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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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    VanKurt
    Participant
    July 24, 2014
    Vray can do. stereo panorama right out of the render engine.


    Can anyone confirm this?
    I have been playing around with vray and 3ds max, but without any success. I tried creating a camera, setting it to spherical and then adding a stereoscopic camera to the scene. That gave me a split output (L+R), but not really a panorama...
    Graphicsmode
    Participant
    July 25, 2014
    "cheerioboy" wrote:
    oh! haha, that didn't even occur to me. 3dsmax has the same thing where it will automatically ramp the animation from two points. You have to force a linear movement in the curve editor.

    glad you solved it! :)

    They changed this quite some time ago and it was really annoying me. I love ease in/out but most of the animations I do are turntables that I want to loop. When it comes time to do proper animation it's helpful though.

    It turns out we don't need to go into the Curve Editor though. There's a tiny flyout button down near the key buttons that will set the tangent, use this before you start animating.

    pixelmind
    Participant
    July 26, 2014
    "VanKurt" wrote:
    Vray can do. stereo panorama right out of the render engine.


    Can anyone confirm this?
    I have been playing around with vray and 3ds max, but without any success. I tried creating a camera, setting it to spherical and then adding a stereoscopic camera to the scene. That gave me a split output (L+R), but not really a panorama...


    Yes you can output spherical stereo images directly from vray but not with the default cameras.

    I'm writing a custom camera plugin for 3dsmax and it works quite well.

    Single rendering, no stitching required, works with renderelements and all.

    Here's a test rendering:

    sphericalStereoTest.jpg

    and the same scene in motion:

    http://www.filedropper.com/sphericalstereorendertesthalf

    There's still some warping going on at the nadir and zenith though.
    VanKurt
    Participant
    July 28, 2014
    Single rendering, no stitching required, works with renderelements and all.

    That sounds great. Is, by any chance, the current version of your plugin available for testing?
    Or do you keep it locked up in a cage in your secret laboratory? ;)
    pixelmind
    Participant
    July 28, 2014
    At the moment the plugin is still heavily guarded and safely hidden in our moon base ;)

    There're still a few things I have to add and test internally but I'll keep you in the loop as soon as I can share anything.
    luckyfox
    New Participant
    August 8, 2014
    pixelmind, can you, please, share you technique on how you obtain the both eyes panoramas inside 3ds max? without the need to stitch stripes?
    bcoyle
    Up and Coming
    August 8, 2014
    "pixelmind" wrote:
    "VanKurt" wrote:
    Vray can do. stereo panorama right out of the render engine.


    Can anyone confirm this?
    I have been playing around with vray and 3ds max, but without any success. I tried creating a camera, setting it to spherical and then adding a stereoscopic camera to the scene. That gave me a split output (L+R), but not really a panorama...


    Yes you can output spherical stereo images directly from vray but not with the default cameras.

    I'm writing a custom camera plugin for 3dsmax and it works quite well.

    Single rendering, no stitching required, works with renderelements and all.

    Here's a test rendering:

    sphericalStereoTest.jpg

    and the same scene in motion:

    http://www.filedropper.com/sphericalstereorendertesthalf

    There's still some warping going on at the nadir and zenith though.


    Awesome work mate. I'm always in awe of people that can code/program stuff. Looking forward to more info on your camera.
    http://www.quitenice.co
    Loyalwater
    Participant
    August 21, 2014
    Hello,

    I have been trying the strip method of rendering for the past 2 weeks but all my tries have failed. The strips are visible after stitching the image. I have attached a reference.

    Im rendering them as 5 x 900 strips with FOV 1 and I have also tried to make the camera movement linear as suggested on the forums.

    Nothing has helped me :( Can some one spot the mistake I might be making while generating the panorama ? Would really appreciate some help.

    Here is a direct link
    http://s21.postimg.org/6mfbv1t1j/Stereo_Panorama.png

    This is the post I referred to along with the forums.
    http://projects.fun4mobile.de/2014/07/30/stereo-panorama-stitching-tool-slitcher/
    j1vvy
    Up and Coming
    August 21, 2014
    Looks like an error introduced by rendering engine. Maybe an auto brightness being done on each strip.
    Loyalwater
    Participant
    August 21, 2014
    Im using a standard max camera. Do I need to use the Vray physical camera?

    Can some one who has succeeded share their Vray settings with me ? I think my VRay settings could e causing the problem here as j1vvy suggested.
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