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Stereoscopic Spherical (Equirectangular) mod.

Posted: Mon May 25, 2015 7:02 am
by vr360
Hi,
I came to know of Indigo, through buying the upgrade for iclone. (Reallusion's)
Although I only have Indigo's RT licence, I've seen that the full version has support for spherical rendering. This shows that Indigo is staying ahead of the curve when it comes to future proofing in the field of CG / producing content for VR and domes.

Request:
Before I go out and buy the standalone licence for the full renderer, can I request one mod be made; Stereoscopic support for the Spherical renderer.

As you may know, its not simply a matter of shifting the "camera" a few centimeters and rendering one-shot spherical images. In such scenarios the 'back' of the image will exhibit reversed stereo (right cam becomes left)

The proper way to do it is how Maya, Blender and other high end renderers such Otoy have done it - by sweeping a stereo camera pair in a circle to take snapshots.
The paper (by Paul Bourke) discussing how/why is referenced by the people behind the blender version of the stereoscopic spherical renderer plugin
https://code.blender.org/2015/03/1451/

Benefits:
Indigo Renderer gets wider reach in the Pro community - both Hollywood and Indie film makers who are looking at creating content for VR headsets

Now, admittedly I've not tried the demo of the spherical camera in Indigo, and if indeed this is how the equirectangulars are being produced - by spinning the camera, great.

Re: Stereoscopic Spherical (Equirectangular) mod.

Posted: Tue May 26, 2015 1:39 pm
by benn
This is a totally awesome idea. You should totally get this to work. :)

Re: Stereoscopic Spherical (Equirectangular) mod.

Posted: Tue May 26, 2015 6:12 pm
by vr360
benn wrote:...You should totally get this to work. :)
Thanks Benn.
But I think writing code to make it happen is beyond my scope as an artist/user of Indigo Renderer.
I'd like for the Indigo team to take a look at it.
My knowledgebase/blog is well read by leading AAA studios looking at workflows for stereoscopic Cinematic VR, and I'd surely do a write-up.

Looking forward,
Kind Regards

Re: Stereoscopic Spherical (Equirectangular) mod.

Posted: Tue May 26, 2015 6:50 pm
by suvakas
Ben? Is that really you? :)

Suv

Re: Stereoscopic Spherical (Equirectangular) mod.

Posted: Tue May 26, 2015 6:58 pm
by vr360
benn wrote: You should totally get this to work. :)
Hi Benn,
I'd replied in a longer post earlier. Not sure if it's under moderation as I'm a new user, but in short, I'm hoping Indigo Renderer team implements it (stereoscopic spherical support) as it's beyond my capabilities to code :)

Kind Regards.

Re: Stereoscopic Spherical (Equirectangular) mod.

Posted: Tue May 26, 2015 7:56 pm
by benn
Yeah it is! I've been doing lots of VR stuff, so talking to Nick more.

I totally wish indigo had a awesome talkative again (like before we made it commercial). I'm just not sure how you'd make that happen. :)

Re: Stereoscopic Spherical (Equirectangular) mod.

Posted: Tue May 26, 2015 7:58 pm
by benn
vr360 wrote: I'd replied in a longer post earlier. Not sure if it's under moderation as I'm a new user, but in short, I'm hoping Indigo Renderer team implements it (stereoscopic spherical support) as it's beyond my capabilities to code :)
We'll see what Nick thinks, I don't know how hard it would be to implement, but if he managed to get orthographic projection working, then maybe this is possible too! :)

Re: Stereoscopic Spherical (Equirectangular) mod.

Posted: Wed May 27, 2015 12:39 am
by suvakas
benn wrote:Yeah it is! I've been doing lots of VR stuff, so talking to Nick more.

I totally wish indigo had a awesome talkative again (like before we made it commercial). I'm just not sure how you'd make that happen. :)
Cool. I thought you were gone forever.
I also liked the "pre-commercial" era better. This place was more like a club than support forum.

Suv

Re: Stereoscopic Spherical (Equirectangular) mod.

Posted: Wed May 27, 2015 12:44 am
by Polinalkrimizei
BAM!! Out of nowhere...

Re: Stereoscopic Spherical (Equirectangular) mod.

Posted: Wed May 27, 2015 2:36 am
by Polinalkrimizei
Hey vr360,

what would Indigo's use for the Oculus et al. actually be?
As far as I get it, you need a real time engine to make sense of the motion sensors, and Indigo's goal / user case is actually the far opposite of a real time engine. Of course we all want more SPEED, but a real time unbiased renderer is not something that will happen in the next many years to come... it is simply not indigo's focus.
What user case do you have in mind?

Re: Stereoscopic Spherical (Equirectangular) mod.

Posted: Wed May 27, 2015 2:48 am
by vr360
Polinalkrimizei wrote:Hey vr360,

what would Indigo's use for the Oculus et al. actually be?
As far as I get it, you need a real time engine to make sense of the motion sensors, and Indigo's goal / user case is actually the far opposite of a real time engine. Of course we all want more SPEED, but a real time unbiased renderer is not something that will happen in the next many years to come... it is simply not indigo's focus.
What user case do you have in mind?
Hi Polinalkrimizei,
:) there is such a thing as Cinematic VR. (360 stereoscopic movies). Oculus themselves have started an in-house studio and they've created their first CG movie. I belive the ex-heads of major AAA studios have been employed there http://fortune.com/2015/04/23/oculus-story-studio/

Then there's Lucas Film, Sony Entertainment....etc who are all on the VR film bandwagon.
Oculus rift is one device, there's the HTC Vive, Sony Morpheus, Samsung Gear VR and more that will spur the need for Stereoscopic Spherical format movies.

Otoy is currently leading the pack (unbiased rendering of stereo equirectangular), the other software of choice being Maya.

Afaik, with Indigo Renderer already supporting one-shot equirectangular, it might take a bit of work to code the "camera sweep" but the document listed in the first post on this thread explains it well, and is what was used by the folk at Blender to implement it within blender.

Tldr;
It's not about realtime unbiased rendering and headtracking... it's about cinematic quality rendering of stereoscopic spherical images

Kind Regards.

Re: Stereoscopic Spherical (Equirectangular) mod.

Posted: Wed May 27, 2015 6:39 am
by Polinalkrimizei
Hey, thanks for the explanation. Surely an interesting market!
I would have thought that more and more traditional CGI film studios are switching to unbiased rendering (Arnold and so on) for stereoscopic images, so why not upgrading their production pipeline (their renderer of choice) to produce spherical images?
But as VR goggles are new and sexy, and the content producers are as well, Indigo could have an interesting advantage as one of the first movers...

Re: Stereoscopic Spherical (Equirectangular) mod.

Posted: Wed May 27, 2015 7:55 am
by vr360
Yes, that's right, Polinalkrimizei.
I suppose even the big ones (Arnold) are late to the game. It's only recently that Nuke has announced support for spherical workflow, but to their credit when they do something, they do it right.

All the more advantage for a cost effective, yet good renderer like Indigo to jump in and carve a slice.
Regards.

Re: Stereoscopic Spherical (Equirectangular) mod.

Posted: Wed May 27, 2015 6:40 pm
by CTZn
suvakas wrote:Ben? Is that really you? :)

Suv
I've been triple checking the posting dates :shock: Anyways, hi Benn.

Stereoscopic panoramic movies are sure a crazy thing to think of...

Re: Stereoscopic Spherical (Equirectangular) mod.

Posted: Wed May 27, 2015 6:57 pm
by suvakas
I've been rendering stereo panoramas with Octane and I have to say, that the extra dimention you get with VR headset is awesome. Looking around inside the 3d environment you've just created is strange and exciting at the same time. VR tech is still too young though. Not very comfortable to use. I hope it develops to something more usable.

Suv