P3D Re: still waiting... part 2

[Larry Berlin <lberlin@xxxxxxxxx>]

(regarding stereogram history and events...)

Particularly, in addition to not understanding the medium in which they
chose to work, they didn't understand why people found it enjoyable. Then
when the business advisers got in there, they for sure had even less of an
idea why people liked the images. They seemed to see it only as a money
machine as long as the liking continued. Keep putting out more basic
stereograms, cash the checks and publish some more, and ignore any real
exploration of the medium to develop something more sophisticated or
entertaining. That's the story as it played out in the bookstores in N.
California over a couple of years. 

On the consumer side, it was like a magical realm opened up to view. But
after a dozen or so books with chairs and spoons to look at, who wants to
look again? The magic died away from the scenes, unless like me you hounded
the bookstores looking for someone to actually use the medium artistically.
Consider that paintings are nothing more than colored matter smeared on some
surface, yet paintings have weathered the passage of time and are still very
much in use. Their value is what the artists put into them, not just in the
pigments used to do the job. The algorithm was a limited brush, nothing more.

It's like opening the first ever movie theater and trying to operate it for
several years with only two five minute movies that aren't even spectacular
in themselves but demonstrate adequately that movies work. Customers may
enjoy seeing the *demo* movies for a couple of times, but after they've seen
the basic fact that movies work, they want to be entertained with new
material and new methods that run longer than a brief five minutes. That
*something more* in stereograms was too slow in coming and too sparsely
available when it did show up so the *theater* essentially closed down. No
big surprise if you can see the bigger picture, and right on schedule...
(self fulfilling prophecies and such)

As to animated stereograms... The first couple of stereogram video tapes
(not MEye) were worse than imaginable. I haven't seen the couple of MEye
videos that finally, years after they were due in the market place, showed
up. By that point I'd lost interest with anything labeled Magic Eye and
didn't want to waste my money on another ripoff like the CD had turned out
to be. None of the stores were playing the videos nor had any employees
viewed them. If there had been entertaining interesting content, they would
have had a different attitude about the products! Since I've heard
absolutely nothing about these videos in the years since, I assume they too
were way below actual market expectations. (market expectations - a key
concept that got left out of the stereogram formula)

This is all water under the bridge now. It no longer matters much other than
to learn from the mistakes. I am well aware that I am not perfect and make
my own share of mistakes of various kinds and might even have made some of
the same ones MEye made, given the chance to do so. 3D in stereo mode is
still a viable medium whether or not stereograms get used any further. I
feel there are more tricks waiting to be exploited both generally and in
stereograms. I feel that way because I've seen many of them and played with
them myself. I'm NOT conjecturing theories out of empty space... nor am I
overly obsessed with the money machine. I'll watch the medium itself since
it transcends the silliness of marketing. Marketing can be useful in it's
place...but out of place it's it's own worst enemy. 

In case you want to see some of the stuff I'm talking about, that will take
awhile, though you can dig up your old stereogram books from competitors to
see examples of sophistication in advance of MEye's published work. I am
only myself and each day is filled to overflowing with tasks having little
to do with producing in suitable form what I've seen, though I'd like that
situation to improve. I've seen enough to keep me busy producing it for two
lifetimes if that was the only thing I did. Any lack of mine that prevents
these things from being published does nothing to negate their existence.
But first the inevitable and endless learning curves for indirectly related
stuff... which writing to P3D seems to take time away from, though I find it
fun and very useful. I figure if I can see this stuff, others can too, so
what's the big delay! There's plenty of room for all of us to go hog wild
producing and enjoying 3D in all it's forms and since 3D belongs to everyone
(key concept), all the better.

Larry Berlin

Email: lberlin@xxxxxxxxx
http://www.sonic.net/~lberlin/
http://3dzine.simplenet.com/


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