[RELEASED] VR Panorama - render 360 stereo videos

Hi,
Awesome asset!
I made a first video without a problem (

). But right now I'm making another video and I have a problem with the reflection Probe (to make a mirror) , when I hit play the resulting image doesn't show the reflection. Is there any particular configuration? The configuration in my reflection Probe is Type: Real Time , Refresh Mode: Every frame. Any sugestion?

 

Hi, there shouldn't e any problems with reflection probes. I think it might be some sort of Unity Bug.. related to your project or your Unity version or some shaders. Please note that VR Panorama gets rendered in Deffered path, so check that your probes and shaders work with that.
p. s. Sorry for a late response, but I was off on holydays.

 

No, it isn't flipped anywhere. Looks like some sort of unity bug with flipped textures. Maybe you are using some image effects that do this sort of flipping?

 

Hi Oli,

Would it be possible to share this test example so I can see how you made the multiscreen output in realtime, I'm trying to create a similar project.

Thanks, Rory

 

Also as a follow up question, what specs such as framerate and resolution were you achieving with this plugin? and with what hardware?
Thanks, Rory

 

Hi there.

I've just purchased the plugin and it all looks good apart from one thing! I'm exporting to view on the Gear VR and using the Gear VR Standard setting the final video looks really blurred when viewing through the headset.

I'm using Equidistant Stereo at a resolution of 2048 x 2048. Renaming the file with _TB at the end and dropping inot the relevant folder. Even with PNG selected and quality slider up full it looks blurred.

Also I noticed your example videos don't have the same aspect ratio i.e. 1:1 of the gear vr preset.

Am I doing something wrong?

thanks

 

Hi there, I have a issue that you perhaps can help me with.
I have a static scene (simple room), inside that scene I have placed the following objects.
1 x VR panorama camera
1 x polygon plane and material that includes a movie texture.
My goal is to record a movie-texture on a polygon plane with the VR pro renderer. The movie that I recorded with VR pro renderer works brilliantly except for 1 tiny issue. The movie-texture is playing at twice the normal speed, like I am fastforwarding the video.
Help would be deeply appreciated, thanks.

 

Hi Oli ,i am using VRPanorama in non real time to output 360 stereo video and it works fine, however i want to playback this stereo video in unity inside a cube instead of a sphere but i get the same image in every face of the cube. Please help? Do you have an example of how to display 360 stereo video inside a cube? Thanks!

 

Hi, GearVR rendering resolution setting is actually now outdated, as this setting was made in a time when Note 4 Gear VR. It will be removed/replaced with a new name. I'm suggesting you to render 4k panorama sequence (Milk VR standard) with "encode H246 video from existing sequence" disabled and afterwards use a "Encode Best quality video for Gear Vr" button. This should resize your hi res 4K video to a largest possible size for Gear VR.

 

Hi, I don't know what Video player solution you are using. Some of them, like AVPro has problems with non realtime capture. I've already posted some workarounds and a script that partially corrects this issue, somewhere here on forum. But this problem should actually be adressed by a developer of a video plugin that you are using. (plugin should support correct time.timescale functionality).

 

You can find a solution for AVPro here:
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/re...-360-stereo-videos.336086/page-8#post-2628234

 

360 panoramas are spherically projected panoramas. That means that they have to be projected on a sphere. You can't project them easily on a simple cube without using specific reprojection shaders.

 

You can contact me on a support mail with what are you trying to acheive, so I can explain it to you.

 

Hi Oli, if you don't mind can you please share a screenshot with your settings for samsung s6 and gear VR in equidistant stereo 30 FPS.
So far, my videos dont play in milkvr :[

Would it be possible to capture videos in 180 degrees?

 

GearVR rendering resolution setting is actually now outdated, as this setting was made in a time when Note 4 Gear VR. It will be removed/replaced with a new name. I'm suggesting you to render 4k panorama sequence (Milk VR standard) with "encode H246 video from existing sequence" disabled and afterwards use a "Encode Best quality video for Gear Vr" button. This should resize your hi res 4K video to a largest possible size for Gear VR.

 

Hi, Oli
I've been working with your package and getting some pretty fantastic results! Most of the issues I've had were curable by reading the support thread here. That said, I've come across one that I've not been able to solve:
After having recorded sound and recorded a panorama, I get an output file that corresponds to the video settings specified in the component (in this case, a google cardboard output for 30fps). The video looks correct on first glance, but on careful examination the video is slightly slower than the audio, such that by the end of the 5min record the two are way out of sync. Is this something you've encountered before? If so, is there a setting or workaround?

 

Hi, I'm not sure why this happens. I would have to know how do you handle audio file. Be sure that you don't trigger audio on awake.. but on start. I have also included a script for core audio tiger ring and you can find it inside VRPANORAM folder. Sorry, but I'm writing right now from my phone, and I can't control what is the name of that script (but it was something quite self explanatory).
Also, sync issues could be related with dopler effect or some unity internal bug. If you give me more info, I can investigate and let you know.

 

Thanks for the reply, Oli

The audio file produced is perfect as far as I can tell (I went through with a stop watch confirming timecodes against an in-editor run-through). So it seems that that is working as expected.

The video file however comes out... longer and slower. When I time it out against an in-editor run-through (or the audio), an event that was meant to happen about a minute in happens about 10 seconds late. This pushes out to a minute late by the end of the 5min sequence. That said, the animations all look normal on inspection... But to capture the whole sequence (which is supposed to be about 4m30s) I have to increase the captured frames to something closer to 5m30s... which is a yellow flag in itself.

It's almost as though there's a frame rate rounding issue going on where you'd get a video track that's slightly longer and slower than expected (like 30 vs 29.97).

It's worth saying that the project is fitted for using a Rift as the primary display... not sure if that's relevant.

 

Hi Oli

My first tests of your VR Panorama asset worked perfectly, and I'm excited because it's going to be really useful to me. To test it out, I created a simple scene with just a static camera inside of a large sphere with a texture moving over it. The build ran fine and the exported sequence was in the folder I chose. All good.. but when I came back to the project after a few days, I swear I didn't change anything, but now when I try to Build & Run it's interrupted by this list of errors in the Console. I even tried re-importing the package but the error persists. Any idea what might have happened?

 

Try to delete VRCompositor.cs file. If you aren't using multiple cameras, you don't need it. But I'm quite curious why this happens to you. What is your unity version?

 

Not sure what's happening there. If you want, please contact me with a PM, and we can see what causes this error.

 

Hi there, I'm excited to use this plugin but I'm blocked on a couple issues, just using the demo scene VRPanoramaDemoScene:
1) the image that gets output has rendering artifacts that are hard to describe, see below, the letters are getting clipped by the back wall.
2) I'm more interested in still scene renders than image sequences, but if I specify any number less than 5 as the number of frames to render nothing happens -- if I specify "5" then I get only one frame output. This isn't a blocker but it sure is a yucky bug.

Can you help me get this working please?
Thank you.

 

Hi,
this is really strange. Looks as if all materials are using some transparent shaders (demo scene use standard opaque shaders). Could you please try importing it in an empty project and start from there? Or even, delete VRPanorama folder, and reimport asset from asset store. I don't have any clue why this is happening (I need some more info to be able to debug this issue - but I assume it has something to do with some other assets, plugins or rendering systems that you use).

Yes, this is a known bug(in this case feature) related to a bug in Unity. Actually, Unity uses 3-4 frames to initialize completely, and those first frames are usually garbage without shadows and no global illumination. This bug was solved by Unity in 5.4, and a new version (soon available) of VR Panorama will reflect this modification. Until then, you will have to use 5 frames offset.

 

I can proudly announce a new feature that comes in a next version of VR Panorama PRO:
Support for exporting Abisoncis Spatial audio. From now on, you will be able to export 360 videos for Youtube with Spatial Audio.

 

Hi Olix,


For the love of me I can't get the Asset to work. I'm trying to render a single panorama and have tried many different configurations. It either just opens the render folder with no renders in it. Or it only renders my Skybox and UI.
See attached image.

Before you ask,

- Asset is located in Assets/VRPanorama
- I tried Forward- and VertexLit Rendering
- Resolutions from 1024 to 4096
- # of frames to render from 1 to 20
- Resume from -50 to 200
- Z-Buffer on/off
- Align with Horizon on/off
- Speed vs. Quality from 1 22/32
- Encode on/off

- Unity 5.3.4 and 5.3.5
- Mac OSX 10.10.5
- AMD Radeon R9 M290X 2048MB

What are the correct settings for rendering a single frame?

 

Hi Olix,

Thanks for this awesome asset!

Is there any way how I can save the PNGs with transparent background instead of black background?

I am using VR Panorama for the production of an animated Video. Therefore I have multiple cameras in my project. All cameras are children to an animated Game Object that is moving through the world we have created.

What I would like to achieve is to be able to record the video clips of all the cameras one by one so that later I have the different layers of the video available for post production in Adobe After Effects. I have "clear flag" for the different cameras to "depth only" and the culling masks set to only those layers I need for the particular cameras.

So far so so good, I can enable the cameras one by one and produce the video clips of the different layers. This works quite nicely.

However there is just one small thing left that I seem unable to get to work. I have experimented already quite a bit with different settings. But no matter what I do all my PNGs always get saved with black rather than with transparent backgrounds. Ideally I would need those PNGs with a transparent background or with a proper Alpha Channel.

Am I missing out on something? Have I gone wrong somewhere in the configuration. Or is it simply not possible right now to have transparent backgrounds on my PNGs?

Your help would be very much appreciated: It would be great to find a way that my PNGs from the front level cameras would get saved with a transparent rather than with a black background.

Thanks & Keep up the great work!
Andi

 

I would have to know a little bit more. What is your woreflow, and what should get and isn't rendered. BTW, you should always render more than one frame. For now. Ņd then choose the one that you like.

 

This is somethin I've been working on. But unfortunately, I have some inconsistent results because stitching gives some problems with alpha channels.. this problem is on a road map after a new major update hits asset store (in week or two).

 

Hi There! Thanks for this awesome script its really helping my latest project! Just one quick question! I Have parented the VR Panoramic Camera to a platform that, at the end of the Sequence "spins" 180 so that the viewer is essentially flipped upside down. Whilst watching playback on the oculus the flip works, however in the rendered version the camera moves around but doesnt rotate with the platform... Is there anyway to get the software not to ignore the parented animation ? Thanks Again!

 

Just deactivate "Align with horizon" checkbox in VR Panorama. Simple as that

 

Thanks I'll give it a shot next render, Thanks for such a quick reply!

 

When I try to use this it just exits my game as soon as it starts, no errors nothing, any ideas?

 

Check if you set number off frames to render to some value greater than 4.

 

I checked a spout, and It seems that spout in some cases flips rt textures upside down. Looks like a bug in Spout. (Because unity in dx11 automatically flips textures and compensates for those flips)

 

Thanks for checking into that flip issue, I'll just have to compensate for that and flip the texture for now.

 

Olix242,

I've discovered that for RT Mono, the code is still instantiating the right-side cameras in the rig. I tried commenting out lines of code related to instantiating the right cameras and I've got almost double the performance when rendering equirectangular mono RT. I'd be happy to share with you the refactored code, if you'd like.

Also, I'm trying to create a stereo 3D effect, and since you already have SBS and Top-Bottom stereo modes, it shouldn't be much trouble to create a stereo overlay mode, no? Would you be willing to show me what I need to do to achieve that (or you could probably quickly push out a new build with that feature *smile*)?

Thank you for the great asset and great support you provide!

Cheers,
- mars -

 

The render output in Unity 5.4 appears to be broken. In my own scenes I'm getting strange transparent objects, and the demo scene has an odd lightness to it that does not match how it looks in Unity. I've tried different quality settings, and reimporting VRPanorama from the asset store into a new empty project, but still the same results.

I've attached some comparisons of how it looks in Unity and what VRPanorama is outputting. I am unable to get past this, so any help is much appreciated.

Thanks

 

Can possible record with different fov?

 

Hi, for Transparent objects you should check Use Depth buffer (it should solve your problem).
For lighting, I'm not sure what's going on. It should be equal in editor and images (at least, on a systems that I've tested it is).
-is your screenshot from video or image output? If it is, it could be that your player (or image preview sowtvare) applies some gamma correction on images (while Unity doesn't).
-check taht you are working in Linear color space and Deffered lighting (recomended for VR Panorama - as it gives you a better quality and colors).
Let me know if anything from suggestions solves problem.

 

No, you can't.
360 panoramas wouldn't be 360 panoramas with a different FOV, as their FOV has to be always fixed (FOV of 360 degrees)

 

Thanks for reply

 

I will have aq look into this feature. What type of stereo overlay do you need? (and what will be the purpose, if I may ask )

Looks like something that remained from last version. A new RT module is almost done and it will be even faster.

 

I am using all default settings in a brand new empty project in Unity 5.4.0f3, with VRPanorama freshly imported from the asset store. I am using the VRPanoramaDemoScene and the only thing I changed is the Capture Type to Video Capture. The equidistant types appear to work fine, so it's just something with video capture. There are no transparent shaders in either of the scenes – my scene is using Unity's default Standard shader with the object color set to white. There is also no special gamma features on my computer or anything that would account for the discrepancy. Furthermore, when the render output is occurring, the Game view shows the message "Display 1 No cameras rendering", which is odd because something is being rendered, it's just that the output doesn't look right. It's as though the wrong buffer is being output.

Lastly, this error started showing up as soon as I upgraded to Unity 5.4.0f3.

Code (CSharp):

1. Load is not allowed to be called from a ScriptableObject constructor (or instance field initializer), call it in OnEnable instead. Called from ScriptableObject 'VRPanoramaEditor'.
2. See "Script Serialization" page in the Unity Manual for further details.
3. UnityEngine.Resources:Load(String)
4. VRPanorama.VRPanoramaEditor:.ctor()

 

This kind of stereoscopic overlay (right on top of left) with the additional step of tinting left and right red and blue respectively. http://paulbourke.net/stereographics/Unitystereo/

I had sent you a PM a while back asking if you'd be interested in getting Stereoscopic 3D working together with the VR Panorama plugin. The easiest low hanging fruit is to start with anaglyph (red-blue), then move on to active stereo (see Active Stereoscopic 3D for Unity plugin https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/3367).

Awesome! Looking forward to it. I was also wondering if using Reflection Probes would be more performant than setting up a multiple camera rig, though Unity are probably doing something similar under the hood?

 

I ran into this same error after upgrading to Unity 5.4.0f3. I think you need to edit the source of the VRPanoramaEditor (and/or VRPanoramaRTEditor) script to move the Load statement of the banner variable into the OnInspectorGUI() method:

Code (CSharp):

1.  
2. public class VRPanoramaEditor : Editor
3. {
4.         private Texture banner = null; // <== initialize to null in this declaration.
5.         private bool changePrefix = false;
6.  
7.     // Use this for initialization
8.     public override void OnInspectorGUI () {
9.  
10.             VRCapture VRP = (VRCapture)target;
11.  
12.             if (VRP.ImageFormatType == VRPanorama.VRCapture.VRFormatList.JPG)
13.             {
14.                 VRP.formatString = ".jpg\"";
15.             }
16.            
17.             else
18.             {
19.                 VRP.formatString = ".png\"";
20.                
21.             }
22.  
23.             banner = Resources.Load("VRHeader") as Texture; // <== Load the texture into banner here instead.
24.             GUILayout.Box (banner, GUILayout.ExpandWidth(true));
25.  

 

Video capture works corectly only in Linear Color Space (in next version it will work also in Gamma). For now, you should change your project color space to Linear.
Go to Edit/Project Settings/Other Settings and set Color space to Linear.

This is expected behavior that adds some performance to capturing. Next version will feature a possibility to turn it off or on

Yes, Unity 5.4 broke this thing. Update is on it's way.

 

No, we cant use Reflection probes for 3 reasons:
-Reflection probe (and generally cubemap) Max resolution is only 2048 x 2048. While a new VR Panorama can render up to 8K X 8K
-Reflection probes can't render in stereo.
-Reflection probes don't support any Image Effects.

It should be quite easy to implement all stereo modes by using Unity integrated system. Let me finish a new version, and I will implement also this one. But I just can't understand how you plan to use it?

 

olix4242, if you are ever in Seattle, I'd love to show you what we're up to - I think you'd have a fun with it. Perhaps you might be interested in doing some contract work? Looking forward to your latest update - I'm a willing beta tester!

 

Im and artist so this is jibberigh to me.. anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong?.. I'm getting these error "Load is not allowed to be called from a ScriptableObject constructor, call it in OnEnable instead.

 

This is an error introduced in Unity 5.4. You can fix it by changing few lines of code as MTANU explained few posts above.
(update with correction is coming soon to assetstore).