Have a Look Around: 360 Renders

RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,805

I started playing around with spherical Iray renders today and am having a blast creating scenes where I'm in the center and can look all around. The Daz Forums don't appear to have a way to display 360 renders, so I'm using a site called 2VR.in to post the renders. The process to create a 360 scene is easy:

  1. Start with a scene that has objects in all directions. 
  2. Render in Iray using your camera set to Lens/Lens Distortion Type/Spherical.
  3. It's recommended you render at a 2:1 ratio with a 4096 by 2048 resolution. I'm finding a pretty good results using a 1.25:1 ratio at a 1800 by 1440 resolution which renders much faster.
  4. Save the render as a .jpg.
  5. (Optionally) Sharpen the image using GIMP or PSP.
  6. Go to 2VR.in and post your image. You will get an email after posting that has a verification link you need to click on before your image is viewable. The first time I did it, the email took 10-15 minutes to arrive. After that, they've shown up pretty much instantaeoulsy.
  7. You'll get a second email with a link to your image. Copy that URL and paste here.
  8. When you view the 360 render, use your mouse to drag the scene and you can look up/down/right/left.

Here are links to the first 360's I've made:

FirstBastions Mid Forest Vale

Peaceful House

Tithe Barn

This is an open thread, so anyone who wants to post a 360 render (using whatever host works for you, there are others besides 2VR), please fell free to do so.

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Comments

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,859

    Thanks for sharing your new-found expertise!  One of these days I'll give this a go. In the meantime, looking forward to seeing what folks are doing. 

  • mindsongmindsong Posts: 1,693

    great thread, and your starting renders are great

    --ms

  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,805

    Very cool! what tools do you use to animate it?

  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,805
    mindsong said:

    great thread, and your starting renders are great

    --ms

    Thanks!

  • RGcincy said:

    Very cool! what tools do you use to animate it?

    are image series, mostly Octane render in Carrara but some of latest ones used the new iray spherical lens in D|S made into mp4 then encoded with the youtube 360 metadata injector

    https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6178631?hl=en

  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,805

    Thanks for the link. What resolution images do you use> I see they recommend 7168x3584

  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,805
    edited February 2017

    The Library. Click here to see 360 view.

    I attached the spherical render so you can see what they look like in 2D. This image is what gets uploaded to 2VR.

    Library spherical.jpg
    1600 x 1280 - 3M
    2VR Library.jpg
    1359 x 699 - 142K
    Post edited by RGcincy on
  • RGcincy said:

    Thanks for the link. What resolution images do you use> I see they recommend 7168x3584

    I go for superHD as thats what my video compositing software likes
    width3640  height2160

    Bigger would be nicer, I render 10Kx5K images for my own use as backgrounds but the video files would be massive and hard to composite and I think Youtube only supports up to superHD anyway

  • DigiDotzDigiDotz Posts: 508

    thats great, i didnt even notice those settings were there beforewink

  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,805
    edited February 2017

    The Scrimmage. Setting is 1stBastion's Wilderness: Two Creeks. Click here to see 360 view.

     

    2VR SScrimmage.jpg
    1332 x 696 - 229K
    Scrimmage spherical.jpg
    2400 x 1920 - 6M
    Post edited by RGcincy on
  • It certainly has potential for some specific cases at least. Though personally I have never connected to 360 imagery, be it Google street, various virtual musems and etc. Always feels distorted to me, lacking depth and sence of space. Hope folks out there find a way to utilise it in more imaginative ways,  

  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,805
    edited January 2018
    SoundLufs said:

    It certainly has potential for some specific cases at least. Though personally I have never connected to 360 imagery, be it Google street, various virtual musems and etc. Always feels distorted to me, lacking depth and sence of space. Hope folks out there find a way to utilise it in more imaginative ways,  

    I have the opposite experience, liking the 360 views. One of my favorite computer games was Uru where you could walk about and look completely around the environment. I will agree with you on the disotrtions, as some of the ones I've done with people have a magnifying distortion at particualr angles, but that may be from my inexperienced camera positioning.

    Post edited by RGcincy on
  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,805
    edited February 2017

    One using Castle Turret, from the inside stairwell. Click here to see 360 view

     

     

    2VR Towerstairs.jpg
    1354 x 691 - 128K
    Tower Top spherical.jpg
    2000 x 1000 - 2M
    Post edited by RGcincy on
  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,805
    edited February 2017

    Another using Castle Turret, from the inside first floor. Click here to see 360 view

     

    2VR Watchful.jpg
    1367 x 694 - 140K
    Tower Bottom spherical.jpg
    2400 x 1920 - 7M
    Post edited by RGcincy on
  • FirstBastionFirstBastion Posts: 7,220
    edited February 2017

    Because of the angle and the postion,  the girl on the stairs works particularly well.  I like castle Turret too.  

    Post edited by FirstBastion on
  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,805

    Because of the angle and the postion,  the girl on the stairs works particularly well.  I like castle Turret too.  

    Thanks!

  • LlynaraLlynara Posts: 4,770

    Wow, this is really, really cool. Cannot wait to try it! 

  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,805
    edited February 2017

    I found if I had the Daz Studio camera focused on an object as the center of interest, it would not appear in the center of the 360 display. At least when using the 2VR site, you'll want to center the camera on whatever object you want to feature, then rotate it by 90 degrees to the left (so if camera is at 0, make Y-rotation 90. If camera is -45, make it 45, etc). That's what I did on this image. 

    Click here to see in 360.

    2VR Demonaro.jpg
    1355 x 695 - 95K
    Demonaro spherical.jpg
    4098 x 2049 - 7M
    Post edited by RGcincy on
  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,805

    I suddenly had trouble with the 2VR site in Chrome showing a black image instead of the 360 render. I solved the problem by turning my ad blocker off which let the 360 render be displayed again. I turned the ad blocker back on and the 360 image continued to be displayed correctly. I know one other person has commented on getting a black image so that may be the cause.

  • LlynaraLlynara Posts: 4,770

    That's amazing. I do have an ad blocker on but am not having trouble there yet. It takes a minute for the picture to become clear, but I'm on satellite internet and it can be slow. But the clarity is amazing once it kicks in. How sharp are you having to make your render settings for these? They look great.

  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,805
    edited February 2017

    One thing I notice with the 2VR 360 views is the image doesn't seem to pivot around the center point as you scroll to the right or left. Instead, the center of the image seems to just swing to the right or left edge of the view window, causing a character to become distorted. The first image below shows a character in the center. The second image shows that it has grown in size as it moves to the right edge of the view window.

    If I resize the browser window to get rid of the panoramic view, the effect is reduced (see below). I wonder if all 360 viewers display this way or if it's a fault in the 2VR viewer. 

    2VR character in center.jpg
    1330 x 640 - 79K
    2VR character at right.jpg
    1330 x 640 - 73K
    2VR character at right square.jpg
    530 x 626 - 37K
    2VR character in center square.jpg
    593 x 625 - 47K
    Post edited by RGcincy on
  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,805
    Llynara said:

    That's amazing. I do have an ad blocker on but am not having trouble there yet. It takes a minute for the picture to become clear, but I'm on satellite internet and it can be slow. But the clarity is amazing once it kicks in. How sharp are you having to make your render settings for these? They look great.

    Even on fiber cable, it takes a minute to sharpen. It looks like they send a low-res image first then send the full resolution a bit slower.

    I had the black image for the first time today. It's worked fine every other day. May just have been a hiccup in the internet.

    The Demonaro render was 4098 by 2049. The tower stairs render was 2000 by 1000. I also did some renders at 1600 by 1280 and 1800 by 1440. I sharpened them all in GIMP with a setting of 40 (someone had suggested that as a routine thing to do, as Daz Studio Iray renders tend to be soft). 

  • FirePro9FirePro9 Posts: 455

    The distortion of 360-images at the edges seems to be a pretty common problem.  I assume that changing the camera's focal length (increasing it) will lead to a smaller field of view and then presumably less distortion as you rotate your image.

  • FirePro9FirePro9 Posts: 455

    BTW, has anyone figured out how to do stereo panos (see below)?

    Thanks!

    ____________________________________

    New Iray 2016.2 SDK

    Building on NVIDIA Iray SDK 2016.1’s introduction of industry standard lenses and spherical lenses and stereo for VR panoramas, the latest release (2016.2) continues to push VR to the next level. Iray now provides one-step creation of stereo panoramas and the ability to stream stereo to a device. Sending jobs to a Quadro VCA or DGX-1 will soon enable the creation of Iray VR immersions for inspecting scenes from any perspective.

    What’s new in Iray 2016.2

    • Support for NVIDIA Pascal generation GPUs.
    • Stereo output from a single render
    • Support of X-Rite’s AxF 1.3 format (for measured materials)
    • Create Iray VR by sending jobs to Quadro VCA or DGX-1 (no additional setup required)
    •  
  • FirePro9FirePro9 Posts: 455

    One last thing, some 360 apps still use cubemaps/skyboxes which are just 6-square 90-degree field of views stuck together....very easy to do too.

    Here is a link to a forum post on cubemaps if interested:

    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/1321651/#Comment_1321651

     

  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,805
    edited February 2017
    FirePro9 said:

    BTW, has anyone figured out how to do stereo panos (see below)?

    Thanks!

     

    • Stereo output from a single render

    No, and I can't find anything documentation on the web for it. It would be quite helpful to have an explanation for the various Lens and Lens Distortion Type parameters. 

    Post edited by RGcincy on
  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,805
    edited February 2017

    FirstBastion sets and spherical renders just seem to go together. Here's one using his Divided Highway set. Buildings on one side are Urban Sprawl 3. Buildings on the other side are Movie Sets: Low Poly Blocks. Trucks are Big Bill Truck and Trailer and Yamaki CargoSky is SunnyG from Skies of iRadiance - Sunny Sky HDRIs for Iray.

    Click here to see the 360 view.

     

    2VR Divided Highway.jpg
    1356 x 698 - 152K
    Post edited by RGcincy on
  • That is very cool!  I love FirstBastion's stuff and the Divided Highway looks great like this! :)

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,859

    These are just downright fun. I, too, like the gal on the stairs, when I swept by the wall I felt like I could touch it.

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