For Those of You with Oculus Rift / Other VR Device

I’ve been working on an idea, to utilize the perfect equirectangular camera in Blender to create 360 degree videos for Oculus Rift and other VR headsets. You can find details of the workflow, including how to view the movies, here.

I’m very interested to find out if anyone on this forum has an OR or other device that would be willing to view the first proof-of-concept video? I’m curious to hear what the video quality is like, how well it plays, and if you can see seams anywhere. The first video will be done before the end of this month, but if there is anyone who would like to be a test pilot, I’ll happily place it higher on my priority list!

DK2 coming in end of august/september.

I have a DK1. I’ll subscribe to this thread and have a look when you’re ready.

Thank you Arnywar and quollism! I’ll begin working on the test animation this weekend and will post a link here when it’s ready! Getting feedback on both versions of the Oculus will be very helpful, as well.

I just got a DK2, and I love Blender, so I’d be happy to test it out as well.

Thank you, visualpurpl, I truly appreciate your help!

Last night, I rendered a frame at 4,000 x 2,000. You can download it HERE.

I thought this would be a good holdover until the animation is ready. If you haven’t seen the other thread already, this is how you can view the image on your Oculus Rift (although I’m sure not the only way):

Like I said, I don’t have an OR, so you might have to fiddle with more settings, but it looked okay on my desktop monitor. If anyone tries it, let me know how it works for you!

Tried it this morning. VRPlayer needs these settings for Oculus Rift DK1:

Media:

  • Format: Mono
  • Projection: Sphere
  • Effects: None

Device:

  • Layout: Side-by-side
  • Distortion: Barrel <-- without it there’s some stretching towards the edges of the frame
  • Tracker: Oculus Rift

Specifically about the image: holy crap that mech is huge. :smiley: You have to crane your head right up to see it.

quollism’s settings all worked for DK2, except the tracking. :frowning: I did a quick search and it looks like it hasn’t been updated yet. But other than that, I can still use mouse tracking to fudge it a bit. I’ll keep checking to see if I can’t get it to work.

It’s really sharp and nice. And yes, the mech is huge. Also, I liked the detail on the ground at my feet. I was pretty sweet.

Thank you for such a quick response, quollism! I was hoping seeing the mech in VR might make it look bigger, so that is good to hear. Thanks also for posting your settings for the DK1!

I have another image here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6wbYP4PYG8WWm9uTHIzbmhIbkk/edit?usp=sharing

It is the same scene, but its dimensions are 1920 x 1080, since that is the size I’ll have to render the videos at (until I have the power to render in 4K, and people can play the videos on their computers smoothly). Does the image look very pixelated or blurry? I’m hoping if it does, that the lower resolution won’t be as noticeable in an animation, especially if there is motion blur.

The image looks about the same to me - the DK1’s resolution isn’t that great though.

Great, I’m glad to hear that! On my computer monitor I could notice a decrease in sharpness, so I’m glad to hear it’s not too noticeable on the DK1. I’m setting up the final lighting for the first video animation today, and hopefully will have all the materials baked by tomorrow. I’m hoping it won’t take too long, as there are a good 20-30 separate materials to bake, and this will be my first time using baking in Cycles.

It looks about the same on the DK2 as well.

I opened them up, one after the other, and the only thing I could notice was that there was a tiny bit less detail in the asphalt at your feet. Geometry and everything in the distance looked the same.

So yeah, 1080p really wouldn’t lose much if anything with the current resolutions. I was curious to see how much of a difference a 720p image would be, so I just shrunk your 1080p image to 720p. Honestly even that wasn’t all that different. Things in the distance were indeed a little blurrier, but it was still very close to the 1080p.

That’s excellent to hear, visualpurpl! I really thought the image would look blurry on the newer version of the Rift, but hearing that even at 720 it still holds up is very encouraging!

I have a couple more views I rendered out today- I’ve increased the light intensity to bring up the shadows, and hopefully make the scene feel brighter, as it probably would look in person on a clear day. I’ve also added some glare from the sun. The images are a little noisy, but I’ll continue tweaking the settings to get cleaner renders for the animation.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6wbYP4PYG8WV0lFZG0yWGlWZDA/edit?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6wbYP4PYG8WM0NVMEh2VVB6S0k/edit?usp=sharing

Can anyone spot where the edges of the image meet? Not only along the vertical seam, but at the top and bottom (zenith and nadir) ? I’m hoping compression in the video images won’t make the seams more noticeable.

They both look good. I didn’t notice where the image meets on the edges. The only spot I could tell was the poles of the sphere. The absolute top and bottom have a tiny fuzzy black spot, 2-3 pixels wide. Barely noticeable. With the asphalt up close, I couldn’t see it from the texture. In the sky I could see it. But it is very small.

Also, the only thing that seemed a bit out of place was the reflection in the windows of the two buildings connected by the sky-walk. They seemed overly reflective. Like a mirror. Maybe it was the building feeling old but the windows were like new?

But that’s the only nit-pick! Looks great :slight_smile:

I see the spot you’re talking about in the sky- I wonder if there is a way I can stop that from rendering in Blender, or if it’s easy enough to just fix in post.

You’re also right about the windows! A lot of them have an image texture with curtains, blinds, flyers etc. applied, and I simply mixed that image texture with a very glossy shader to make them reflective. I knew the render times would shoot through the roof if I tried to create transparent windows, and also didn’t want to lose the unique window details of each building, so that’s why they’re so reflective. But you’re right, it does look too clean when compared to the rest of the scene. Thanks for the input, visualpurpl!

I received my new RAM in the mail earlier this week, so that should help speed up the work for the animation. I’m still planning on having it ready within about 10 days- I’m just finishing up another project first (which I may also include in a second VR video test).

Baking ended up being way more trouble than it’s worth right now, because of how many faces share the same areas of the texture maps. So instead of baking, I’m just going to optimize my settings as much as possible and render at 720, since visualpurpl said there wasn’t too great of a difference between 720 and 1080.

I’ve also tried motion blur, and it works with the panoramic camera, which is a relief! Additionally, I’ve been experimenting with using Film instead of Default colour management. I haven’t decided which I’ll use for the video (default obviously gives you more options in post). At the moment I am leaning towards just rendering the whole thing using a film preset, because it’s different and I like the look, but maybe it’s just because I haven’t played with it before, so it’s new to me.

What do you think? Remember, the default image (top) would still be processed to become a bit more contrasty and dramatic.


Here’s one of the latest tests, with motion blur and film curves. I’ll just upload it here instead of on Google Drive.


I decided to stay awake all night and work to have a preview available for people to watch. I’m posting it on Google Drive instead of on YouTube so that you can download the original file, and not have to deal with a double-compressed video. This video is only rendered at 8 spp, and smoothed over a bit with Photoshop, so the quality isn’t much yet; but I want to know how it plays before I sink 80 hours into rendering the final animation.

Here is the link - https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6wbYP4PYG8WMnE0TUNGZzhkMjQ/edit?usp=sharing

Any thoughts you have at all are welcome! Do you like the slower camera movements, or faster ones? I rendered all cameras facing the same direction- does that make it seem confusing, or do you think it helps the viewer understand better where they are? Like I said, any input you can give is extremely appreciated!

Checked out the video. The compression artefacts are kind of distracting.

Not sure about the camera moves - cinematography and editing will be reinvented with an immersive POV, not sure if the classic methods will really carry over. Slower camera moves might work because they let you take in the world more incrementally. The higher vantage points were interesting.

It was much cooler seeing things close up rather than far away, engaged the old immersion much better.

Thanks. :slight_smile:

I’m sorry about the compression, quollism. I know it’s pretty awful. Before I ran the frames through Photoshop to clean up the noise, it was even worse!

Thanks for your input, it’s very helpful. I’ll adjust my shots tonight, and begin rendering the final animation. I’m also looking into purchasing a second GPU, as well as trying out the demo of Octane- I want to be able to render future videos more quickly, and in higher definition.

I have a question - when you’re viewing the movie with the OR, is the center of the frame always in front of you? In other words, do the vertical edges of the image always meet behind you?

If anyone else watches the video and has input, there’s still time to post! I’ll only be able to render one shot a night, so there’s still time to adjust other shots!

When you load up VR player, forward is where the oculus is initially looking, this point on the panorama is exactly center of frame.