Thread: Designing ChromaDepth 3D Haunt Images

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This is a 3-part video tutorial series on ChromaDepth 3D wall panels. Please look for the other two videos: Building Haunt Wall Panels and Painting ChromaDepth 3D Haunt Wall Panels. A more printable version can be found at my blog: http://www.halloweenforum.com/blogs/terra/599-designing-chromadepth-3d-haunt-images-tutorial.html



Last video of the series is completed! Yeah!!!!! This video explains how the ChromaDepth 3D illusion works and how to design images for your haunt panels:





Following is an outline from the video and additional information:


Last year I was blown away with a 3D maze called TerrorVision at The Darkness haunt in St. Louis. The greeter at the door hands you a pair of 3D glasses and you enter a world of 3D color. For me, it was an illusion I had never seen before. Monsters were literally hovering in the room and I was stepping over imaginary boulders. It was AWESOME!

This didn't use movie 3D technology to achieve this effect. This was something else. It's called ChromaDepth 3D which uses colors to give that 3D illusion.


How the ChromaDepth Illusion Works

Here's how you see an image when you have the ChromaDepth 3D glasses on:

Here's a picture of the ChromaDepth 3D glasses:

They look like other 3D glasses but the thin plastic lenses (thin like transparency sheets) act like tiny prisms that separates colors into different depths:

Just like the album cover of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, it takes what you see and spreads out the colors. Red and orange looks to you like it is in front and advancing. Yellow stays put. Green, purple and blue looks like it's in the back and receding. Here is the stacking order of the colors. Starting from the left: receding to advancing.

So again, red advances and blue recedes. And, not just advances a little. At the right distances it can look like it's advancing up to two feet from the panel and recede up to two feet from the panel. That's a total depth illusion of four feet! Black backgrounds and black lines are critical in helping the colors stand away from each other. Also, fluorescent colors adds even more vibrancy to the illusion. This all makes it perfect for black light rooms. It's just a great illusion to scare people on Halloween:

There are dozens of ways you can scare your ToTs with the ChromaDepth 3D illusion. You could scare them with a giant red hand reaching out towards them. You could surround them with red flames. Disorientate them with floating red faces. Put a descending set of stairs on the floor with spider webs. Have glimpses of a dark forest from cave openings. Make illusionary entrances. Ghost footsteps on the floor. A giant face appearing to emerge from the wall. A vast room.

The illusions are only limited to your imagination.


Continued.....

Designing ChromaDepth 3D Images

Tools and Resources: Use a photo editing software program (like Photoshop) to create and test your illusions. It's a lot quicker than hand drawing and coloring. You can easily manipulate colors and try different effects with the ChromaDepth glasses on. Comic books are terrific resources to get action-packed scenes for your haunt images and should be a go-to. They are already outlined in black which is very helpful getting the colors separated to give you great depth. Start by collecting many images of a subject you are thinking of using. Scan into the computer so you have them in the .jpg file format. Now you have a pallet of choices you can use in Photoshop. Next, collect images of the backgrounds you are thinking of using. Backgrounds can be a wall of barrels, pipes, stacks of boxes, mountains....anything that would be faraway in your scene. You will be making these blue because blue background images are critical to get maximum depth in your panel.

Create Canvas: Measure the size of the actual haunt panel you will be painting. If it's 5' wide and 8' tall make a black canvas in Photoshop to be 5" wide and 8" tall so it will keep the correct proportions.

Background: Now look through your pallet of background choices and pick out what you'd like as the background in your scene. Use the 'Lasso' tool or 'Magic Wand Tool' to select the outline of the background. Right click 'Copy' and then right click 'Paste' into the canvas you are working in. Using the 'Move' tool you can resize it and move around the canvas until you get in into a place that looks good to you.

Make the background blue using the 'Adjust Hue/Saturation' tool to make it as blue as you can. If you need it to be even bluer, use the 'Color Variations' tool to add more blue.





Subjects: For the subjects use the same procedure as you did for the background. Continue to take bits and pieces of the .jpg images until you've constructed a scene that looks good to you. Don't be afraid to try out different colors. With the ChromaDepth 3D glasses on, keep messing around with the colors until you get a nice deep, impressive scene.





Outline: Once you are satisfied with the composition and the colors, outline the main subjects in black. I like to use the 'Spray' brush so the outline fades away at the edges.





Thin Lines: Then make the 'Spray' brush thinner and go over all the lines in the composition so it is clearer and helps separate the colors even more.





Shading and Details: Using the 'Spray' brush again but more translucent and wider, shade the subjects so they get a more rounded appearance and will look 3D even without the glasses. They will now start to look alive.

Finally, add little details that help make the picture look more active and will help with the ChromaDepth illusion you are after.






Photoshop helps/tricks:

Clone: If you need to expand a section of a subject, use the 'Clone Stamp' tool. You can also make a 'Pattern Stamp' tool and use that for even wider areas.





Poster Edges Filter: If you have background or subject art that is too realistic or is a photograph not in the comic book style, you can make it so. Under 'Filters/Artistic' select the 'Poster Edges' filter. With a few adjustments, it will now take on the comic-book style.





Plastic Wrap Filter: This filter is used to make things look shiny, wet and dimensional. I like to use it for toxic ooze. Can also be used for blood. First, outline and fill in with color the toxic ooze. Using the 'Dodge' tool (for highlights) and the 'Burn' tool (for lowlights), make the ooze look a bit more 3D. Select the 'Plastic Wrap' filter. Finally, use the 'Smudge' tool drawn downward to give it some sense of gravity.





Play with filters: Filters are a lot of fun and do amazing effects with the click of a mouse. Try some out to see if you like the changes.

Undo: Use the 'Undo' tool a lot. You can test things out and then hit 'Undo' to see the previous version. This allows you to try out ideas without committing to it if you don't like it.


Thanks for checking out this tutorial.

Well done once again!
Thanks!

Awesome. I can't wait to put this to use in the 3-D maze at the haunt I'm working at.

I love your chromadepth panels Terra. I wish i could set up a haunt like yours, just don't have any room to do it. Keep up the great work i love seeing the new and inspiring ideas you come up with.

Phil

You have probably already mentioned this in a previous post but...
Where did you buy your glasses??
I know you said the 3D glasses from the theatre don't work. (tried them, they don't. Not that I doubted you or anything!)
Tried the ones that are red one side green the other from Journey to the center of the earth. They work, kind of but not great.
Have the Crayola 3D (clear lenses) and they work really well but they are kind of expensive.
I only have two pair so I was hoping I could make some with the red and blue cellophane trick but I don't think that is going to work. (since the green and red ones weren't impressive )

Thanks so much for this video. We've used the Chromadepth glasses for several years now, but I've never really gotten to do large panels like you've done. I'm attempting that this year. I'd also like to know where you get your glasses and if they're cheaper than what I get. I purchase mine from 3DStereo.com. Their cardboard framed glasses are $2.45 each, where the plastic frames are $7.95. I first bought the cardboard, but they aren't as durable. A couple of years ago I finally purchased plastic frames, but they are so expensive that I really don't like strangers using them (only family and friends), because I don't want them growing legs. What do you use?

Yip! Glad this is a help

Originally Posted by Winklesun

You have probably already mentioned this in a previous post but...
Where did you buy your glasses??
I know you said the 3D glasses from the theatre don't work. (tried them, they don't. Not that I doubted you or anything!)
Tried the ones that are red one side green the other from Journey to the center of the earth. They work, kind of but not great.
Have the Crayola 3D (clear lenses) and they work really well but they are kind of expensive.
I only have two pair so I was hoping I could make some with the red and blue cellophane trick but I don't think that is going to work. (since the green and red ones weren't impressive )

Originally Posted by triplej2002

Thanks so much for this video. We've used the Chromadepth glasses for several years now, but I've never really gotten to do large panels like you've done. I'm attempting that this year. I'd also like to know where you get your glasses and if they're cheaper than what I get. I purchase mine from 3DStereo.com. Their cardboard framed glasses are $2.45 each, where the plastic frames are $7.95. I first bought the cardboard, but they aren't as durable. A couple of years ago I finally purchased plastic frames, but they are so expensive that I really don't like strangers using them (only family and friends), because I don't want them growing legs. What do you use?

While I was building the haunt panels I had a thread up where we discussed ChromaDepth at length and you may see lot of answers to questions you haven't even thought of: Starting on 3D Wall Panels

In regards to the glasses. Here's what I said there:

Last year I did plan to give the kids the glasses. It was intended to be their treat but I tempted them to trade them back in for candy or glow bracelets. To my surprise, they kind of automatically put them in the collection bin. I think they've been trained by 3D movies or something. Afterward, I counted them all up and every single one was returned and about 10 or so too messed up to be used again. I had 400 ToTs so that really took me for a loop...happily

I bought the paper ones (standard resolution) in a big bulk order but they were still kind of pricey (50 cents each). I'm hoping that the prices will come down soon too. It's still new 3D technology so there's just a few places you can get them. If anyone is thinking of trying this the good news I would just buy enough to be used rotationally. But I would get the plastic framed ones so they could take the beating better. For my 400 ToTs I would buy 20-30 of them and just make sure I got them back when they exited the haunt. This year, I will actually be collecting them in the center of the haunt when they transition to the normal lighted maze.

Which brings me to another point: You actually need to make sure you hand them the glasses just prior to entering the 3D section. Then as soon as they exit the 3D section, have them take it off. Last year we handed it to them telling them to not wear them until they met me (in the middle) who let them into the 3D part. Well, kids being kids, they just put them on at the start and so they were looking at normal lighting stuff with the glasses on. Grr...well, kids ....


I had tagged onto a bulk order of glasses with a pro-haunt. Unfortunately their deadline has passed to place new orders. The minimum order is 1,000 glasses. But again, I suggest that is not necessary.


Here's a place that has reasonable priced glasses. Paper-framed: http://www.the3dmarket.com/Paper/chromadepth.asp Plastic- framed glasses: http://www.the3dmarket.com/Plastic/c...thstandard.asp

The Crayola glasses are ChromaDepth glasses.

thanks for the info

Thanks for the great tips, Terra. Now I just have to find a place that still sells comic books.