Help - 360? panorama - animation!!

[mihkeltt]

don't know, but maybe you have selected the quicktime VR panorama instead of quicktime movie.

[tcastudios]

It would help if you tell us what the end result/format is.

My initial thought (in 9.5) would be to bake a reflective sphere using the animation option in the baker settings. (Haven't tried but looks interesting).
You should then get an animated pictseries (I think) that you can apply on a surrounding sphere.

I don't know if QT (or any other external app) support this. Would be interresting to know.

Cheers
Lennart

[simond]

It would help if you tell us what the end result/format is.

My initial thought (in 9.5) would be to bake a reflective sphere using the animation option in the baker settings. (Haven't tried but looks interesting).
You should then get an animated pictseries (I think) that you can apply on a surrounding sphere.

I don't know if QT (or any other external app) support this. Would be interresting to know.

Cheers
Lennart


To clarify then:

I need to output a final render (not an environment map or some other pipeline file) as a 360 degree panorama, fully animated. The desitnation format is a 360 degree display system - call it an immersive fairground ride (it isn't but that's all I can tell you).

Baker sounds interesting - I did try rendering a reflective sphere but it's not going to work.

I'll have a look at Baker, but if there's some other way I REALLY need to know - don't want to have to jump to Max or something to do this!

It's annoying becuase I'm sure it would be easy to implement for Maxon, it's 95% there with VR Panorama option - just lacking animation.

s

[tcastudios]

What kind of mediaplayer(s) is used? Is it going to be projected or is it shown on LED displayes?

Cheers
Lennart

[simond]

What kind of mediaplayer(s) is used? Is it going to be projected or is it shown on LED displayes?

Cheers
Lennart

You're fishing ;) I can't say and It's irrelevent anyway. I just need a solution! Baker is sort of working, but it's flakey - can't seem to get it to generate non-square format renders, or any animation, though there are clearly both those options in there. it all went pear shaped when I changed the Optimal mapping option, it keeps giving me errors (even though I regenerated a spherical UVW tag). Uhhhg it's annoying....

s

[Ernest Burden]

You're fishing
Baker is sort of working, but it's flakey

Then you're fish.

I do not yet have a full grasp of Baker, but I found I got better results when I set the output type to 'photoshop', even though it wasn't doing layers. I cannot explain why. You can either use the psd files directly or convert them.

[simond]

Then you're fish.

I do not yet have a full grasp of Baker, but I found I got better results when I set the output type to 'photoshop', even though it wasn't doing layers. I cannot explain why. You can either use the psd files directly or convert them.

OK it's working, sort of. You need to check 'Use Current Render Data' in Details tab to render animations - god knows why there are frame ranges in Baker because they don't do anything. It's rendering 360 degree animations from a reflective sphere using the frame size I set in the main render details, hurray! It's not exactly condusive to the creative process but it at least works. Thanks guys.

If any of you can fine tune the process, post the result!!

s

[tcastudios]

You're fishing ;) I can't say and It's irrelevent anyway. I just need a solution!

s

Not really.. I've had the pleasure to do many such productions and to say that there is "a" single solution is not very likely.

It has always been the need to know:
Mediaplayer, final format, projectiontype , mechanical/optical adjustment/trim possibilities, pixeloverlap ratios, and some more.

Each type/situation need different rendercamera options.
It has always worked with Cinema (to render out the core material)but there has always been severe postwork in apps such as AfterEffects etc.

Cheers
Lennart

[CiaránMurphy]

I'm with tcastudios on this...

If it's to be output as a .mov then will it not just be a animation of the 2d image? QTVR isn't really a 3d image... just a warped 2d image that is specially projected in certain players. Quicktime VR doesn't support frame by frame animation in the same way as a .mov file, anthough you can easily animate the angle/position you're looking at.

If I understand you correctly then you intend to render many separate QTVR files... each file acting as a frame of a animation, so that the user can play the animation, but pause it at any time and have a look around from that point in time.

If yes then I'd love to now what player does this (love to try it!) and the machine spec! If not then I'm lost! :)

[tcastudios]

It's rendering 360 degree animations from a reflective sphere using the frame size I set in the main render details, hurray! s

Great to hear! This technique would have helped me in some jobs...

May I suggest that you render out to 32bit b4d (or what it's called, the Cinema's own format I mean. I'm not at work to check the filetype name).

The reason being, I tested render out material and then used it as texture on a Background Object. And - since it is 32bit it is very easy to re-expose and render out again to the final post format (Like "down" to 16 psd etc). Just dissable any antialiasing, MIP stuff etc. and it re-renders in no-time. The only really important filter that is not there is a good colorcorrection.

So now Cinema has become a severe post app as well!

The exposure/gamma is -the- hardest part in doing any projecting/LED work and that is why we allmost always do the content on-sight.

Cheers
Lennart

[simond]

Great to hear! This technique would have helped me in some jobs...

So now Cinema has become a severe post app as well!

The exposure/gamma is -the- hardest part in doing any projecting/LED work and that is why we allmost always do the content on-sight.

Cheers
Lennart

Yeah, I've yet to actually visit the rig itslef but I do need to have some animated content ASAP so that when I'm on site I can see what to tweak, what works what doesn't etc. It's a learning curve. Bad news - the content needs to be final quality though - antialiased as a final render - it IS a final render! There only seems to be a Sampling setting in Baker - the main render AA settings don't apply and whatever Sampling setting I choose the rendered frames are jaggy!

s

[tcastudios]

Hmm..
I'll check this up a little more tomorrow...

Cheers
Lennart

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