Fisheye Rendering

[mnarlock]

Hi folks,

I'm just wondering if TG2 will have the ability to muck around with the camera settings.  For instance, is there a "fisheye lens" setting?  I know with Terragen 0.9 you could make a 5-camera rig, import the output from this cameras into a compositor like AfterEffects, and stitch them together but I'm wondering if TG2 has something native now.

Thanks!

[Oshyan]

There is no native support for "fisheye", spherical rendering, etc. but we do hope to add some of these kinds of options in the future. For now the same tricks that worked wtih TG 0.9 will work with TG2. You can also increase the FoV setting to get a wide-angle effect, although it's not exactly akin to "fisheye".

- Oshyan

[mnarlock]

Oshyan,

The reason I'd asked about fisheye rendering is that I'm a planetarium director and we use a fulldome system, i.e. the stars, et.al. are projected digitally.  If Terragen2 had a native fisheye renderer then planetaria all over the world that use a fulldome system could use terragen to generate imagery ready-made for the planetarium environment.  For what it's worth, we use a Digistar 3 (http://es.com/products/digital_theater/d3-family.asp).  For our particular system, 3ds max is often used to generate content.  If I'm reading things accurates, terrain/effects generated in TG2 can be imported directly into 3ds max, which does support native fisheye rendering.  Am I understanding that correctly?

Thanks!

[JimB]

Would a workaround for now be to render a Cubic Map and use something like HDRshop to convert it to a lightprobe?

http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=119.msg1342#msg1342
http://www.hdrshop.com/

The camera for the Cubic Map in TG2 would need to be re-oriented 90 degrees upwards.

If you're using Mental Ray in 3ds MAX then it must have a fisheye lens shader (I use XSI not MAX), so you could alternatively create the 360 panorama and re-render that in Mental Ray through the fisheye.

[mt_sabao]

mnarlock,
I worked for 6 years in a planetarium and there we developed this tool (a plugin for after effects), which could help you converting 5 cam rig to fisheye:
http://fulldomeplugin.multimeios.pt/
Cheers

[mnarlock]

Ah!  I know fulldome well...downloaded the demo of it a while back.  For a stitcher we currently use a plugin by Evans & Sutherland...but to tell the truth I hate the need to use it.  It's far simpler and render-time efficient to render 1 fisheye than to render a 5camera rig. 

[Oshyan]

There does seem to be a lot of interest from the community in alternative rendering projections like this. We would definitely like to support some of these options for the final release.

As far as data exchange with 3DS Max goes there are already a few options (direct LWO terrain export for example). More full data exchange will be possible in the future. For now there is a plugin available that may be of interest to you: http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=368.0

- Oshyan

[JDex]

Oshyan, I actually PM'd you at CGTalk about this as well (think it was before the forums we're really active)... Would a bit of studio funding the R&D with one of the devs directly or on the side push the priority up on this?  PM or respond if it's a possibility.

Thanks

[mt_sabao]

can i just add that i would too love to see this implemented? and if i may say so as well, it's preaty easy to implement (i do now other things might be have higher priority)...

[voxel]

is there a "fisheye lens" setting?

This is an old and dirty trick: turn the camera 180 degrees, set a high FOV, place a sphere in front of the camera covering all the viewport, use a reflective shader for the sphere to make it a perfect mirror, set "cast shadows" to 0, pump up the quality and you will get a nice fisheye image.....

[JDex]

It works... but good luck with those rendertimes as things are now, especially w/ animations.

[Harvey Birdman]

For what it's worth, I'd like to add my voice to the chorus requesting a render-to-fisheye feature. I'm afraid I have no studio funds to kick into the pot, though.

[cyphyr]

I'm cirtainly no optics wiz but it occours to me that you might get acceptable results with a reflective sphere placed in front of the camera (you'll have to up the reflectivity considerably, 10 I think) and position everything in the opposite way you wuld with a fish eye camera, ie if the "real" camera was shooting streight up to get a sky shot with landscape at the parrimiter then the "virtual" camera would be pointing down with the reflective sphere below it.
Hope this helps

Richard

[bigben]

I'll add some fisheye conversion scripts to my panorama software post tomorrow. This is relatively efficient. I've used it with TG0.9 to do a fisheye animation on the fly. Once the CLI is fixed we'll be able to run the whole render & stitch process in one hit.

These scripts should cover most of the uses for different lens projections.

I've produced a photo graphic panorama last year for a planetarium demo here in Melbourne but they used a high res equirectangular image.

[Harvey Birdman]

BigBen - I'd like to see that. Where is this panorama post you mention?

<edit> oops - never mind. I found it. </edit>