Blitz Arcade Creates First Game in Stereoscopic 3D

Updated H. B. Duran 0 353 Views

Blitz Arcade, the downloadable division of Blitz Games Studios found themselves a World Record holder today, despite having accomplished this feat last year. With the creation of Invincible Tiger: The Legend of Han Toa in 2009, Blitz now holds the Guiness World Record for the very first stereoscopic 3D console game.

This was exciting news for the developer, as well as a fitting birthday present as Invincible Tiger turns one year old this month. The game is a 70's Kung Fu movie-style side-scroller that sends gamers on a quest through China to reclaim the Star of Destiny. Although fully playable in 2D, gamers can slip on a pair of standard anaglyph glasses and experience the adventure in 3D, as well. (Reportedly without any sacrifice in color or clarity.)

Invincible Tiger: The Legend of Han Tao was published by Namco Bandai and is available for PSN and XBLA. (Rated T for Teen) You can visit their Kung Fu website (totally worth it just for the soundtrack) at http://www.invincibletiger.com . As 3D TVs and now video games become the trend, I'm sure the developers at Blitz Arcade are smiling knowing that they were officially the first. As you read this, the rush is on to create TVs and other monitors that can project 3D in all directions without the need for glasses. This year at E3, Nintendo introduced the first 3D console, the 3Ds. Meanwhile, Origins presented the very first 3D laptop. Sony, of course is hastily developing 3D televisions and video games. Will this trend last or is it just a step in the direction of thought-controlled virtual reality? Will all these 3D TVs be obsolete by this time next year? Only time and sales figures can tell. Until then, we shall put our glasses on and wait.

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Following ’s note about stereoscopic 3D in games, a short developer-focused checklist and a few gotchas that aren’t always obvious.

Keep the camera math correct. Don’t use toe‑in camera rotations (they introduce vertical parallax and corner keystone artifacts); use an off‑axis (asymmetric frustum) setup and expose interaxial (eye‑separation) and convergence controls so players can tune depth. Pick a sensible default for IPD (roughly the average adult value is around 63 mm) but make it adjustable — one size does not fit all. (paulbourke.net)

Plan for the rendering cost up front. “Active” stereo naïvely doubles draw work (and draw calls) unless the engine shares work intelligently. Use single‑pass instanced / multiview stereo where supported, reuse shadowmaps and other eye‑independent buffers, and audit post‑processing (many image effects need per‑eye handling). These choices make the difference between playable frame rates and a maintenance nightmare. (docs.nvidia.com)

Anaglyph and color: if you must support red/cyan glasses, prefer color‑preserving algorithms (Dubois matrices and their variants) rather than simple channel drops — they reduce ghosting at the cost of some color accuracy, so test scenes with saturated colors. Always provide a 2D fallback and a “stereo strength” slider; users will differ widely in comfort. (ixora.io)

HUD and UX: avoid forcing a flat orthographic overlay for critical UI in stereo. Either render HUD elements as world‑space 3D (or on a near zero‑parallax plane) or provide a separate mono HUD option. Test with real glasses/displays, check ghosting, and expose settings for users to reduce depth or switch to 2D if they experience strain. (studylib.net)

Quick practical checklist: off‑axis frustums; IPD + convergence sliders; single‑pass/multiview where possible; handle image effects per‑eye; use Dubois or similar for anaglyph; HUD as world‑space or mono; test broadly on real hardware.

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