[choo-chee]

Hello again,
I need to know if there's an option (before Maxwell 3) to some how render a 360 VR tour camera in Maya+Maxwell.
Any method to calculate 6 cameras and merge them ?
thanx !

[Mihnea Balta]

Not automatically. You can render 6 cameras and merge them with 3rd party panorama software, but there's no explicit support for this in Maxwell.

[choo-chee]

Thanx, I was thinking about something like that but I need to ask, is there a guide or a tutorial about that?
I've tried to make such cameras but I don't know how to plan the seams...

[zdeno]

Not automatically. You can render 6 cameras and merge them with 3rd party panorama software, but there's no explicit support for this in Maxwell.

but why? I remember it was possible in older maxwell 3dmax plugin. I did it myself. Is there something impossible in new SDK from autodesk?

[Mihnea Balta]

Maybe it's possible in Max, but the question was about Maya, and I'm not aware of a way to do it automatically there.

[zdeno]

Maybe it's possible in Max, but the question was about Maya, and I'm not aware of a way to do it automatically there.

indeed ... my mistake ... sorry

[Fernando Tella]

In case you can get the six rendered faces of the cube, which program would you use to stitch them into one panorama file?

(I hope this is not too off-topic)

[Ernesto]

I use to do them in two ways:
Using an animated camera, or creating 6 independent cameras.
Here I explain it partially: http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/view ... 01&t=40701

Anyway, I will do it here:

First we have to know the caracteristics of the camera: it should be a square resolution, the vigneting effect should be disabled to ensure a perfect seamless stitching, and the FOV angle should be 90 degrees.

1) first method, animated camera.
You create the camera, and animate it in the following order: Front view, right view, back view, left view, each of them rotating 90 degrees horizontally, then you should rotate again 90 degrees horizontally and 90 degrees verticaly to get the Upper view, and finally rotate 180 dregrees vertically to get the Down View.
If you keep that order, it will be more compatible with most stitching softwares.
The advantage of this method are: you can export the 6 mxs files in a single operation since it is an animation.
You can render the 6 frames as an animation also.
The disadvantage are: If you have moving objects, they could difer from frame to frame. What I do is to set a really fast movement of camera and a fast shutter speed to avoid any diference. You cannot use motion blur with this setting.

2) second method, 6 separated cameras
This is very simple, you have to create groups of 6 cameras ordered in the same way.
The advantages are: You can use motion blur, if you have moving objects they will not appear in diferent position in each frame.
The disadvantages are: You have to export manually each frame, if you have to change camera parameters, you are forced to do it 6 times. (for each camera)


Stitching:
Finnally I use Pano2qtvr software, http://gardengnomesoftware.com/pano2qtvr.php to convert to Quicktime format, because I use isolated files, to show to clients.
If you want this to be inserted in the web there are other sofwares that use flash files embeded into html files ready to be uploaded to a web.

HDRI Stitching
For special cases I used a software to stitch the HDRI images, so that I could adjust exposure in the full panorama.
It was a free software that converted the cubic separated faces into a cross, It is called Cube2cross and can be downloaded here http://archive.bigben.id.au/terragen/hdr/ then I used HDRI SHOP http://www.hdrshop.com/ to remap to spherical view in HDRI format. Finnally you could export from HDRI SHOP to jpg, and if you change the extension to .pan you have a panorama ready to be viewed with the Smoothmove viewer. http://smoothmove-viewer.software.informer.com/

I hope this was clear enough.

I know that it is not easy, as in other softwares, that is why I expect Maxwell to develop an automatic option, that could use a Single camera, to simplify the workflow.

Ernesto

[choo-chee]

I've tried your method but cannot stitch the images.
Don't know why.
I'm using a demo of autodesk 2009 stitcher.
Is it correct for that mission..?
I've render the 6 views of the cube but fail to stitch them.
thanx !

[Ernesto]

I am sorry I do not know autodesk stitcher...
What file format are you expecting to use, to be embeded into a panorama?

Free Option:

If you use HDRI you may try the cube2cross free software, to convert to cross format, and then HDRShop to convert to spherical file, finnally you have to save to jpg format, and change the extension from .jpg to .pan, and that is it!
You will be able to watch it with the free smothmove viewer.

If you plan to use other formats (not high dinamic range) you can use this free software: http://panotools.sourceforge.net/
It is great, although not easy to use.

If you want to invest 30 euros:

you could use pano2qtvr to convert to Quicktime panorama, from 6 separated jpg files, almost automatically.

Ernesto

[sandykoufax]

Maybe it's possible in Max, .

How can do that ?

[Fernando Tella]

With panorama exporter utility. Setup a camera (leveled), turn vignetting off and choose a square resolution. You get 6 views (front, left, right, back, up and down) which you have to stitch with any software that can handle cube projection. I found Pano2VR to be the easiest, but it's not free (not expensive though). I could not get anything out of the free ones but didn't tried much; maybe Ernesto can tell us in more detail.

[Ernesto]

Fernando,

In my opinion the best free option is panotools.

Ernesto

[Ernesto]

One of the problems of current panoramic images production in maxwell is the great amount of images to be rendered (6 faces for each panorama) and the tricky process of stitching them.
I would really love a panoramic camera solution.

Ernesto

[choo-chee]

thanx - I got my first panorama working more or less...