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Hello there!
For a while now, I’ve been fascinated with the idea of converting 2D movies to 3D. I’ve tried a few programs over the years, but sadly my trusty ol’ GTX 970 was not cutting it. Recently, it made like the Death Star and went kablooey, forcing me to replace it with the more capable RTX 4080 Super. As such, I am now able to start playing around with these programs again and contribute to this wonderful community! In particular, I would like to (eventually) convert the first six films to 3D.
My plan is to use the latest 4K UHD Blu-ray release of Episodes I - VI to more accurately recreate what George Lucas was working on before selling Lucasfilm to Disney. As I understand it, that release in particular (also on Disney+) was the base for the official conversions, so that’s what I’ll be using as well. I know that the modern releases may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I would like to be as accurate as I can be with this. Additionally, from what I gather, the 3D effect was said to be subtle by those that had the opportunity to see TPM 3D in theatres, or AotC and RotS at Celebration. While I personally would love a stronger effect, I think I will try to keep it on the subtler side for the sake of accuracy.
So far in my testing, the program iw3-gui has created great results in converting 2D videos. While not 100% perfect, I believe it can provide a good base for working with. Before I start working on the 3D conversions of the films (which may take a wee more spare time and money than I currently have at the moment), I would love to gather some feedback, as I didn’t get the chance to see any of the 3D films back in the day. As such, I’ve converted a couple smaller videos to 3D as a testbed. I would especially love to hear from anyone that did get to go if the strength is roughly correct, but also any feedback in general!
An obvious choice for testing: The Phantom Menace 3D trailer, as graciously provided by Forcefreak from the other forum. There are a couple areas I would love to improve, but overall, I’m quite pleased with the result, especially considering this took maybe ten minutes to render, if that.
As for a not-so-obvious choice, I decided to test the program on one of williarob’s Ken Films Super 8mm scans of ANH. I heard the reason for the excessive DNR on the latest release of the films was because it was necessary for the 3D conversions, so I decided to see what it would look like with something more raw. I dunno, I kinda like the results! If your video player only supports 16:9 for whatever reason (Bigscreen VR), I also rendered a version with pillarboxing baked in.
You can get the links either by DMing me here or searching the other forum for my topic with the same title. Please do let me know what you think! For a first test of the program, I personally like the results but I’m sure there’s a ton to learn. The settings I used for the renders are included below. I imagine this should also be sufficient for the final renders, but if you have any suggestions for improvements, please let me know. Many thanks to both Forcefreak and williarob for providing the base files for testing!
May the Force be with you all!
