so, I have mainly been focussing on still imagery in the last years and have been moving into animation only about a year or two ago. Naturally, I have been using HDRI domes extensively, but have never been able to make them work (well) for moving objects and cameras. Due to the fact that the dome is usually a fixed environment, reflections in moving objects always seem a bit off.
Until, recently, I came across an interesting idea: There seems to be a way to map a HDRI dome onto geometry around a moving object - say, a car. Please watch this video to see what I mean: https://vimeo.com/97842804 (about 0:18 to 0:28).
Admittedly, this method is new to me. Can anybody enlighten me? Is that some kind of standard procedure that can be achieved easily? Is that possible in standard CGI software (Blender…) or are there special tools for generating this geometry?
Any help would be much appreciated.
P.S.: Very sorry for cross-posting this. I suspect, the “Lighting and Rendering” forum might be a better place for this thread than the “Animation” forum.
Model the geometry as you like, and then do a camera projection of the image onto the geometry. This is one way, but a bit hard to do very easily in Blender due to rudimentary projection tools. There is an UV project modifier (exact name was something in the lines of that) that takes a camera and projects the image onto geo, but I’m not sure it can handle 360 panoramas.
Another way, which would be easier in Blender would be to simply create the UV coordinates of your model by using some node fiddling. It should be possible to create coordinates so that they form a UV sphere around a center point. I’m not behind desk currently, so can’t try it out, but it should work.
Third way would be to use some software that has a full projection toolset. Nuke noncommercial of Fusion come to mind if you want to try it out.
The idea itself is used for some time, I’m not sure when it started but I think Iron Man 2 was one of the first big projects where it was used extensively in feature film. Read about it somewhere, but don’t remember where. FXGuide maybe.