Not sure if I’m posting this in the right category, but does anybody know of ways one could render animations that are Virtual Reality ready?
I usually build little experiences on Unity, but it would be so nice to have beautiful cycles rendered pre-rendered experience view-able on my VR headset. Just don’t know where to start or if it’s even possible.
So far I’ve found the following (interesting) links, but all of them feel very early in development:
OpenHMD: http://openhmd.net/
Render your video with camera projection “Panoramic” and type “Equirectangular”. If you want stereo panorama, enable views in Render Layers panel and enable “Spherical Stereo” in Stereoscoply section in Camera settings.
Most VR players expect panoramic stereo in simple top/bottom layout. You can assemble rendered views in output format settings. Set Views Format to “Stereo 3D” and stereo mode to Top-Bottom.
Thanks for your reply @kesonmis, looking into it right now. I’m hoping the experience feels more like what I get with Unity than what I perceive with 360 YouTube videos in VR, which feel flat and none-immersive. With Unity, I get the feeling that objects are in front and around me…and the sense of scale is so realistic. Let’s hope that’s possible with pre-rendered animations and stills in Blender 
Thanks again @kesonmis.
Youtube videos are usually not stereoscopic, so you get no depth effect from them. Stereo panorama will be a step ahead from standard panorama. Unity also renders stuff into 2D image before displaying it in HMD, so there is no real difference. If your scene is set up in the same way you get the same effect with some limitations. Pre-rendered panorama does not have full stereo effect because it is not practically possible to get stereo for all view alignments. You get best stereo on horizon level and effect is completely lost on poles (looking up and down) or when tilting your head. And you will not get any head positioning, only rotations. In game engine it is possible to render view from different position if you move your head. In pre-rendered panorama the viewpoint is fixed, so you will not get any perspective change.
Got you. This completely answered my question, thanks a lot for the detailed answer. For what I need, I’ll stick to Unity for now 