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While I was watching the latest Pirates of the Caribbean in D I started wondering about how 3D 'hacks' what we know about the brain's visual processing.
- Colin Ware's great book about visual perception in design
- Ramachandran has some interesting observations here
As 2D artists we're constantly battling with how to render a three dimensional world on a 2D screen or printed page. It's fascinating to me to compare what we know about how the mind parses visual information as opposed to the literal way a camera records an image. So it seems to me the more we, as artists know about the science of seeing can only help us better render convincingly real images. Besides, trying to reverse engineer things like optical illusions is just plain fun.
Film (and sometimes even stage), Magicians, Marketing already take advantage of the many visual-brain processes, such as;
•• the fact that we only process visual space in small blocks and make up the rest (CG Fight scenes in "Transformers" a little too much to take in?) which is why 25frames looks seamless to us
•• speed of the nervous system is about slow USB speed (in parallel)
•• we "make up" for contrast in peripheral vision… which is why the Mona Lisa in particular is visual genius: If you look at the eyes, the contrast of the mouth has been purposely painted to cue your brain to compensate, changing the expression on her face…
Next time you see a good movie, 3D or 2D, always look where the director doesn't want you to look.