Cactus Game Design Message Boards

The scenes at the beginning in Bilbo's house for the Dwarf gathering were absolutely amazing.  It was not because anything popped out at you, but simply because it REALLY seemed like I was right there in the house with everyone.

Four scenes were notably richer in 3D due simply to the WOW factor: the Attack of Smaug at the beginning, the Thunder Battle (between the Storm Giants), the Goblin Escape (from the mountain), and the scene where they were throwing flaming pine cones from the trees (one came out an made me blink).  All of these looked amazing, and I found that I was able to see details that I had missed in 2D.  Some of the complicated, fast-paced stuff also made more sense visually as I saw it in 3D.

One other thing that I noticed was that the 3D really seemed to make scenes with human actors feel much more real.  However, it did NOT seem to have the same effect on CGI characters like Gollum.  I still loved the Riddles in the Dark scene, but there was just something about how the 3D affected Bilbo more than it affected Gollum, that was weird to me.  This also seemed to apply to the landscapes.  The real mountains looked AMAZING in 3d, but the CGI Rivendell really didn't seem to be affected by the 3D much at all (except for the shot where Galadriel and Gandalf are saying goodbye, and the camera pans around from the waterfall underneath.  That shot was really cool.)