3D Stereoscopic render in Anime Studio Pro 8

Hello everyone.

Lately I have worked allot with 3D stereoscopic renders in Anime Studio pro 8 and Thought I'd make a paper on my findings.

ASP 8 introduced 2 more stereo render settings, Side by side and crossed eye, Side by side is the one I was interested in.

The new format was introduced to produce 3D video for Youtube 3D, which uses regular resolution with side by side stereoscopic images for left and right, as shown in this picture.

After a quick render(ctrl-p), I get this.

Click to enlarge

The problem with this format is that, even if it fits well for Youtube3D, it does not for regular stereoscopic rendering intended for post processing or for output for cinema etc. I spent some time on this and came up with a rather good and simple solution.

First thing I did is put the scene in a group or bone(if you use Debut) layer. IMPORTANT: If you have masks in your scene, you need to adjust your group or bone layer accordingly so that they render properly.

Once everything was in a group layer, I used the Scale layer tool to double the width of the scene.

Then I went into the scene settings and made sure Constrain proportions was unchecked, doubled the width of the scene, in this case it went from 1280 to 2560. Left the height of the scene unchanged, in this case it was 720.

Selected Side By Side in the Stereo rendering tab. I usually find that the default .02 for Eye separation is too low, so I crancked it up to .04, then clicked OK to close the window.

After a quick render(ctrl-p), I get this.

Click to enlarge

This format is perfect for either real-time playing in stereoscopic player, or for processing in Photoshop, After Effects. This way you can produce for 3D Blu-ray, 3d digital theater etc, and it looks absolutely gorgeous on my 3DVison monitor.

Another thing that I had to look for, was a way to produce anaglyphic 3d animations that we're not to much of a strain on the eye, a way to optimize the renders in post processing.

A solution came from David Shelton blog, where you can find plug-ins and instructions for Flash, Photoshop and After Effects.

You can do without the plug-ins by adjusting the values manually, but they, the plug-ins, do get the drudgery out of the process.

These plugins allow to optimize 3d anaglyph footage in any of these applications so that the colors, especially the reds, are shifted, preventing pretty much all the strains on the eyes.

The stereoscopic Player has an optimize mode by default, and allowed me to watch the entire Avatar movie in anaglyph with no eye strain to speak of.

Here is the A1 file that comes with Anime Studio fully rendered in After Effects.

Regular anaglyph.


Optimized anaglyph.


The optimized version colors do look odd, but with the anaglyphic glasses on, it is barely noticeable.

Gilles