Michael Bay and James Cameron: Two directors who don’t take any sh*t, with comparatively different results. Bay’s actually kind of bowing to Cameron by shooting Transformers 3 in 3D. He’d always said he thought it was just a gimmick. So now he’s got to be nice to 3D camera inventor Vincent Pace.

“We’re doing Transformers with Michael Bay, and that’s a big challenge because he’s not the kind of director that’s going to give you break,” Pace said as he demonstrated his cameras from Avatar. “But he met it halfway and he said, ‘Look, it complements my product, and I want to incorporate this into my shooting style.’”

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Pace considers that winning a battle for the acceptance of 3D. “Once we win that, once they know you’re putting a better product on the screen, then you’re working as a team.”

Transformers is a little different from Avatar though. The Autobots and Decepticons are created in CGI, but placed in live-action environments. It’s not all performance capture in virtual elements. Pace said his designs will still work on CGI films.

“It’s something you do in 2D with your relationship positioning and things like that,” Pace explained. “For example, if you’re going to have a monster come over your shoulder, create some targets that do the same thing, so that it relates to being the same thing. It’s kind of the same parallel process, but you just have to get those cues in play to make it work for you.”

Learn more about Pace’s Avatar cameras on the special edition DVD coming Nov. 16.