After over 110 hours of rendering, I have my latest project completed! Last year, I started thinking about how to create movies for VR, sort of like a spherical movie screen. Not a new idea at all, but then I realized I could get perfect, distortion-free images using the equirectangular camera in Blender. So, here is my first test:
To view this video on the Oculus Rift, just download VR Player (http://vrplayer.codeplex.com/), load up the video file and set Projection to “Sphere”.
I’d love to hear everyone’s feedback, as I don’t have an Oculus Rift (or any VR device) myself, so I can only view VR Player on my computer monitor. Is the image blurry, does the camera move too fast, does it make you want to puke? Anything at all. Thanks to everyone who’s already given feedback!
Thank you, Benjamin! All the credit for the environment goes to Stonemason (aka Stefan Morrell), who’s been modeling and selling his work at incredible prices for years now. I highly recommend checking him out!
Also, I wanted to mention, there are many ways to view this content even if you don’t have an Oculus Rift. I’ll post some extra links later today. At the bare minimum, you can always just play the video on your desktop with VR Player (just set the display options to Mono), and move your view around with the mouse.
For those of you without an Oculus Rift, which is most of us, you can still view the video in 360 in multiple ways:
You can always download VR Player from the link provided and load it up, just using your computer and monitor. This is what I’ve done. The only difference is that you’ll want to set the Distortion to “None”, otherwise it will probably look warped at the edges.
This looks awesome! I haven’t downloaded VR player yet, but from the screenshots I can see that it looks very realistic.
Stuff like this really makes you think about how far technology has come, that if we want really to go somewhere, we can make the place and then just drop ourselves in…Makes me want to buy a Rift right away…
Thanks, sdighe! I have some more elaborate video ideas for this type of content in the future, which I can begin on once I upgrade my rendering capability. I’d like to be able to make it available at 2k resolution and at least 30 fps!
congrats james, Im really happy you are update more continues your channel, each result is better to before, this illumination is really realistic, you only handle hdri for lighting?
Thank you everyone for your kind comments. The lighting for this image is accomplished through HDRI only- the trick to getting realistic lighting from only an HDRI map is making sure that it was shot properly in the first place. This means it should have enough stops of information to contain both the brightest and darkest points, and everything in-between. Here is a helpful guide: http://www.aversis.be/tutorials/vray/vray-high-dynamic-range-hdri.htm
I do plan to create more 360 films in the future, giving them a storyline or narrative approach! This was just a first test to get some experience and feedback from people, but I do have some ideas in the works for longer and more advanced VR videos for my YouTube channel. Thanks!
Hi James, I cannot test it because I don’t have the hardware. But I want to chime in to say that this is a very interesting project and sure one which is exploring new lands. Keep it up
TARDIS Maker - I’m sorry to hear that! I searched for other OR media players that might be compatible with Linux, but couldn’t find any. I’ll let you know if I come across something!
minoribus - Thanks for the encouragement! I’m happy with the response I’ve gotten, and hope to have a more advanced video out soon!
I tried it. It didn’t work. I haven’t really been able to get anything to work with wine. It’s a bit sad. I’m probably going to end up dual booting Windows 7 (or what ever the best windows operating system is a the time I have the money) and what ever distro I feel like playing around with. That way I can get After Effects and Photoshop (maybe) and what ever application I want to use.
Thank you! I have already started plans for the next VR video, as well as possibly helping another channel (much, much bigger than my own) with their own VR project. Presently, I’m working to discover the fastest way to get the next video rendered. I’m hoping I can cut render times by at least 75%!