Filmmaker here. There's a lot more to having good 3D than parallax, and 'painted on' is a necessity to get better 3D today on live-action films even if you film with two cameras.
The only films that truly have great 3D today are Avatar (in the 3D animated scenes -- most of the movie) and modern 3D animated films (Disney, Pixar, Dreamworks, etc.).
The reason is that you need different parallax settings (among other things) within the same shot. Let that sink in. There's no global setting for any of the stereoscopic cues that works well for all objects in a single image. Obviously, then, having two cameras alone doesn't really get you good 3D no matter how you do it.
Live-action recording like the Hobbit only ever gets one set of 3D settings per frame, unless you do the 3D 'painted' thing you claim sucks, and even then, the '3D painted' technique is time-consuming, expensive, and still not as good as what you can get when you're doing 3D stereoscopic rendering and can actually use different settings for different objects within the frame at the same time. FWIW, I'm certain that the Hobbit also used the '3D painted' technique. Everyone does it when they have the budget for it.
If anyone is really interested in how 3D is actually done by those in the industry, subscribe to cml-3d. The 3D supervisors post their techniques on films often; it's quite an interesting read.
The only films that truly have great 3D today are Avatar (in the 3D animated scenes -- most of the movie) and modern 3D animated films (Disney, Pixar, Dreamworks, etc.).
The reason is that you need different parallax settings (among other things) within the same shot. Let that sink in. There's no global setting for any of the stereoscopic cues that works well for all objects in a single image. Obviously, then, having two cameras alone doesn't really get you good 3D no matter how you do it.
Live-action recording like the Hobbit only ever gets one set of 3D settings per frame, unless you do the 3D 'painted' thing you claim sucks, and even then, the '3D painted' technique is time-consuming, expensive, and still not as good as what you can get when you're doing 3D stereoscopic rendering and can actually use different settings for different objects within the frame at the same time. FWIW, I'm certain that the Hobbit also used the '3D painted' technique. Everyone does it when they have the budget for it.
If anyone is really interested in how 3D is actually done by those in the industry, subscribe to cml-3d. The 3D supervisors post their techniques on films often; it's quite an interesting read.