A few days ago I found myself on a typical YouTube scouring expedition, except I happened upon a very not typical video. Created by Kroden35, this video takes place on High Ground and shows a very simple mongoose jump off the bubbleshield ledge. Typical thus far, until you take into account that his video is in 3D. It’s not the 3D that has blurry red and blue outlines around everything. Instead it is a type of 3D where you simply adjust your vision by crossing your eyes.
Cross your eyes correctly and three images will appear. It takes focusing on the middle image to see the mongoose jump in all of its stereographic glory. Hopefully you will be better at this than I was but it took me watching the video two complete times before I finally got it down. As soon as I did though, I was instantly rewarded. I encourage you to stick with this until you have seen it the way it was meant to be viewed. Perhaps you will get it the first time, perhaps you will get it the third. But once you get it down, you will able to inspect all the finer details of this short video. My favorite two things are the ledge the mongoose is jumping off of and the smoke trail behind the vehicle.
Let the eye crossing begin!
A very quick thank you to Kroden35 who initially had embedding disabled on this video. After I sent half a million emails to him (I am not exaggerating) pleading for him to let me post this, he finally relented and opened up the embed feature. It was simply too good for me not to share, so thank you Kroden35 for allowing me to.
Hints for how to see 3D without 3D glasses :
The Logical Approach to Seeing 3D Pictures
The Single Finger Method
Posted by ausqb on March 13, 2008 at 3:09 am
Ouchies, my eyes hurt.
I find that it’s easiest to squint your eyes a little, then cross them to get the middle image and then relax your eyelids. This will help keep your eyes in place.
I used to “read” plenty of “Magic Eye” illusion books which just had 3D images embedded in strange patterns. This is really cool, but it’s a bit hard to make out because it’s so small.
Posted by -S- on March 13, 2008 at 6:02 am
These make me feel so retarded – when I was a kid, I not once ever managed to see the hidden 3D picture in those damn ‘magic eye’ posters, and after watching this a few times, i managed to get a flash of it once, really quickly, but my brain punched itself and said STOP THIS lol
Posted by ausqb on March 13, 2008 at 6:18 am
I know, you have to fight your brain to stop your eyes from moving apart. I think maybe viewing them on a computer screen is a bit harder. I don’t know.
Posted by johpan on March 13, 2008 at 6:30 am
omg! i used to love these things as a kid! i was one of those kids who never had any problems viewing them, my eyes would just know what to do. I can’t even explain, anyway. that was pretty awesome. maybe someone should make a whole movie like that… or maybe just a half hour TV show? or just a 5 minute short… lol that’d be awesome.
Posted by Caleb 117 on March 13, 2008 at 7:06 am
Wow… I probably look pretty rediculous… at work.. just inches from the screen… crossing my eyes…
Posted by NsU Soldier on March 13, 2008 at 7:06 am
I’m going to trust the people who say they can see the 3d image and give this video some serious props for being creative.
This exercise has taught me that I can’t cross my eyes. I never was very good at “magic eyes” and most “optical illusions” I’ve seen don’t seem to work either. Maybe it’s just something you’re born with?
(.)___ (‘) <—– I’m afraid if I keep trying I’ll end up like this.
Posted by Sigafoos on March 13, 2008 at 8:28 am
I have this thing that’s not a lazy eye, but I can move one independently of the other. My right eye can just kinda drift to the side… so that was easy :)
Took me a few tries but then I got it, and it was cool. Now my eyes are messed up.
Posted by Ragingterror on March 13, 2008 at 8:45 am
I’ve actually seen numerous images and stereographic images on the net in the past, and it does take a little bit of practice to see them the way they were intended (especially when many of them are different dimensions). However, once you get the hang of it with one image, repeating the process with others is actually quite easy.
Some general advice: I’ve noticed that this is a good way to build strength in the eye muscles, but this technique should not be practiced for prolonged intervals. If you can’t get it in a few minutes, take a break for a bit and come back to it. No sense subjecting your eye muscles to undue strain or getting a headache over it.
Posted by Don on March 13, 2008 at 8:51 am
You know, I was never really able to do the “MagicEye” posters as a kid. I maybe made out two of them in my lifetime (one was in line for a ride at magic mountain, it was posted on the wall of the waiting line for the Ninja i believe). Anyways, I was able to make this one work first time through! Hurray!! :X
Posted by Slothboy on March 13, 2008 at 10:26 am
Hm. Looks cool if you can do it. The difference is that with the magic eye stuff you only really have to let your eyes drift out of focus a little. With this you have to go full-on cross eyed which I can do but it seems to be a lot easier to “lose” the effect. If I move my eyes too much to look at the image then it drops out of the 3-d effect and is hard to get back without pausing the clip.
Plus it gives me a headache. But when I can make it work it is definitely very cool. It would probably be easier if it was a bigger image. Neat experiment though.
Posted by SirTopEmHat on March 13, 2008 at 12:26 pm
That is so cool! I finally got it, it took me a while. It’s weird how your eyes and your mind fights you trying to get it, but I got it after some determination. That is amazing, I loved the screenshots too! Great video and post.
Posted by Xor1an on March 13, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Sine I was young, I’ve had an eye condition that makes it difficult for me to use binocular vision or have proper depth perception. My brain mostly uses one eye or the other. I can switch between eyes, but looking with both eyes requires concentration and doesn’t really give me the kind of vision most people experience all the time.
One down-side is that stereoscopic images, whether they require 3-D glasses or not, do not work for me. The up-side is that video games like Halo never look “flat” to me.
Posted by zukan on March 13, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Haha! I feel like I’m at Disney Land all over again, this is way cool X’D
Posted by Sg on March 13, 2008 at 8:46 pm
Simply look at the Left image with your Left eye and the Right image with your Right eye, that way you avoid uncomfortably crossing your eyes.
Posted by Alex on March 14, 2008 at 12:25 am
I have thought that three-dimensional videos would be possible this way, so it’s interesting to see someone’s doing it… but the image is too big. I can’t cross my eyes far enough.
Posted by SEspider on March 31, 2008 at 12:53 am
I’ve been playing with doing this with images for a good while now. It’s Awesome to see someone do it with video. Great job, Guys. I’ve mastered so much that I can even lok at scertain parts and still see it in 3D.
If anyone needs an image Ito practice with, here’s two I made back in Early Feburary. Hope it helps.
http://360style.net/forum/showthread.php?t=3972
Posted by Deadlock on February 22, 2009 at 12:35 pm
These type of images give me headaches when I try to view them, yuck :(