“3-D is going to succeed when it stops being a special effect and just starts being part of the storytelling experience. Which you’re seeing happen very rapidly with movies, in sports … and video games,” says Phil Lelyveld, program manager of the consumer 3-D experience lab at the University of Southern California’s Entertainment Technology Center in Los Angeles.
Lelyveld says today’s 3-D effects are less in-your-face and more about depth of field. So though objects occasionally burst out, it’s more likely to use perspective to draw you in – such as the lush alien foliage that pulled moviegoers into Avatar or the airborne balloons that crowds gawked at in Up.