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ghostlyfu
Up and Coming
October 9, 2013

360x180 CG Renders

I'm facing a problem when rendering any pair of equirectangular images from inside a 3D modelling package (Maya in my case, but no doubt the same issues apply to many different packages). The attached (side-by-side format) image is an example. I'm hoping the good folk on this forum can help.

I render out my panorama (I use the Lat-Lon Mental Ray lens plug-in) and it looks as you'd expect. Looking at it through the excellent VRPlayer, it works well. I then shift my camera to another position approx 6.5 'virtual' cm to the side of the first position and re-render. Again this panorama works fine on its own.

I was hoping that I could just place these x2 renders side-by-side (as they are in the attached example) to make a 3D version of the scene. Not so. What's happening is that the 'forward' view works fine but the depth gets reversed towards the peripheries of the image (which just looks bad) until the 'back' view is completely inverse (and so look pretty much OK again).

Logically I can see that the reason is that the 'Right camera' becomes the 'Left camera' as it renders the part of the view directly behind itself. However, I haven't got a clue how to fix it and output an equirectangular panorama that works in 3D. Help!

    165 replies

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    Sneer
    Participant
    October 28, 2014
    I did some quick testrenderings yesterday.
    Side by Side Tests:

    Download video


    Download video

    360 Test in Top/Bottom (very low quality) at 360/180

    Download video

    This was done in a few hours, don't expect any quality in this 1-3 secs videos, but they are made for an infinite loop (so don't forget to tick "loop" in selection window) The zipfolders contain liveview-mediaplayer settings-files for the vids.
    gaoz
    New Participant
    October 29, 2014
    "Sneer" wrote:
    "kimblarsen" wrote:
    If you are using Maya or Max with Mental Ray you can use this stereoscopic shader to render out 360x180 stereo panoramic images:
    http://www.andrewhazelden.com/blog/2012/04/domemaster3d-stereoscopic-shader-for-autodesk-maya/

    "The Domemaster stereo shader is designed to create 2D & 3D fulldome renderings for use in planetariums and other fulldome theaters, and spherical/equirectangular renderings with the latlong_lens shader."

    Cheers,
    Kim Baumann Larsen
    @kimusan


    Really cool, ̶i̶̶s̶̶ ̶̶t̶̶h̶̶e̶̶r̶̶e̶̶ ̶̶a̶̶ ̶̶s̶̶t̶̶e̶̶p̶-̶t̶̶o̶-̶s̶̶t̶̶e̶̶p̶̶ ̶̶g̶̶u̶̶i̶̶d̶̶e̶̶ ̶̶a̶̶v̶̶a̶̶i̶̶l̶̶a̶̶b̶̶l̶̶e̶̶?̶̶ ̶̶i̶'̶v̶̶e̶̶ ̶̶a̶̶d̶̶d̶̶e̶̶d̶̶ ̶̶t̶̶h̶̶e̶̶ ̶̶l̶̶a̶̶t̶̶l̶̶o̶̶n̶̶g̶̶ ̶̶i̶̶n̶̶ ̶̶t̶̶h̶̶e̶̶ ̶̶c̶̶a̶̶m̶̶e̶̶r̶̶a̶̶ ̶̶s̶̶h̶̶a̶̶d̶̶e̶̶r̶̶s̶̶,̶̶ ̶̶b̶̶u̶̶t̶̶ ̶̶w̶̶h̶̶a̶̶t̶̶ ̶̶n̶̶o̶̶w̶̶?̶
    Nevermind, it works with the domemaster stereo shader :)


    Hello Sneer,

    I'm very new on all this (I'm starting to use 3ds max) and I could use some help. I installed the domecaster shader and selectet it on the "lens" shader option and it renders a fulldome but not stereo.

    I got acces to the shader menu from material editor but nothing seems to change when I select right or left camera. You see I'm a little bit lost, but I think I can do it with some help.

    Could you tell me the steps you followed?

    Thanks in advance!
    Sneer
    Participant
    October 29, 2014
    Sure, but keep in mind it's was my very 1st try aswell.
    First check if you got the latest version of Andrews shader (it just got updated yesterday) :
    https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0ByIHtCd6oXO2ZDU1LXZZSHdMRzA#list
    Also, install Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2012 Update 4 :
    http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30679

    Restart pc and open 3dsmax.
    Hit F10 (Rendring/Render Setup)
    Goto Render tab/ Camera Effects / Camera Shaders and click the empty slot for "Lens"
    In the popup window goto mentalray and choose "LatLong Stereo Shader".
    Now drag&drop this slot onto an empty material editor slot as instance to access the parameters.
    In parameters:
    I have set the "Cameras Seperation" to 6,4 (that's my ipd) and the "Seperation Multiplier" to 0,01 (I think it is related to 3dsmaxs unit setup (I'm using metric setup [1unit=1meter])
    Check "Zenith Mode", if your scene camera is facing upwards.
    Keep it unchecked, if your cam is looking at the horizon.
    Next choose the left or right "Camera" (active selction will be rendered)

    Please let me know, if you find any mistakes.
    gaoz
    New Participant
    October 29, 2014
    Thank you very much for your help Sneer! I made it!!! :mrgreen:
    j1vvy
    Up and Coming
    October 30, 2014
    Sneer, Nice little video demo. Now do something longer and in higher resolution.

    Good to see that the tools are coming together to accomplish this.
    twastvedt
    New Participant
    November 17, 2014
    "kimblarsen" wrote:
    If you are using Maya or Max with Mental Ray you can use this stereoscopic shader to render out 360x180 stereo panoramic images:
    http://www.andrewhazelden.com/blog/2012/04/domemaster3d-stereoscopic-shader-for-autodesk-maya/

    "The Domemaster stereo shader is designed to create 2D & 3D fulldome renderings for use in planetariums and other fulldome theaters, and spherical/equirectangular renderings with the latlong_lens shader."

    Cheers,
    Kim Baumann Larsen
    @kimusan


    For those who aren't watching it, Andrew Hazelden added a stereo panorama Vray shader to Domemaster 3d! I haven't tried it yet, but there's more info here:

    https://github.com/zicher3d-org/domemaster-stereo-shader/tree/master/vray/docs
    ghostlyfuAuthor
    Up and Coming
    November 27, 2014
    An update to my 360/3D music video project: it's now online via http://www.littlearrow360.com made via 'strip rendering' form Maya (thanks to those who helped via this strand!) and assembled in After Effects as over/under video the excellent VRPlayer even provides directional surround sound (cheers Stephan!).
    pittsburghjoe
    Up and Coming
    January 10, 2015
    Looks like this is an alternative to Domemaster3D for 3ds max if you needed one:
    http://rennervfx.com/stereoscopic-panorama-maxscript

    I know that After Effects has the ability to do virtual cameras ..has anyone heard of a plugin for it to render 360 Stereoscopic? I found this but it's the opposite of what I want http://www.redgiant.com/products/all/trapcode-horizon/#tabs
    i7 skylake, EVGA Classified, 2 EVGA 980 sc's, Thermaltake TR2 RX(1000W), 32GB DDR4, Win 10 on an SSD
    mediavr
    Up and Coming
    January 11, 2015
    I know that After Effects has the ability to do virtual cameras ..has anyone heard of a plugin for it to render 360 Stereoscopic? I found this but it's the opposite of what I want


    You can render out 360 2D videos at least by exporting 6 sides to a cube like I describe here -- and batch stitching the cube sides to equirectangular 360/180s with PTGui
    viewtopic.php?f=33&t=18491#p232389
    pittsburghjoe
    Up and Coming
    January 11, 2015
    beautiful write-up ..but that only gets us halfway there. Maybe we can adopt something from this comment with UE4:
    https://answers.unrealengine.com/questions/79870/360-degree-stereo-pre-render-needed.html

    So my hack but working solution was to create a cube capture target. Have the texture open on the desktop and with a matinee attached to the cube capture. I play the matinee and screen capture the updating texture. Crop it and bam you have a working 360 x 180 video.

    Note: with a 1440 p monitor the video is 2550*1275 the Gear Vr can play it but the resolution really needs to be double that at least.

    I screen capture at 15 fps and play the matinee at 1\2 speed so the updating is smoother. Then in the Gear Vr play it at 30 fps. Looks great just missing post processing.


    OR maybe this plugin could take your 360 2D and make it stereo? http://www.yuvsoft.com/after-effects-plugins/stereo-generator-adobe/

    Edit/side note: If I understand this correctly ..here is a plugin for AE that could potentially handle pre-rendered 360 stereo import. http://aescripts.com/stereo-3d-toolkit/
    i7 skylake, EVGA Classified, 2 EVGA 980 sc's, Thermaltake TR2 RX(1000W), 32GB DDR4, Win 10 on an SSD
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