting a few parameters in certain areas of an environment. Sometimes this is not an option, or it may be infeasible to change the content of a title for S3D purposes. It’s likely that some visual issues that arise from player control are better dealt with rather than avoided, such as window violations. While some research is available to guide an implementation, practical examples that handle dynamic environments well are hard to come by. This is an exciting time for game programmers: some experimentation and creativity is actually required on our parts until best practices become standard. Here follows the results of our work with Bluepoint Games in porting the excellent Shadow of the Colossus and ICO to PlayStation 3 in full HD and S3D.
