Spherical Camera

As far as I can tell, the option to create a spherical camera in DAZ has been absent forever. Meanwhile Carrara (and practically every other 3D app) has the ability to create them. With the release of VR devices quickly coming, the ability to render a full-360 degree image for use on these devices would be absolutely amazing, and I'd drop some serious cash for the ability to. 

Any plans to create something like this for DAZ? 

Comments

  • Oso3DOso3D Posts: 15,011

    Man, I wish they had this.

    There are some specialized 3DL cameras, but no spherical ones that I'm aware of, and for Iray camera stuff is thin on the ground.

     

  • mjc1016mjc1016 Posts: 15,001

    There's a reason...

    To have a spherical camera you either need to include the math for it in the rederer or be able to add it as a shader.

    Iray doesn't have that included and doesn't do 'real' shaders. You can define and play around with materials a dozen different ways, but you can't add extra features by way of external code (that's what a shader really is...external, compiled code that extends the functionality of the renderer).

    3DL didn't have it until recently and the very few shaders that were written to do it as a standalone item, were not easily imported (like just woluldn't compile) in Studio.   Yes you still need a shader to gain access to the functions and there isn't one...yet.

    There are ways to approximate them in other programs...but then again...it was shader or program specific scripting code.

    Millighost has a method, utilizing Shader Mixer, to build a DS shader camera.

    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/64539/can-someone-build-a-360-panormaic-camera-for-use-in-daz-for-animation-i-ll-pay

  • MarshianMarshian Posts: 1,462

    Which one of these are you looking for? (left or right)

  • I second this. Left is the one we search for.

  • JD_MortalJD_Mortal Posts: 760
    edited May 2016

    I would love this type of output also. Not a difficult output to code, but may be difficult to setup as a one-shot render. (More like a method for rendering, like video is.)

    I use an external program for this stuff, setting a camera to "no perspective", and doing a 360 rotation of a thin slice, with the best results. I can get a nice hemisphere 180/360 or full spherical 360/360.

    I would list all of the possible programs, but I use a lot of them, for various reasons. Search for "panoramic image stitcher".

    Google would once do this for you, as a tool option, if you loaded a series of "stitchable images" into one folder. It still will, possibly, but only when it has time to get to it. (You can no-longer tell it to do that. It just does it, when it looks at your photo-albums, whenever it creeps on you. Creepy that it does that, even in private albums. It is indexing "faces" and "places", in comparison with images from social-media sites and compared to google-maps "street-views".)

    I have had the best luck with this program, but it is a bit tough to work with... http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/ice/

    You can output many forms, when you have the images all lined-up. For projection in VRML or display as 2D, etc... Not to mention post-editing to desired taste, once you pick one format.

    Here is a sample of one I made recently.

    This was made with 180 images, each 1-deg rotated for a total of 180-deg. Each one was about 60-pixels wide and 1080-pixels tall. (Just random old stuff I made, ages ago, with sketchup. They are sitting at a 4-way street intersection, you see left to right, 180-deg. Full 360 would be the other half. However, there is an option to do full spherical or cylindrical.)

    Rotate the camera, and then output the renderings as individual images. They are sequential and all setup for this type of work. However, many programs don't need sequential images, they auto-detect alignment of each image. Just remember, "No perspective", as that adds fake distortion that is hard to "reform/correct" into a linear output for comparison. Never use video-output, it will chew it up and spit-out garbage.

    Stuff180-000_stitchII.jpg
    4527 x 1080 - 983K
    Post edited by JD_Mortal on
  • stgastga Posts: 23

    I third it.  This is a must-do for DAZ, as the prevalence of 3D VR sets makes the production of spherical images a very exciting new area for DAZ users to explore!

    Just my (unhumble) opinion, of course!

  • is in the beta already

  • is in the beta already

    Thanks for pointing me to this, its great news for those wanting to create for VR!

  • MarshianMarshian Posts: 1,462
    edited March 2017
    This product of mine was released just a couple days ago. This Thread actually led to the creation of it. Some of the early testing was done because of the posts here. http://www.daz3d.com/small-world-camera
    Post edited by Marshian on
  • forceferforcefer Posts: 0
    Marshian said:
    This product of mine was released just a couple days ago. This Thread actually led to the creation of it. Some of the early testing was done because of the posts here. http://www.daz3d.com/small-world-camera

    I purchased the Small World Camera 360
    For the sake of a spherical panorama which is shown in the last screenshot
    Https://www.daz3d.com/small-world-camera.
    A full 360 ° camera (for Iray only) does not work. Please send detailed
    Instructions.

  • a51_aliena51_alien Posts: 15
    edited May 2017
    Post edited by a51_alien on
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