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Hello fractalist,

in this tutorial I want to give step by step instructions with screenshots to explain how to make real 3D stereo videos.

You need 3 free software tools:
* Mandelbulb 3D http://www.fractalforums.com/mandelbulb-3d/ for rendering left and right view animation. Other software may also have this feature.
* StereoPhoto Maker http://stereo.jpn.org/eng/stphmkr/index.html for putting together left and right images side by side.
* Virtual Dub http://virtualdub.sourceforge.net/ for creating an animation out of the single side by side images.


Step 1 - render left and right view animation
Create or load a normal animation using the Mandelbuld 3D Animation maker.

In the Animation maker menu check the "Render stereo animation" option:


Sometimes you want to make a stereo animation for an already rendered animation. In that case you can check the option "Render only very-left eye images". Your already rendered images were then used as the right eye images and Mandelbulb only renders the images for the left eye. So you don't have to render the right eye images twice. But check the left eye images per preview because you may get cuts because of the slightly different camera position.


If you want to change the stereo options, you can use the stereo menu. I never changed them and was always satisfied with the default values.


Important tip: Use "Rectilinear" Camera setting

See this thread for a deeper explanation why you should use "Rectilinear" instead of "Common" camera:
http://www.fractalforums.com/feature-request/problem-with-stereo-rendering-common-vs-rectilinear-lense-%28v189%29/

Step 2 - putting together left and right images side by side

Copy all left images into a folder, best named "left" and the right images into a folder "right". There should be no other files or images in those directories.

Start StereoPhoto Maker

Select from menu: File -> Multi Conversion. The Multi Conversion Window will open.


Select (doubleclick) directory "left" in the upper part, so you can see the list of images. Don't be confused - in that case I started my animation at frame 40 ;-)


Check "Independent L/R", so you can select other folder containing the right images.


Browse folder "right".


Set Output File Type to "Side-by-side". With that file type you can use the youtube 3D mode. If you want to upload to another video portal that has no 3D feature you can save in another format like anaglyph.


Select Output file format. I would use only use lossless compression or no compression file types here.


Check Swap Left/Rigth option. This is not explicit necessary because you can also swap the sides in youtube's 3D options menu. But with Swap Left/Rigth you can see 3D by crossing the eyes. I always do this before uploading an animation to check it's correct 3D effect via crossed eyes.
Update 2015/2016: YouTube changed the default player from FlashPlayer to HTML5 player. In HTML5 player there are all the cool 3D stereo options gone that the FlashPlayer version offered. Also the default stereo upload is now Left-on-left-side and Right-on-right-side! You can't change that option as you could in the past. So you should NOT the Swap Left/Rigth option now!


Browse the output folder. The output files will have the same names as the left images.


Start conversion by clicking "Convert all files".


Check the message and confirm the start.


Program shows the progress.



Step 3 - creating an animation out of the single side by side images

Start Virtual Dub.

Drag and drop the first (in my case #40) of the side by side images created with StereoPhoto Maker into Virtual Dub.
Virtual Dub will automatically load all images and attach them to an animation.


Menu: Video -> Frame Rate


Change frame from 10 to 25 or 30 frames per second. I would use 25 fps because the 3D mode in youtube needs calculation power and this would be more critical with high frame rate.


Menu: Video -> Compression


Select your favorite compression. Don't compress too much because youtube compresses the video again, so the uploaded material should have a good quality.


Save the AVI video.



Step 4 - Youtube 3D mode

Upload the video on youtube like any other video

Turn on the youtube 3D mode by adding the tag without the quotes "yt3d:enable=true". With that tag youtube knows it is a 3D side by side movie and will display the 3D button while playing the video.

Also tell youtube what aspect your video has by adding the matching tag (without the quotes): "yt3d:aspect=4:3" or "yt3d:aspect=16:9".

When viewing the video you can use the 3D options to configure various things like swap left-right:


Or change the display options:



Thats it!

If you want an appetizer you can check the playlist with all my 3D stereo fractals:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA52c3hK9X7Gtqtqc2_NQK2v1OYUgb9fR

Dive deep - dive stereo  

Thanks for the detailed tutorial.

Instead of converting each image using SPM, I use StereoVideo Maker by the same author which can combine two avi files created using Virtual Dub.