Stereoscopic 3D rendering of a panorama in 3ds max

If the render engine does not have an explicit cameras setup for creating stereo 360° renders then the tricks described in this thread should work.
viewtopic.php?f=33&t=4613

Basically you need to render out small vertical strips and assemble them back together a pano.
two cameras 62mm apart rotated together.

Hey, I'm trying to do the same thing. But it's not that easy :(

As you can see in my thread here:
https://developer.oculusvr.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=11235
there is some "magic" missing in the recipe. I tried various things without success. So if you come up with anything please let me know :D

BTW: Rendering just 2 spherical panos will not work. As j1vvy suggested you need to create small slices and stitch them (see the other thread). For stitching you could use a small tool I wrote (see my thread mentioned above).

Good luck!

Hi,

I want to create a stereoscopic panoramic 3D video and thats why Im finding this challenging. Rendering strips and merging should work for a single image but for a video I would have to follow this procedure for every single frame generated for the video. Plus this will be done once for left eye and once for right eye. So that means total frames x 2.

I was hoping there would be a less tedious solution.

@VanKurt, you said that 2 spherical pano's will not work. What if we render a pano video for left eye and one for right eye, using the camera angles and eye distance of 3D steroscopy, and then send these streams to the respective eyes in a video player. Why wont that work? I was going to try this with my team tomorrow but Im quite interested in knowing your reasoning since you might have already tried this ...

This will only work when looking forward. As soon as you turn to the left, right or back the illusion will break. The other thread explains this here:

https://developer.oculusvr.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=4613&start=20

There's a nice animation showing how the cameras have to move to get it right. Basically you need to rotate both cameras around a COMMON center point. Not each camera around ITS OWN center. It's a bit difficult to explain with words ;)

This animation makes so much sense :) Some one needs to write a script for doing this :P

Ill share my finding on 3ds max with you and hopefully we can find a solution to this.

"Loyalwater" wrote:
This animation makes so much sense :) Some one needs to write a script for doing this :P

Ill share my finding on 3ds max with you and hopefully we can find a solution to this.

I've had friends make simple scripts for the slice method. But it still takes ages to render an animation with this method. Really what needs to happen is that the rendering software implement a camera that mimics all the steps we're doing in one single render.

I have been exploring the POST-PRODUCTION way of adding stereoscopy to my panoramic videos using mocha pro & after effect but thats also very time consuming.

What Im going to do now is try to write a maxscript to do all the steps you guys have suggested for 3ds max. As soon as the script is ready, I will share it with you'll for testing.

Hope to share this script in a couple of days with you'll.

I came accross this link on the forums:-
http://elevr.com/tutorial-3d-spherical-camera-head/

If we replicate this rig in 3ds max and generate 12 streams - 6 for left and 6 for right - and then stitch them using video stitcher, wont it work ?

The more cameras you use the better the seams will be, with the right camera to should not need to blend.
Creating the Video rig with multi cameras requires to cut corners of using the fewest cameras possible but with CG you can use as many cameras as you want.
VFoV should be 180° so you don't need a zenith and nadir. But if the you do get a swirl or vortex then add a single small FoV camera for better results.

Hello, there is a big problem with rendering 3D VR, 360 has to render around the center of the TWO Cameras not the Center of EACH Camera, If you render two panoramic exports in any usual way, you get this:

3D that looks great when you look 'forward', that then FLATTENS if you turns left or right 90 degrees, and then REVERSES Left / Right orientation if you turn 180!!! The reason is that the cameras are 'turning' (rendering)around the local Camera axis and not around the 2 cameras shared axis... So it distorts the 3D effect as you TURN in the VR WOrld.

The fix for this is either do as explained above OR:

Use the new VRAY 3, it has a Geometrically Correct Stereo Panoramic VR Export option (AND You can render BOTH EYES AT the SAME TIME! Side by Side! 3840x2160 and 360x180 degrees!)

there is also a Free Camera 'filter' Plugin for Mental Ray called DOMEMASTER (google) that renders each eye properly but you do have to render left and right separately and join in editing software.

I am however waiting anxiously for a Method to do the same in FinalRender!! The creator of Domemaster has spoken of making a FinalRender plug, so say tuned :)

Good luck!