While perusing the Red vs Blue (www.redvsblue.com) website this morning, I came across some news posts that included Halo 3 screenshots in 3D. Right now they’re on pages 1 / 2 of their news, but if it’s been a few days since this was posted you’re going to need to go back a ways. For some reason, they provide no way to link to a specific post. Anyway, at first I though I was going to need some stupid glasses or something. Turns out, to see these screenshots, you don’t need any equipment at all!

Here’s how this works: The screenshots are actually two almost identical pictures- one on the left and one on the right. However, for each picture the camera was moved about 3 inches horizontally. Of course, it’s hard to measure 3 inches in a video games, but bear with me- if you were to make a picture like this in real life, you would move the camera about 3 inches, since this is approximately the distance between your eyes.

Now, since the pictures are side by side, the viewer can cross their eyes and look at the picture, and they will see depth as though they were looking into a 3d scene like they would in the real world. It takes some figuring out and some practice, but I got it down after playing around for about 15 minutes with various pictures. I’ve put an example image below, here’s how to do see it in 3D: (obviously you should read all the instructions first or you won’t be able to see them!)

1. Move your head about arms length from the screen. It is easiest if the screen is positioned so that you are looking at it perfectly horizontally.

2. Look right at the line between the two parts of the pictures, right in the middle.

3. Cross your eyes. This can be tricky, but eventually you will get a feel for it and be able to do it on cue. You can practice by looking at your finger and moving it closer to your face. Don’t go too close or it’s going to start to hurt- you only need to cross your eyes a little bit for this trick to work. Practice this until you can cross your eyes without your finger, then get set up again to look at the picture.

4. You want to cross your eyes until the pictures overlap. The farther you are from the screen the easier it will be to cross your eyes, but you want to be about arms length. Once the two pictures are overlapping, just wait and try to relax your eyes without uncrossing them. Eventually you will get to a point where they “lock” in place until you purposefully “unlock” them. Everything will blur- this is normal.

5. After a few seconds, your vision should un-blur. This will only happen if you are focused on the picture and have everything lined up. It could take as long as 30 seconds, but with practice for me it happens almost instantly. This can be made easier by focusing on something in the scene that is about middle contrast- not too bright, not too dark, but still standing out.

6. At this point, you should see pretty clearly the scene in 3D. Enjoy it, and try to hold on to it. With practice, you will be able to look as long as you want. You will even be able to move your eyes around a little bit to look at different parts of the scene. Finally, don’t forget to blink- it’s ok, you should be able to hold onto your crossed eyes after a little practice.

Try it out on the image below, and leave a note in the comments if you get it!

 This picture is from here: http://digital-photography-school.com/9-crazy-cross-eye-3d-photography-images-and-how-to-make-them. If you want to see more pictures, Google for “cross eye 3D” or something similar. Search YouTube too, there are two or three videos you can watch like this! And I’d recommend looking at those Halo 3 screenshots, they’re really cool!