The Fourth Dimension

Web Expanded Link
"Step by Step: Shrek 4-D"

Sidebars
Notes from a Systems Integrator

Special Venue Experts on 4D Systems and Attractions

Dreamworks and Universal Studios translated the popularity of Shrek into three digitally projectected 4D attractions that opened simultaneously at Universal's theme parks in Japan, Florida, and California.

You knew it was bound to happen. At theme parks, museums, and other
special venues, stereoscopic 3D images can now bring characters off the
screen more dramatically than ever before. Gone is the sense of a
proscenium that characterized these presentations — audio, props,
moving seats, and in-theater special effects combine to make the
projected images seem even more immersing. The experience dubbed
“4D” has arrived.

Universal's popular Shrek 4-D is just the latest proof of
this concept (though it's arguable that audiences flocked to see
DreamWorks' Oscar-winning characters, not the venue's
“OgreVision” stereoscopy). Nonetheless, Universal is
readying another high-tech extravaganza for next year based on the
studio's Mummy franchise. Meanwhile, Paramount Parks has Borg
Invasion 4D nearing completion and will add the show to its Star
Trek venues in Las Vegas and Bremen, Germany.

But movie franchises are not the only source for 4D material and
attractions. The Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum (Austin) opened
its new facility with a 4D attraction, and The Abraham Lincoln
Presidential Library and Museum (Springfield, Ill.) will open a
multi-media theatrical presentation.

In both these cases, combining video projection with theatrical
effects, audio, multimedia, and motion provides a layered experience
designed to grab the imagination of increasingly visual-oriented
audiences.

For Legoland's Lego Racers 4-D , show designer Adam Bezark invented new characters and story, which were built in Alias' Maya.

Universal VP Scott Trowbridge, who spearheaded 1999's The Amazing
Adventures of Spider-Man and is leading the Revenge of the
Mummy team, points out that several innovative attractions predated
— and perhaps anticipated — what is now known as 4D,
including Universal's 1996 show, Terminator 2: 3-D.

“That was before we were calling things 4D,” Trowbridge
says, “But that definitely is a 4D-type experience with a media
component and lots of special effects. And you can go back to Disney's
Captain Eo, which was a 3D experience with additional effects,
though that wasn't called 4D either.” That 1986 attraction even
had an antecedent in Disney's 1982 collaboration with Kodak called
Magic Journey. So it seems that 4D is a new genre that's been
two decades in the making.

“It's really just become a kind of loose shorthand,”
says Trowbridge of the 4D moniker. “You'll find as many
definitions of 4D as the number of people you ask.” Special venue
veteran Adam Bezark, whose credits include Terminator 2: 3-D,
Spider-Man and Legoland's Lego Racers 4-D, says the term 4D
is, “fiendishly overused. It's come to mean a room with funny
seats that sprays wind and water at you.”

Digital greenscreen shoot for the 4D attraction in production for the Abraham Lincoln Presidental Library and Museum in Springfield, Ill.

Like Trowbridge, Bezark credits the pioneering Captain Eo,
and he also adds 1991's Muppetvision 3-D, created by Jim Henson
for the Disney/MGM Studios in Florida. “That was a huge leap
because they really used the theater and added characters.”
Bezark adds that during the last decade there has been some interesting
progress in what designers do theatrically to give a 3D attraction more
impact. “When you do it right, those developments are natural
evolutions of the story,” he says.

Challenges are plentiful when you try shoot any story
stereoscopically, whether it's completely 3D CGI — Shrek
4-D and Lego Racers 4-D — or has live-action
components like Borg Invasion 4D. Digital animators can readily
manipulate two slightly different camera views of 3D CG objects to
create stereo effects, but the process requires careful adjustments to
control things like depth of field. Making sure that objects come
forward or recede properly is crucial to avoid hurting viewers'
eyes.

“For Lego Racers 4-D we created a virtual 3D rig that
had an adjustable interocular,” says Bezark. “We had to
ride that stuff just as carefully as you do in a regular shoot, and it
required multiple passes on each shot to get it right.”

The flexibility afforded by digital tools, HD, and video is
undoubtedly a key contributor to the current growth of stereo
productions.

“Producing digitally provides tremendous advantages,”
says Bob Rogers, who founded BRC Entertainment Arts over two decades
ago and is a dean of the special venue industry. “The minute
you've rendered an image you can immediately project it,” he
says. “If you don't like it, you can go back and fix it. When you
shoot a 3D live-action movie, you really don't know what you've got
until you've projected it. A lot of 3D is science, but a lot is still
black art.”

Fortunately, there are 3D veterans such as cinematographer Peter
Anderson, who's consulted on virtually every major stereo production.
Recently among them has been Borg Invasion 4D, produced at
Threshold Digital in Santa Monica, Calif.

Digital greenscreen shoot for the 4D attraction in production for the Abraham Lincoln Presidental Library and Museum in Springfield, Ill.

Producer George Johnsen, who previously worked on several
attractions for Universal and Disney, recalls that Anderson “did
the big 3D download with us” in preparation for what would
clearly be a complex shoot. The pressure was on, since it was the first
time that a Star Trek attraction would be shot in 3D, and also
the first time shooting would occur off the Paramount lot. To add to
the degree of difficulty, the 8 1/2-minute show would blend live-action
and animated elements into what appears to be one continuous shot.

Johnsen and director Ty Granaroli had big ambitions for Borg
Invasion 4D, including a three-story set that they wanted to be
able to literally run through with their two modified Sony 24p cameras.
The team specifically wanted the cameras mounted on a Steadicam rig,
and they also wanted to be able to monitor the feed live. Threshold
consulted with Vince Pace of Pace Technologies to build the necessary
rig.

“Vince worked with director James Cameron on a fixed
interocular rig, but we needed to vary the interocular
programmably,” Johnsen explains. “Vince said, ‘I
don't know if I can build that — but sure.’ We sketched
ideas on our CAD systems and finally Vince had something he was happy
with and he built it. We fired up the rig on the first day of shooting,
and it worked.

“Vince has modified his cameras so that the optical block is
onboard the rig, but the processing unit is carried on a cable behind
it,” Johnsen says. “We took the output and put it through
two projectors that we had in a tent. We were able to watch the shot as
it was going down. The director didn't have to guess whether or not we
got something. He was able to sit in the tent and direct 150 people
live. We were seeing it one frame behind what was being recorded. For
the performers, we could play something back in synch right after we
recorded it.”

Johnsen believes that the ability to vary the interocular is a key
asset for digital presentations like Borg Invasion 4D.

“We can vary the interocular to how far back you are in the
set,” says Johnsen. “You can actually have the whole thing
in focus rather than having a single focus point. Since we're in
digital, we have the ability to go sharp or not-so-sharp. We work that
back and forth and use it to our advantage. We can focus attention at
varying positions on the screen by moving that sharpness panel forward
and backward.”

Borg Invasion 4D is designed to be digitally projected in Las
Vegas using Christie's DLP Cinema 2k Black Chip project ors. A film
version will also be installed later in Bremen. Not surprisingly,
digital projection is increasingly favored in cases where the images
are digitally produced, as it was with Shrek 4-D.

But that doesn't imply there's an easy, off-the-shelf projection
solution for high-end attractions, cautions Universal's Scott
Trowbridge. “For us to make a compelling and unique entertainment
experience, we have to keep raising the bar,” he says. “One
of the ways we do that is by being on the bleeding edge of
technology.

“We wanted Shrek 4-D served and projected digitally
since it was animated and rendered digitally,” Trowbridge
continues. “But we didn't think that traditional DLP projectors
gave us everything we wanted from the standpoint of image resolution.
So we actually used four DLP projectors, in essence doubling the amount
of resolution. We think this image is better than any digital image
you're going to find anywhere, mostly because we made the investment to
develop new technologies to do the blend properly. That's the cost of
being on the bleeding edge.”

BRC's Rogers, who calls himself “a technical agnostic,”
fully expects digital projection to become commonplace in special
venues. “It's been 10 years since BRC wrote specifications for a
celluloid-based projector.

“The prices of digital projection systems are coming down, and
you don't have the cost of making and recycling film prints,”
Rogers explains. “But while the advantages outweigh the
disadvantages, the digital age brings a different bag of snakes. We got
rid of the problems with film, but now when things go wrong digitally,
boy, do they go wrong! A guy from Walt Disney Imagineering named Bob
Deville said it best, ‘With state-of-the-art technology comes
state-of-the-art problems, followed closely by state-of-the-art
invoices!’”

One aspect of 4D presentation that definitely seems to have
benefited from the rise of digital technology is show control.
“There's a couple of things that are easier,” says Johnsen.
“The pioneering work of Disney and Landmark Entertainment back in
the early days have resulted in a choice of tools that are much more
facile in controlling this stuff. Show control at one point was voodoo
art done by three people in the world. Now you can buy an off-the-shelf
show control system that will trigger light and sound events and
trigger the picture to start using a central computer. Show control
systems used to be one-offs created for a particular attraction. Now
there's a fairly comprehensive toolkit that one can draw from. Vendors
like Electrosonic are providing products that are all based on SMPTE
time code now.”

By contrast, Johnsen, who worked with Landmark Entertainment on
early projects for Six Flags and Busch Gardens, recalls a time
“when we were synchronizing everything to timecode that was
optically printed on film.” While digital precision makes things
easier, he cautions, “these systems are only as good as the
planning that goes into them. Things can be rock solid if you do it
right. But if you cheap out and try to trigger-start a show and don't
control it with time code, it's going to fall apart.”

Artist's concept rendering of Paramount Parks' 4D attraction, Borg Invasion 4D. This attraction is one of the latest examples of the 4D trend and combines stereoscopic 3D HD CGI images with live action effects.

Precise control is imperative when a show requires jostling the
audience's seats. Paramount promises that Borg Invasion 4D will
include hydraulic effects, physical probers, audio transducers, and
pneumatic actuators.

“A lot of those effects are in the seats,” says Johnsen.
“The seats wrap around you and each has two speakers in it. We've
created 20 audio playback channels, and they're mixed in such a way
that it sounds like some of the Borg voices are inside your
head.”

High-end projects for Paramount, Universal, and Disney will
undoubtedly continue to have custom seats and show control technology,
but more affordable options are also coming on the market for more
modestly budgeted venues. Adam Bezark cites an Edwards
Technologies/Panasonic package that's suited to more economy-driven
projects.

“There are a number of wonderful system integrators who've
hung in there during tough economic times,” Bezark says.
“And now there seems to be indications that real work is coming.
At the last IAAPA [International Association of Amusement Parks and
Attractions] show, I heard several people talking about interesting
strategic partnerships, both for single projects and long-term
relationships.”

That IAAPA show also provided revelation for nWave Pictures (Culver
City, Calif.), which licenses a library of 3D and simulator films
worldwide. Company president Charlotte Huggins explains that nWave
encoded eight of its 3D films and ran them off a server in a
Panasonic/ETI digital theater at IAAPA. “The response was so
huge, we decided we would make a commitment to create a library of
these attraction films each year.” Already underway is nWave's 3D
Haunted House, which has been designed to include what Huggins
calls 4D moments. “But the film could also be shown in 3D,”
she says.

The viability of nWave's approach has already been demonstrated. The
4D “PandaVision” presentation the company created for
Holland's Efteling amusement park is currently screening in a 3D
version at Long Beach's Aquarium of the Pacific. What's making it
possible for regional venues like aquariums and visitor centers to
offer these attractions, Huggins says, “is a lot of support from
hardware vendors like Panasonic, Edwards, and Electrosonic. [The
Panasonic/ETI system that nWave purchased] is affordable and simple to
use,” she says.“A 4D package that includes the projection,
the server, the integration computer package, the sound system, and the
screen can be had for under $600,000.”

What this may signal is what Bezark, who's working on an MGM project
at Niagara Falls, calls “commoditization.” “You'll
start seeing these attractions all over the place, like in retail
installations and resorts,” he says. The market is expanding into
smaller pockets of entertainment.”

Bob Rogers agrees. Among the economies he cites is the ability of
companies like BRC to offer remote maintenance services via the
Internet. “A client might call and say, ‘That damn thing
crapped out again. Get somebody on a plane.’ We could reply,
‘Your building was hit by lightning at 2:22 and the person who
restarted things failed to do these checks.’ This allows clients
to use less-trained workers, which they want to do anyway.”

While affordable 4D commodity attractions may eventually develop,
Rogers thinks that to be really effective, “every show ultimately
gets customized.” Like his unique projects for The Abraham
Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum and Austin's Texas State
History Museum, Rogers asserts, “Every venue has its own
requirements. If you're doing something for the Aquarium of the
Pacific, I don't care how it played in the New Jersey State Aquarium.
The Pacific will have some special needs, and you'd better meet
them.”

Experts agree that leading-edge attractions will continue to require
long-term development, and their impact will take awhile to trickle
down to more modest venues. “Revenge of the Mummy,”
says Trowbridge, “was begun three years ago. Sometimes we assume
that a particular technology will reach a point where it will be
cost-effective, but we get years down the road before we discover that
we'll have to make midcourse corrections. The challenge is looking into
the crystal ball to see what's going to be possible.”

However the business shakes out in the short term, “4D
theaters are definitely part of a healthy ecosystem,” says
Bezark. “There's still a relatively low percentage of the
population that has experienced one of these things, so I think we have
awhile before they become ubiquitous. I just don't want 4D creators to
rest on their laurels, and I don't think they will.”

IF YOU ARE CONSIDERING OR EMBARKING UPON A 4D project, here are some
pointers from a voice of experience.

First, when it comes to producing the content for custom 4D
attractions, bring your systems integrator in up front, says Jim Bowie,
General Manager of US Systems, Electrosonic. Electrosonic's U.S. and
international divisions have designed and installed the majority of the
custom digital projection systems for these types of attractions, and
has also provided large format film systems.

“If you want to see your dollars on the screen, put your
system integrator together with your production people early on,
especially if you will be projecting digitally,” Bowie says.
“There are things the production team should know about the
projection system before they start work. When you are producing for
digital projection, you don't have 100 years of process behind you like
you do with film. You can't make some of the assumptions you would make
when working with film. There are also things that will be unique to
each attraction that you will want to understand before you spend the
time and money to capture, post, and encode images.”

For example, Bowie says, you will want to choose a shooting
resolution that is optimal for the projection system, and consider
issues such as contrast ratio, how much detail is required in the
blacks, even composition of the images. “Sometimes people don't
realize that a small character or detail may end up being no more than
four pixels big when it's put on a large screen and it will look like
four little boxes.”

Once production begins, Bowie recommends a dailies facility that
resembles the final installation, so production people can spot-check
their work. “It's about accumulating the knowledge of how images
will look when projected digitally at a given resolution and aspect
ratio, taking into consideration any compression that may be done to
the files, as well as considering installation-specific things such as
screen curvature, viewing angles, and the lens distortion that is often
required for deeply curved screens or domes.”

The production team should also understand the encoding process for
the final files up front and see tests, especially if there will be
compression involved. “You should expect your systems integrator
to be completely available to your production people. I've been in
situations where we are even brought in during the production team
selection process, so that we could answer any questions.”

As for choosing a projection system, Bowie recommends mock-ups
during the decision-making process that approximate the installation as
closely as possible. “You want to see the projection system
you're considering at the right seating distance with the playback
device you're planning to use and with content that really, really
mimics your show — even if you have to make 30 seconds of content
for the purpose of the test.”

That's also the time to decide “whether or not you truly need
an uncompressed playback device because the difference in the cost of
the players is a factor of 10,” Bowie notes, adding that the best
way to decide is with your eyes. “It's not simply a function of
screen size and resolution,” he says. “It also depends on
the kind of material, the application, and simply perception —
how does it look to you? Today there are compressed players available
in the 4:2:2 color space with up to 100Mb throughput, which may be
ample for the application considering the price difference.”
Bowie adds that some very high-quality uncompressed servers designed
for the rigors of production and post, may not be optimized for the
“continuous, uninterrupted playback duty required under automatic
show control, especially when the application demands multi-projector
synch.”

And one final word: “Don't let anyone tell you that image
quality doesn't matter in 3D,” Bowie says. “Everything that
matters in 2D matters in 3D — it doesn't mask
anything.”

To comment on this article, email the Video Systems editorial
staff at vsfeedback@primediabusiness.com.