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RoadRunner
Jul 14, 2003
Hi All,

I haven't seen a 360 video thread here, so I thought I'd start one, I got into 360 Video primarily via VR, & have my own channel.

are there any other goons making 360 Videos for youtube? if so lets see your work!


my latest project has pole dancing & circus fitness, while not nsfw discretion may be advised in work! : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayNCaU6-2Dw (use chrome)


best viewed in a VR headset such as gear VR, but a cheapo google cardboard head will do,
otherwise use the youtube app on android/ios to look around, or use your mouse to change the viewpoint

let me know what you guys think & would love to see your 360 videos (especially 360 stereo as there aint much out there that I've found!)

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RizieN
May 15, 2004

and it was still hot.
Crazy you posted this... perfect timing.

I'm in the CCTV Security camera industry and we have two manufacturers that make 360 degree view cameras, I'm currently working with one of them to integrate the technology into a new housing; a strap that can fit on your head, so that you can wear the camera and walk around filming VR experiences. I actually came up with the idea when I got my new car and I was driving fast as gently caress to some good music and thought it'd be cool to share this.

Can I ask how you're filming this and how you're handling the de-warping features and integrating into VR software? Are you using UE4 or something else? I think I'm going to need help developing the de-warp part of this project for use in VR applications. Currently the dewarp and e-PTZ (pan tilt zoom) work with our DVR/NVR and client software. However there is one Chinese person locked in a closet somewhere that developed this software technology and the rest of them just copy and hack it all together and pretend they made it, so it's hard to make any actual changes to the software code with most Chinese companies. I'd love to get an American or some westerner to help me develop the software side of this project.

Are you on the UE4 forums? Some people there have been releasing some VR experiences, however I still don't have an oculus :(

RoadRunner
Jul 14, 2003
we're filming using multiple gopro's, we use Autopano video to stitch them together, its pretty labour intensive but wort the effort :)
what cameras are you attempting to use? resolutions frame rates etc? seems intresting. if you post some raw footage i'll see what I can do with it if I run it through autopano.

I've messed around with creating my own 360 player with unity (its a nightmare) & it eventually turned out quite well, does UE4 have better VR support? specifically cardboard?

have a DK2 + a Gear VR, but honestly for development work.. all you need is an android phone & cardboard :) the results aren't *great* but its proof of concept :)

RizieN
May 15, 2004

and it was still hot.
I have a 12MP 360 degree/fisheye IP CCTV Camera I can get some footage with. I believe the frame rate at that resolution is very low, 7 or 15. However I can get 1080p@30FPS for sure, and maybe 3 or 4MP at 30FPS. I'll take it home this weekend and try to get some footage recorded. I'm wondering how it will work though, because the file type is propreitary until you export as an AVI, and the de-warp happens within the same software that converts the avi. We won't know until we try, but I'll definitely get some footage to you this weekend, maybe in a few formats. I could possibly even leave the camera online and give it a DDNS address and you could log into it yourself if that'd be any help.

I can't say if UE4's support is any better or not, but for 3D generated scenes it seems to be easy enough to support VR, plenty of people are releasing scenes on their forums. I've not touched it myself though, and I've not seen any actual video on the UE4 forums yet.

I'll send a PM when I've gathered the materials!

squirrelzipper
Nov 2, 2011

Hey a 360 video thread! I just finished a two year contract doing some marketing and sales support stuff for these guys, it's a pretty cool space, lots of innovation. One note on the head mounted camera, we've done very similar projects, watch out for camera movement. Using a gimbal and helmet worked out ok. You want to minimize random camera movements - those lead to barforama moments.

Oh, and there's plenty of players that will work on Gear VR/Cardboard. The IM360 player is free and can load local content for Cardboard (iOS/Android) and Gear VR. I think Kolor has a Cardboard player that's freely available as well. I don't know of solutions for Oculus/Steam VR yet, we build Unity apps for those usually.

squirrelzipper fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Dec 11, 2015

RizieN
May 15, 2004

and it was still hot.

squirrelzipper posted:

Hey a 360 video thread! I just finished a two year contract doing some marketing and sales support stuff for these guys, it's a pretty cool space, lots of innovation. One note on the head mounted camera, we've done very similar projects, watch out for camera movement. Using a gimbal and helmet worked out ok. You want to minimize random camera movements - those lead to barforama moments.

That's been a concern of mine as well, I think in an oculus it'd be fine to have head movement, since your eyes would adjust and follow the focal point anyway. But for a youtube, yea, that's shakey. I also, want to make other style mounts/housings for the camera that you could place in a scene and walk away from as well.

RoadRunner
Jul 14, 2003

RizieN posted:

That's been a concern of mine as well, I think in an oculus it'd be fine to have head movement, since your eyes would adjust and follow the focal point anyway. But for a youtube, yea, that's shakey. I also, want to make other style mounts/housings for the camera that you could place in a scene and walk away from as well.

I have actually found the opposite, for straight youtube 360 video, movement is fine.. but in a vr environment you will get motion sick pretty quick, (unless you are in some sort of cockpit)

For your project, you would actually want the raw footage, then you would stitch & dewarp in post production

RizieN
May 15, 2004

and it was still hot.
I'm not going to have that footage today, but I'll get some for sure tomorrow. The raw footage from my camera will come out looking like a spherized mess, the dewarp kind of stretches it back out to normal. So this is going to be interesting.

Here's a thread on UE4 for Stereo/Pano exporting I suppose we're not at the stereo stage in 360 degree video just yet though.

RizieN
May 15, 2004

and it was still hot.
Hey, no PM so I'll just throw this out here if you still want to test the footage with your software: https://g4direct.box.com/s/juni6h13ds042xhnp3mrx4dknvdyhn99

Sorry it took so long to get footage, so many things got in my way that this fell to the back burner. It's just my empty lobby, nothing interesting. This is only 5MP, not the 12MP model. I don't think it's enough resolution to look very good, at least using the dewarp software that I have.

I'm currently developing a 360 degree consumer camera, think GoPro but 360 degree. I hate the Chinese so much because they can't think about the future, only right now... So it's a bit of a painful process but I'm used to it and shouldn't bitch about it. I'm hoping to develop a 360 stereoscopic camera after we release this normal version, but I'd rather bring that product to America but that's almost impossible so we'll see.

cubicle gangster
Jun 26, 2005

magda, make the tea
We recently built our own 360 stereoscopic still camera rig. stills only and takes a loving age to assemble, but looks beautiful.
We've got a nokia OZO on the way too, renting it for a week to cover one of our old projects. if it works well I think we'll be getting one. I am massively skeptical of anything doing stereo 360 video, I dont think the final footage is going to look good but i hope i'm proven wrong.

Anyway i got nothing to share, but we have a PR agency writing a story about our first publicly available VR stuff so i'll post that when it's out.

RizieN
May 15, 2004

and it was still hot.
Please let me know how you like the Nokia. The design looks crazy.

Would you say that having less lenses would matter to you? I see a lot of 360 degree cameras that have multiple lenses/sensors, where as ours are only one lens/sensor. I'm not sure the consumer even cares though.

squirrelzipper
Nov 2, 2011

RizieN posted:

Please let me know how you like the Nokia. The design looks crazy.

Would you say that having less lenses would matter to you? I see a lot of 360 degree cameras that have multiple lenses/sensors, where as ours are only one lens/sensor. I'm not sure the consumer even cares though.

You didn't ask me but I'll chime in! One of the nice thing about fewer than 6 lenses is it reduces the complexity of stitching (and has the added synchronization etc.) benefits. Also I'd imagine with a single lens you can use larger higher quality optics without being concerned about creating odd parallax errors - the prototype RED rigs I've seen have this problem. Are you using a parabolic mirror?

RizieN
May 15, 2004

and it was still hot.
Thanks, I'll take any and all input, unsolicited or not!

Our 360 degree camera is simple, one image sensor with a super wide angle 360 fisheye lens, there's no mirror at all. So there's no stitching required at all. The problem would be quality after dewarp, but when we use 12MP image sensors we don't really have this problem.

360 degree is easy, it's no big deal, I'm just working on getting a nice consumer model created with all the current competition announcing the "World's First" 360 whatever... Nikon and Samsung are even in on it, but the market cap of the industry is big enough for everyone to get a slice. My main goal and biggest concern is 360 degree stereo. I'm still testing, but to get stereo I think it's going to work at certain forward facing angles, but some angles aren't going to align so well. The FOV is essentially a Venn Diagram with two circles so some angles are going to align better than others.

I'm hoping to have some stereo tests done this weekend.

Jo
Jan 24, 2005

:allears:
Soiled Meat
I tried rendering some 360 video from Blender a while back. Someone on Reddit said that I have the pivot incorrect and that the eyes are inverting when looking backwards. Thinking about it more, it doesn't seem feasible to do full-surround with depth when pre-rendered, is it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QP9vHB7-Rw

Transcript of how I set it up if you're dying of curiosity: http://www.josephcatrambone.com/?p=840

webmeister
Jan 31, 2007

The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.
What are people's thoughts on the consumer-grade 360 cameras around at the market? My wife's a travel blogger and we're about to start a multi-year round the world odyssey, and one idea I've had kicking around is that we could supplement her blog with 360 tours of attractions/cities/areas/hotels/whatever, just using a 360 camera and the YouTube/Facebook 360 capabilities.

What do you guys think? I'm not a total novice with editing and producing web video content, but at the same time I'm not too keen to shell out thousands on expensive gear if it's a stupid idea to begin with.

RizieN
May 15, 2004

and it was still hot.

webmeister posted:

What are people's thoughts on the consumer-grade 360 cameras around at the market? My wife's a travel blogger and we're about to start a multi-year round the world odyssey, and one idea I've had kicking around is that we could supplement her blog with 360 tours of attractions/cities/areas/hotels/whatever, just using a 360 camera and the YouTube/Facebook 360 capabilities.

What do you guys think? I'm not a total novice with editing and producing web video content, but at the same time I'm not too keen to shell out thousands on expensive gear if it's a stupid idea to begin with.

Yes. Do it, it's a perfect idea for a travel blog. People are already doing VR travel to awesome places like Machu Picchu. I'll provide a free sample if you pimp my start up company on the blog. PM me for details!

cubicle gangster
Jun 26, 2005

magda, make the tea

RizieN posted:

Please let me know how you like the Nokia. The design looks crazy.

It's got poo poo for dynamic range, is low res, is incredibly noisy in the shadows and takes about 6 hours to stitch a few minutes of footage. Very clean stitch, but ultimately useless.
Their software also only works on the dustbin mac pro's so we had to rent one of those too.
All in all I think they settled on theit final hardware too soon, it's been a long time since I saw a phone take a video that looks as bad as this. It'll be obsolete in 6 months.

nobodygetshurt
Dec 11, 2007

This is great. Glad a thread like this exists. I sell After Effects templates online, and I'm looking to start making some motion-graphics templates in 360 format. And I'm a little confused with resolutions.

I've read that in order to get true 4k resolution in VR (as what you see within a 120 degree FOV), you will need resolutions like 12288x6144. Is that consistent with what anyone else has heard? What are the resolutions that your cameras output by default, after being stitched together?

RizieN
May 15, 2004

and it was still hot.

cubicle gangster posted:

It's got poo poo for dynamic range, is low res, is incredibly noisy in the shadows and takes about 6 hours to stitch a few minutes of footage. Very clean stitch, but ultimately useless.
Their software also only works on the dustbin mac pro's so we had to rent one of those too.
All in all I think they settled on theit final hardware too soon, it's been a long time since I saw a phone take a video that looks as bad as this. It'll be obsolete in 6 months.

drat, that sucks for Nokia but it's good for the rest of us I suppose... I hate when people settle, especially with that price tag, drat...

nobodygetshurt posted:

This is great. Glad a thread like this exists. I sell After Effects templates online, and I'm looking to start making some motion-graphics templates in 360 format. And I'm a little confused with resolutions.

I've read that in order to get true 4k resolution in VR (as what you see within a 120 degree FOV), you will need resolutions like 12288x6144. Is that consistent with what anyone else has heard? What are the resolutions that your cameras output by default, after being stitched together?

Well, I've always understood it to be like a shared pool of pixels. A 4K 360degree camera, without being very strict on the numbers, in theory (not considering aspect ratios and FOVs), should give the user a 1080 view any direction they look (1080(2MP) x 4 = 4K (8MP)) So basically wrapping your total resolution to the inside of sphere or hemisphere.

cubicle gangster
Jun 26, 2005

magda, make the tea

nobodygetshurt posted:

I've read that in order to get true 4k resolution in VR (as what you see within a 120 degree FOV), you will need resolutions like 12288x6144. Is that consistent with what anyone else has heard? What are the resolutions that your cameras output by default, after being stitched together?

That's way too high - our cubic image format outputs are 18432 x 1536 - that's 12 squares at 1536 each side. 9216 wide if non 3d. This is the most well optimized way of rendering 3d vr, there's no pinching or wasted space on the image. This is 'native resolution' (none will benefit from a bigger image) for all currently available VR headsets.
that format works on anything, you can probably even include a sample scene for AE with a couple of cubes mapped properly where one is only visible to left eye and the other only visible to right.
The nokia ozo for example outputs about half this. No current camera can do video at the native resolution of available HMD's. We can do still images with a custom rig at about double, each eye comes out to 18k wide - but it turns and does them individually so it can only be used in empty rooms with nobody in.

Cubic images look like this - https://labs.chaosgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Construct_ImminentCollision.jpg
and it goes left, right, top, bottom, back, front - left eye first, with each cube image being flipped.
depending what you use to generate your backgrounds most rendering engines have a feature to built in to handle rendering these automatically.
Reason it might be good for you is because you can break them up into 12 small image sequences and allow people to play with it a bit more freely.

cubicle gangster fucked around with this message at 21:15 on May 9, 2016

nobodygetshurt
Dec 11, 2007

I wanna clarify that I am outputting equirectangular images.
I got my resolution numbers from this site: http://www.360heros.com/2015/02/4k-vr-360-video-what-is-it-and-how-can-i-produce-it

cubicle gangster
Jun 26, 2005

magda, make the tea
That article is a mess & kind of rambles on. No hmd can view 4k in its singular field of view. Find a different article. Each eye I'd put around 8k wide as a guess, but again if you are selling after effects presets you have an oppertunity to do this a better way.

cubicle gangster
Jun 26, 2005

magda, make the tea
Use 6144 x 3072 per eye. you can do top/bottom layout and fit both eyes in a 6144x6144 square image

nobodygetshurt
Dec 11, 2007

Thanks man, I'll give that a go. Can you explain how you got to those numbers?

RizieN
May 15, 2004

and it was still hot.
I'm interested too, I think I know how he got the numbers, though mine are slightly different.

Also, why a top/bottom layout? I'm thinking most VR glasses, and most users, are going to be using left/right (google cardboard, samsung, etc).



6144 x 3072 = 18,874,368 which is 18.8 MP, 18.8/2= 9.4MP // Wouldn't you only need 8MP per eye, being 4K for each eye?

If 4K is 3840 × 2160 = 8,294,4000 (8MP) then wouldn't you need to calculate the FOV of the video footage and fit that entire FOV into one eye's FOV/Screen at whatever resolution that would work for?

So let's assume someone is using a 3 lens camera, each lens at 120 degree FOV, you could essentially make the entire 360 degree screen 4K x 3 ? (120x3 = 360)

Which would be 11,520 x 6480 which is actually 74MP which is insane. 74 / 4 = 18.6MP (close to gangsta's 18.8MP, I chose 4 because 2MP or 1080p x 4 = 8MP or 4K) = 2880x1620

I might've actually just confused myself instead... Sorry!

cubicle gangster
Jun 26, 2005

magda, make the tea
Where have both of you got 4k for each eye? there's no screen on the market that can get anywhere close. I'm going off the 2560 x 1440 of every VR screen on the market (1280x1440 per eye)

RizieN
May 15, 2004

and it was still hot.
I was just thinking to be future-proof. I wish 4K wasn't a thing but it is...

nobodygetshurt
Dec 11, 2007

gently caress it. I'm gonna stick to a 2:1 ratio of 4320x2160 equirectangle, just to meet the 4k-height standard. I'm not even gonna tackle stereocamera stuff. The people are gonna take one view and they're gonna like it goddammit!

Here's the 360 logo template I submitted a couple days ago to Pond5: https://www.pond5.com/after-effect/63018969/360vr-digitalworld-logo.html

cubicle gangster
Jun 26, 2005

magda, make the tea

RizieN posted:

I was just thinking to be future-proof. I wish 4K wasn't a thing but it is...

I doubt demand will cause us to ever make screens that resolution - phones have plateaued at 1440p - some are slightly higher, but the difference isnt visible and it only consumes more power. The only reason VR exists as an industry is because of screens for phones being mass produced and brought down in price, so I dont see VR specific 8k x 4k 5 inch screens getting made in any decent quantity or being well adopted. Someone will make one, but nearly all users with a vr headset will be using the mass market version with a screen that is also used in phones.

illectro
Mar 29, 2010

:jeb: ROCKET SCIENCE :jeb:

Hullo, I'm Scoot Moonbucks.
Please stop being surprised by this.
Just found the thread and some people have been asking about compact all in one 360 cameras and I've had some experience with many of them.

I just received Nikon's Keymission 360 having previously been using a Ricoh Theta S for a bunch of videos (as well as a bunch of CGI). And right now my experience is just terrible. A 360 camera is heavily reliant on the apps that control it and right now the software is so bad as to be unusable. So if you were in the market for an all in one camera I'd wait to see if they fix the software. The Nikon is however the most robust of all the options, it'll even work underwater, although the optics won't deliver 360 because the refractive index of water is higher than air.

The Ricoh Theta S has been good for me, it's nice and compact but the software is a bit janky in places but it works reliably, and the camera is pretty capable even without the app. It's a shame the video quality on the Theta is potato quality 1080s. It's been good for night time timelapse videos through, since the still resolution is good. Timelapse frame rates are however limited by the 8second processing time on each frame.

I've also looked at the LG 360 camera, which offers 1440s resolution video at almost half the price, but the optics are terrible and the video looks worse than the Theta.

Another option I looked at is the Samsung Gear 360, which does 4K, but it only officially supports High end Samsung phones and I'm all iOS. In theory it supports OSC but I don't know to what extent.

Interestingly when it comes to stitching and blind spots the Theta soundly beats all comers. Because it's much thinner than the Samsung and Nikon it can also record things much closer without parallax related glitches.

Not sure whether I'll be returning the Nikon, I really need 4K (BTW the Nikon only does 24fps video)
I kinda just wish Ricoh would release a Theta that cans manage 4K.

SplitScreenGamer
Feb 16, 2017

Bringing back the fun of local multiplayer gaming!
I've played around with the Samsung Gear 360 and recently picked up a GoPro Omni. Did a video on both here https://youtu.be/b4PEgZ3kpzo

We're trying to expand more into 360 video production but it's a unique beast. Trying to get our clients to wrap their heads around it has been its own challenge.

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cubicle gangster
Jun 26, 2005

magda, make the tea
So for what feels like a decade, we've been chipping away at a VR app and it's finally ready. The plan was to start a series that offers an insight into the design concepts & process behind architecture, presented as a guided tour by the architect.

The first issue went live today - it's a small but incredibly beautiful house in Miami.
The teaser video and links to gear vr for samsung & play store for the pixel version is available here - https://www.facebook.com/dboxvr/videos/1884522515169597/

We've got 2 more issues half produced featuring projects by chad oppenheim & OMA, plus issue 4 in the early planning stages (scheduling access) for an interior designers model unit in 432 park avenue.
Anyway, check it out, maybe some of you will be into it. hopefully it'll grow into something cool.

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