OTOY Forums

Hi Goldorak,

Thanks for posting. How do I render the panorama? Do I just swap the thin lens camera with the panoramic camera?

azims wrote:Hi Goldorak,

Thanks for posting. How do I render the panorama? Do I just swap the thin lens camera with the panoramic camera?

Yes, it's pretty much that simple. Then render with stereo side by side for GearVR viewing.

18432x1536 pixels render?
OMG...why?
no stereo equirectangular?

Hi again Goldorak,

Can you please post a link to the online help manual? There used to be a link on the download page before. But now I cant find it.

Goldorak wrote:1) PC
- Render a spherical panorama. View it on the DK2 using any 360 image viewer

2) GearVR
- Render a stereo cube map, turn off post effects, make sure the image is 18432x1536
- Download our app, let is download some samples
- copy your image into the ORBX folder to view

The first is ordinary panorama we've been doing for a long time. On a headset, the image would be the same for both eyes and you would have no stereo vision. Not really something new from what we have been doing.
I'm curious about that "stereo cube map".

For a long time, even for regular displays, some panorama makers like krpano call "stereo panorama" an offset of the camera when VIEWING the panorama: It does add an arguably nice feeling, but there's no parallax between scene objects and it's too unrealistic for some users.

18432x1536 = 12 x 1536 squares, seems like 6 faces of 2 cubes, but how can it be?
Stereo images and videos are easy to make and understand, but real stereo panorama? If you rotate the head, the eyes translate in space, making the static cubemap position invalid - if you look back, your eyes are switched. In my DIY tests it was not pleasant. Why there's no demo of it (or there is only on GearVR)?
Is my scheme above accurate to what you are doing?

Goldorak wrote:Right now we are supporting rendering images of VR images files (and animation) . ORBX media files, baked FBX and light fields are version 3 feature.

So to make it clear, please correct these assumptions:
1. "VR images files and animations" are Otoy's name for stereo images.
2. ORBX media files is a format that can store images, videos and geometry with textures. A single format for several kinds of output?
3. Baked lightmaps are widely known, specially in games. I'm very happy to see it on Octane 3, even better if inside Unity or Unreal. Wished for it from Day 0.

But light fields?!? What's that?

ivankio wrote: So to make it clear, please correct these assumptions:
1. "VR images files and animations" are Otoy's name for stereo images.
2. ORBX media files is a format that can store images, videos and geometry with textures. A single format for several kinds of output?
3. Baked lightmaps are widely known, specially in games. I'm very happy to see it on Octane 3, even better if inside Unity or Unreal. Wished for it from Day 0.

But light fields?!? What's that?

1) yes
2) yes, ORBX is an immutable container format, like an ISO image, currently used for scene interchange in 2.x and tuned for .abc, and storage of raw textures/xml data, and experimental support for script nodes.
3) With Octane 3, we are further adding support for cached rendered media, and playback metadata in this container format (e.g. think multi-layer exr with complete information on each layer like blending and compositing ops). This format can support movie and timeline based nodes in v3 for images/videos. It can also store raw film buffer images to pause/resume rendering in v3. Also on the 3.x roadmap are baked fbx and mesh files with light maps. There will be ORBX media import plug-in for Photoshop (to fill in gaps in EXR support in PS), and it will be trivial to import these into UE4 and Unity even before we finish the integrated plugins.

Light fields are volumetric texture cubes that allow you to move through an Octane rendered scene (or object) using just a simple pixel shader and decoder. This means you can walk or move your head within and around your renders. This is going to be critical for presence on VR devices with positional tracking coming to market in the next year.

We will introduce this first with experimental support for rendering these on orc.otoy.com and streaming them back as interactive walkthroughs or object cubes on the web (like the OctaneVR browser demo on this menu). This is going to be useful for everyone on all platforms. As VR/AR devices like CV1 and HoloLens with room scale position tracking are released we will optimize support for viewing light fields on them with an update to the ORBX player.

I can't find any basic tutorial on how to use the software. I feel that I am wasting my time here.
Going Back to Unity.

Anoki wrote:I can't find any basic tutorial on how to use the software. I feel that I am wasting my time here.
Going Back to Unity.

We're here to help if you are stuck. Before looking into rendering VR scenes, have you been able to get basic 2D renders working properly with the sample scenes? If so, have you then tried rendering a 360 panoramic image - just switching camera type to panoramic mode?

gabrielefx wrote:18432x1536 pixels render?
OMG...why?
no stereo equirectangular?

You can render VR content in any resolution and projection mode you want within Ctane and it will play back on the Gear VR in both our app and Oculus 360 photos.

But there is a reason why Carmack's 18K cube maps get you 'ultimate' fidelity in VR, which I promise you can appreciate just with A/B testing of the same scene in cube vs. eq format in the viewer (cube map is also 30% less pixels and render time for the same angular resolution). For the contest, this high res cube format is going to show your entry in the best way possible on the Gear VR and for Oculus this is very important minimum requirement as contest entries will be shown in their app too.

For non-contest entries posted on the forums or in the gallery section on otoy.com, or content you drop into the ORBX folder you can do as you wish of course

azims wrote:Hi again Goldorak,

Can you please post a link to the online help manual? There used to be a link on the download page before. But now I cant find it.

hi, the online manuals are here: http://home.otoy.com/render/octane-render/manuals/
entry about panoramic cameras:
http://render.otoy.com/manuals/Standalo ... age_id=407