[RELEASED] VR Panorama - render 360 stereo videos

Great asset, thank you 5 stars!

I want to use this with Unity Timeline Editor (currently in beta) https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/timeline-experimental-preview-release-1.455265/

However, when I press play the render will always capture at a world position 0,0,0. I even tried the demo scene and it could not render correctly. I know this version of Unity is beta so no rush but any help appreciated!

 

Sorryl, but I can't give you any support for non finishedand beta assets (for their nature). But I can suggest that you try by linking (as a child, or by a script) a camera to another camera on a timeline.
What I can promise is that when Unity Timeline Editor comes nearer to it's final stage, I will investigate any problems and eventual solutions.

 

This type of black lines visible in Whole render when i render with png (save alpha version)

 

This is normal when opening file in photoshop or in some image viewers. This is due to a wrong interpretation of alpha (for using alpha, you should deactivate a skybox) in such softwares. If you open in video editing tools like Aftereffects, you have to set Interpret mask as premultiplied with black, and this border will disappear.

 

Hello,

I am trying to use the VR Capture script and am seeing some weird behaviour in my game.

My game is comprised of many levels loaded additively. There is a single camera throughout the experience, but it will move in the hierarchy to always be parented by the active scene. This happens over many steps:

1. First scene with camera is loaded
2. First scene plays
3. Second scene is loaded additively
4. Camera is moved into the second scene hierarchy
5. Second scene is set active
6. Second scene plays
7. First scene unloads

Everything with VR Capture works fine until step 7, where the view resets back to a "normal flat" viewport. If I then stop playback, I get a crash. I'm not sure why this is happening at this point because the camera has already changed hierarchy and the second scene is already flagged as the active one.

Please let me know if you have any suggestions or advice to get this working.

Thanks!

 

Hi, you are trying to do something that is better to avoid. First of all, VR Panorama creates some objects in a scene, that could be destroyed with your scene (and probably are). Also, as VR Panorama requires lot's of resources for correct functioning, it is better to avoid loading scenes. Best and safer way is to capture scene by scene, and then edit your video.
Object (prefab) that is also loaded is called ""360Unwrapped", so you could maybee add a script to this prefab to avoid unloading. But this is something that could work in some cases - and when we are thinking about scenes, it is really difficult to cover many different possibilities - and different behaviours. I think that in the end it's much easier to edit your video than to try to script this behaviour.

 

Does this VR panorama 360 work on latest Unity 5.6?

 

Yes. It has some issue with standard video rendering (that happens in some cases), but for 360 videos, it works.

 

Any chance you can let us render out only 180 degrees? We want a 4k video of the front 180 degrees which fades out at the edges to create a nice fade-to-black when you look behind. We can obviously create an 8k sequence and manually do this in photoshop -> create mp4, but it would be much nicer if it were built in ...

 

I'm using Unity 5.6f3 and I cannot capture video from my scene. This seems like the same error I previously reported while using 5.6 with Timeline editor, however this time I'm not using timeline and am using stable build 5.6f3.

 

Hmm.. this looks really strange. But I can see one thing that could probably be your source (butm I'm not sure, as I see those strange objects far away) : You have a Use Depth buffer set to OFF. Please set this value to on. I don't know why, but Unity 5.6 stable version don't likes this value set to off when using a sky. Are you using an assetstore version or my internal version that isn't yet on assetstore?
BTW, thanks for a video.. this helps me a lot to understand your problem. Contact me if a Depth buffer trick doesn't help.

 

Fixed!


Depth buffer is disabled by default in Create > VR Panorama Camera, so for 5.6 users something like #if UNITY_5_6_OR_NEWER DepthBuffer=true

FYI, this also fixes the problem I was having with Timeline Editor.

Thanks for the great support and pack, I have a tutorial for this pack coming soon but while I recording today I ran into this : ]

 

that one was disabled by default, as in previous versions it wasn't neccesary. not using depth buffer saves a lot of VRAM (as depth buffer uses double VRAM). But for some reason, sky now requires a depth buffer usage (that is silly, as it there is no any reason to throw away video memory for buffers). last time when i chacked 5.6 (in beta), it worked well. i hoope that this is a bug, and not a real change in system.

 

I have a project I'm working on where I want to capture and image and then map it as a texture onto an object. Is there any way to do this without showing the render screen? I'll probably use a flash of light to hide the render time, but I want it to be seamless so it appears as if the world is still around you even though it is just a sphere with an image on it.

 

Hi, I'm having the same issue as Mindblocked, with half rendered grey. may I also request a corrected version. Many Thanks!

 

Hello,

I'm working with VR Panorama to export a 360° film made with Unity. I have an issue however exporting ambisonic sound.

We work with an external sound designer that exports TBE. We use Two Big Ears the plugin that is now part of Facebook to read the 3d sound in Unity. Nonetheless, it seems that VR Panorama does not read the sound with that setup. I have a blank sound track when I hit Capture Audio.

Iv'e switched Audio Configuration of Unity to Quadraphonic, same for my audio speaker. And I dont use Unity spatializers.

Is there a way to read and exporte TBE audio files in Unity? Am I doing something wrong ?

 

Hi, I'm not familiar with Two Big Ears and workflow in unity. But from what I can see in a page description, it looks that it actually is a spatializer plugin, as it dowmixes surround information to stereo (binaural).
EDIT: Looked into it, and as I suspected, it uses it's own output engine (that creates binaural stereo streams) and it's own listeners. This means that it doesn't pass via unity audio system - this is why it doesn't gets rendered. When using it, even a Unity Mixer is completely dead.

 

Hi, did it fix the problem with the normal video recording for you?

This solution only works with 360 videos. I still only see skybox for the normal HD video recording.

Help!!

 

Hi,
First of all thanks for a great piece of software. I've rendered out a 3d/360 movie and it works great. Now I'm trying to render a normal video in Unity 5.6.0f3 OSX.

I have settings as follows
Capture mode : Animation Capture
Capture Type : Video Capture

When I render I get an error in the unity game screen that says No Cameras Rendering and the output is a bunch of pink jpgs

I've given my Camera a tag of Main Camera.

Any ideas how to fix this?
thanks
Paul

 

I've tracked issues with Unity 5.6 and they are solved (I will be submitting an updated version to assetstore this night). As a assetstore has to aprove ir, and this takes time, please send me your invoice number in PM, and I will send you a link for a new version.

 

Anyone here have an idea for how to use this to capture an image while the game is running without showing the view that is displayed while an image is captured?

 

You can customize or remove rendering status interface by editing "360Unwrapped" prefab. If you wan't to deactivate interface, deactivate Camera component on InfoCamera object. Afterwards, save your prefab and you won't have any interface when rendering.

 

Certain elements in my scene aren't getting rendered... including the floor, the ceiling, and an object directly overhead. Any tips on what I'm doing wrong? Thanks!

 

One other question that I hope is not too off-topic... is there a plugin that I could capture scripts running, similar to how SceneMotionCapture gets transform information? I'd like to do a panorama of a user pressing buttons, which change appearance when scripts are activated. Thanks a ton!

 

Are you in Unity 5.6? Ass there are some problems with Unity 5.6 that are somewhat resolwed. Contact me for an update.

 

Hi, I'm in Unity 5.6 and I'm also getting the SBS grey image on the left hand side.

 

As I've said before here, a new version is available (also submitted to assetstore), if anyone needs it, just send me your invoice number

 

Sorry if this has been answered before:

When rendering Equidistanct Stereo SBS, only the RIGHT side renders (left side is grey). Ideas?
Set as Facebook Image, jpg.
Unity 5.6.0f3

Thank you!

 

You can find the answer two posts above
BTW, facebook doesn't support stereo panoramas.

 

New version just went online on assetstore. It fixes known bugs, and has some new documentation. I'm still not sure if it fixes all bugs in unity 5.6, so if you notice them, please report them here.

 

I just downloaded the new verson as I was posting my question - sorry about that, should have tried before posting - YES, it works great now. Thank you. Love the product.

 

May I suggest you not to use SBS?
Here is an explanation that I've made, about why SBS isn't actually so good.
https://olivr.info/2017/04/11/sbs-vs-tb-360-stereo-video/

 

Hello, I use LightShafts-master, but can not output when output vr
I want to know how LightShafts-master is RENDER

https://github.com/robertcupisz/LightShafts

 

Hi @olix4242 I work in the TV industry and I use this great tool to place graphics on top of Live VR video using the OZO camera and unity. My question is about fill and key (Alpha and colour) in Realtime mode VR Panorama renders the stitched output onto a RenderToTexture surface within the 360UnwrappedRT2 prefab. I am currently outputting via SDI to a broadcast switch board so my output needs to have the alpha and colour separated, I wanted to find out from you why currently the RenderToTexture surface does not have anything on the alpha channel? does the FadeVR shader support transparency?

Many thanks

 

Contact me for a build that supports transparency - It was submitted to assetstore today.

 

Hmml,. this can be tricky for a way how LightShafts script is structured. It can use only one camera and doesn't auto-register to active cameras. If I remember well, you have to specify a camera to use on a light. Some time ago i've made a script that can be used to activate lightshafts - but It is on a PC that I don't have currently here. I wil look if I can find this on some backup drive.

 

Ok, I've found it here on forum (if this is the same LightShafts build):
https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/r...360-stereo-videos.336086/page-11#post-2771881

 

Hello, thank you reply
I downloaded the script after use, the fault condition, Remaining time: -35791349min.-8sec

 

I really need some more info. Are you sure that you have setup this script correctly?
-add a script to your Light that has light shafts
-Set a camera that holds VR capture component inside VR Camera field.
-In Light Shafts script set Cameras array to 24 cameras (otherwise it won't work).

If set properly, it should work. And it shouldn't give you any problems with rendering in any way.

 

Thank you ~ ~ I can use the normal
I was the third step wrong, I thought to join the plug-in, fill in the use of the VR Camera just fine, so I did not open the 24 blank camera settings

Because I will not use this forum image upload function, so I can not give more information

 

getting this from the export, a strange whit pattern, and also no video export (all pink frames)
it's a gear vr project, any ideas (using latest unity version 5.6.0f3)?

 

This is normal and expected behaviour when using PNG that has alpha channel. It is only a preview issue with certain softwares/preview apps that don't interpret correctly Black Mated Alphas (that are standard for video). Those lines are ok and they won't appear in final video. To understand this alpha difference, you can watch this movie:

 

Hello,

I'm using your amazing plugin to record inside a sphere where I'm displaying a 360 video.
When I render using your plugin, video is always accelerated. Is there something I'm doing bad ?

Sorry for my bad english, not my native langage.

 

It's been over a year since I last posted... and I'd like to start by saying the more I've used VR Panorama, the more I've liked using it.

I've a few more points now as well:
1. I'd still like the simple option to browse to a folder (I've just rendered a range of exports and it would have made the workflow more comfortable).
2. I think the preview would still be useful (as an option perhaps)
3. The ability to render time ranges - e.g. start frame and end frame options (this would be Very useful for me)
4. A general question - Is Facebook metadata the same as YouTube metadata?

Thanks for the continued development!
Dave

 

It will be featured probably in a next version. I've already implemented it, and then lost somewhere Newest version allows you to insert custom path, I don't know if you have noticed this.

What kind of preview? In editor or some other kind?

You can already do this in a simple way:
-deactivate VRcapture script
-in your animation set a keyframe to activate VR panorama from a frame that you want. I didn't want to make another field that would confuse users about usage of "resume from frame" from "start from frame". this is the easiest way.
But, right now I'm thinking that I could also implement this in a different manner (for resume function) like in 3ds max - with something like "skip rendered frames". I will have to think about that...

Facebook 360 image metatags are for stills. Metadata injector is for Youtube and Facebook videos (it works on both).

 

What Video player are you using? This is a problem with certain video players that doesn't respect unity Timescale, but this is somethnig that developers of those players should solve

 

Today I have tested VRPanorama RT with a new GTX 1080 ti. I can say that this card is a real beast! and I can finaly say that I'm happy because with that GFX card you can simply render your intreractive VR experience in 360 directly to a screen, while wearing Vive, and capture it with Nvidia Shadowplay. I'm thinking of doing some experiments and broadcast live in 360 on youtube in next days. If someone is interested, let me know.

 

I'm using Unity Video Player on a sphere. Do you think Unity themself wouldn't use their own TimeScale ? Is there anyway to add it ?

 

Unity changed it's player in 4.6.. didn't had a time to check. But it probably doesn't respect timescale if it has audio (as it wa also with old unity player). Be sure not to include player, or see in video player documentation how to allow sloww down in respect to timescale.

 

Please check a documentation here, this should help:
https://docs.unity3d.com/560/Documentation/ScriptReference/Video.VideoPlayer-playbackSpeed.html