Forum Discussion
HOWTO: Blender prerendered equirectangular stereoscopic
I think I figured out how to render equirectangular (360x180 degrees) stereoscopic (3D) images sequences with Blender!!! Well...technically other people figured it out and I just put the pieces together.
Here is the full sized rendered image to try for yourself in Whirligig.
http://imgur.com/f7LM3tQ
Software:
Blender 2.72b http://www.blender.org/
noeol's Stereoscopic Rendering Blender script 1.6.9 http://www.noeol.de/s3d/
VirtualDub 1.10.4 http://www.virtualdub.org/
Whirligig 1.47 http://www.centzon.co.uk/whirligig/
How to:
There's basically 2 steps involved. First you setup an equirectangular lens on Blender's camera. Then you convert that camera using noeol's script into a stereoscopic rig.
Equirectangular Setup:
To setup an equirectangular camera lens you must first set your render engine to Cycles Render. Then select your camera and in the Lens section of the camera Settings choose Panoramic with an Equirectangular lens type. You won't see the Lens Type setting if you don't change the render engine to Cycles. That's it, try rendering a frame. Use something like FPSViewer http://www.fsoft.it/panorama/FSPViewer.htm to view the 2D panoramic image.
Stereoscopic Setup:
After setting up your 360 camera, you need to convert the same camera into a 3D stereoscopic rig. noeol's script is freakin' awesome for this. He has a great youtube tutorial on his website. WATCH THE VIDEO. Seriously. The whole thing. You're gong to be using the Side by Side stereoscopic preset and there are special instructions just for that one.
After you set it according to the video and you hit render, Blender's image viewer won't be able display the whole image but it will output the full image file to a directory you selected previously (during the video tutorial that you totally watched). If you render out an animation, you will get a sequence of images in the chosen directory. You can use VirtualDub to import that image sequence and export an AVI. Just drag the first image of the sequence into VirtualDub's main window, change the framerate to whatever you want in the video section, and save to AVI. Your video is now ready for viewing in Whiligig or LiveViewRift.
Final Thoughts:
I just pieced all this together last night and its very much a work in progress. But I do think I'm on the right track here. If anyone has anything to contribute please do! There's a lot of discussion on this topic in another thread here, but its more focused on Maya/Max/MentalRay. I hope this helps some one else.
UPDATE:
It appears that some one has solved the problems and streamlined the process. Hopefully, it will be officially supported in Blender soon. In the meantime, check out the website below for an explanation and patch.
http://www.dalaifelinto.com/?p=1009
Here is the full sized rendered image to try for yourself in Whirligig.
http://imgur.com/f7LM3tQ
Software:
Blender 2.72b http://www.blender.org/
noeol's Stereoscopic Rendering Blender script 1.6.9 http://www.noeol.de/s3d/
VirtualDub 1.10.4 http://www.virtualdub.org/
Whirligig 1.47 http://www.centzon.co.uk/whirligig/
How to:
There's basically 2 steps involved. First you setup an equirectangular lens on Blender's camera. Then you convert that camera using noeol's script into a stereoscopic rig.
Equirectangular Setup:
To setup an equirectangular camera lens you must first set your render engine to Cycles Render. Then select your camera and in the Lens section of the camera Settings choose Panoramic with an Equirectangular lens type. You won't see the Lens Type setting if you don't change the render engine to Cycles. That's it, try rendering a frame. Use something like FPSViewer http://www.fsoft.it/panorama/FSPViewer.htm to view the 2D panoramic image.
Stereoscopic Setup:
After setting up your 360 camera, you need to convert the same camera into a 3D stereoscopic rig. noeol's script is freakin' awesome for this. He has a great youtube tutorial on his website. WATCH THE VIDEO. Seriously. The whole thing. You're gong to be using the Side by Side stereoscopic preset and there are special instructions just for that one.
After you set it according to the video and you hit render, Blender's image viewer won't be able display the whole image but it will output the full image file to a directory you selected previously (during the video tutorial that you totally watched). If you render out an animation, you will get a sequence of images in the chosen directory. You can use VirtualDub to import that image sequence and export an AVI. Just drag the first image of the sequence into VirtualDub's main window, change the framerate to whatever you want in the video section, and save to AVI. Your video is now ready for viewing in Whiligig or LiveViewRift.
Final Thoughts:
I just pieced all this together last night and its very much a work in progress. But I do think I'm on the right track here. If anyone has anything to contribute please do! There's a lot of discussion on this topic in another thread here, but its more focused on Maya/Max/MentalRay. I hope this helps some one else.
UPDATE:
It appears that some one has solved the problems and streamlined the process. Hopefully, it will be officially supported in Blender soon. In the meantime, check out the website below for an explanation and patch.
http://www.dalaifelinto.com/?p=1009
25 Replies
- I am glad this is all coming together. I hope to see some animation examples in the future.
- Hey "DePingus",
thank your for starting this topic... I'm also a user of Blender, owner of an oculus dk2 and testing 360° stuff (for example 360° videos from the kodak sp360 with occulus)... you named very useful scripts and tools to start with. But as you mentioned, there's a lot of work to do...
I downloaded you image and testet it in Whirligig... yes it's stereoscopic, but not equirectangular, as the topic title says.
We can render with Blender equirectangular images (with cycles)... check.
We can render stereoscopic images with the help of "noeol's Stereoscopic"... check.
But render stereoscopic equirectangular images? TO DO! Right?
I'm still happy about this thread and hope to contribute in the future... - After some testing I managed to create a quite good restult.
an equirectangular stereoscopic / side by side image
http://imgur.com/n1UGic5
It works great in Whirligig. Download the image from the link above, maybe rename the long filename, copy it in the media folder in the Whirligig-Folder, start Whirligig and choose the format "Barrel Stereo SBS".
here's an anaglyph version:
http://imgur.com/i9XVmIq
it seems, that you can't see the description on imgur without being signed in, so here's the direct link:
http://tinyurl.com/lkgft5s
There's a link to an online viewer in the description.
Creating good looking results with the anglyph method isn't easy, because you have to think deeper about colors. But it's a first try. - Thanks DePingus and noemis!
This is great. My main use of Blender is making stereoscopic images, so now being able to make stereoscopic full environment images for Oculus Rift is exciting. :D - Here is a quick image I rendered with Blender. The background is a spherical mono image taken at Burning Man (not my photo), the silver statue is a model of myself from a 3D scan, and the Burning Man is a model I made using Wings 3D and Blender.
I notice that the images need to be much higher resolution than 3840x1080
http://imgur.com/gallery/TBZPL0y/new - Nice image. :D Thanks. Although it seems a bit weak on stereo effect. What was the separation of the virtual cameras?
- Thanks.
camera separation was 2 cm. I had to keep it lower because of the objects very close to the camera. If you increase the separation it causes eye strain. - With noemis example with the hardwood floor it shows that the camera separation should be 0 for rendering the zenith and nadir. That last 1 deg should be near zero. See http://www.andrewhazelden.com/blog/2012/04/domemaster3d-stereoscopic-shader-for-autodesk-maya/
@noemis this looks great. Except that 1° at the floor.
@Nurul3d the stereo does not look quite right. When I look at it in LiveViewRift and switch between left and right I can see the image or objects shift but not in the right way. And the shift does not seem like enough. I suggest moving the camera than changing the separation.
@Harolddd your example is too small; only 1024X288 - @j1vvy, Thanks for your valuable feed back. I am digging in to it.
