Planetside Software Forums

This is my (improved) method for getting seamless 360º Panoramas out of TG2.

Update:
Faster. Easier. Better!

Requirements
TG2 (with or without Animation module)
PTGui Pro (http://www.ptgui.com/ (http://www.ptgui.com/))

Updated files are attached.

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You can still grab the old tutorial below. It goes over the concepts of making cube based panoramas/skyboxes and is still good for beginners getting grips on the whole procedure. I recommend beginners to skim through the old tutorial for some info, then use the new tutorial to actually work with!

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/792881/Planetside%20Forum/SkyBoxFiles.zip (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/792881/Planetside%20Forum/SkyBoxFiles.zip)

Thanks a lot, FP. I'll check it out!

I'm quite sure I set it up right, but when I hit "render sequence," it only renders 1 image. The "sequence last" value always gets reset to 1 even if I make it 6.

(update)
check out the new tutorial attached in the first post!
you need the TG2 Animation module with the old tutorial.

Hmm not sure why that would happen.
Can you try starting a new scene and animating the default camera?
Is the problem still present?
If this is the case, perhaps its an issue with your TG2 install...
if the problem i isolated to the .tgc I provided- please let me know!
Cheers  

Thank you. From a first look, it's done very well.

You should consider copying it to Planetside's Terragen Wiki. http://www.planetside.co.uk/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Cool, I have updated the Wiki with a link to the tutorial files!

Quote from: RRMessiah on January 24, 2011, 09:08:47 AM
I'm quite sure I set it up right, but when I hit "render sequence," it only renders 1 image. The "sequence last" value always gets reset to 1 even if I make it 6.

You need Terragen 2 with Animation to render a sequence with more than 1 image.

Matt

Thanks Floating Point.  Very nice.

UPDATE!

I have reworked this tutorial / workflow and it is much easier now... oh and much more accurate too!
(no more messing around with silly calibration renders or any of that nonsense! - stitching is now mathematically perfect, no more control points!)

See top post!

whenever i do the rendering it saids finish but all i see is black

When you press render, the render window should open up and display the progress for each frame... Are you seeing this?

Have you accidentally positioned the skybox camera inside/underneath your terrain?

Are you able to render your scene without the skybox camera okay?

when i press render i see the display it just stays black i can render the screen ok without the skybox camera

Can you post your terragen scene, so that I can troubleshoot?

ok can do might take me a few

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Green,

I cannot seem to replicate your problem.

Are you using the animation version of the workflow, or the 6xStill version of the workflow?

the 6x

Hi Green,

The "SkyBoxSetup110_NoAnimation.tgc" clip I attached still had some remaining animation data within... I think this might have been the cause of your problem...

I have since updated and replaced it- please redownload the clip file and give it a go!

Thanks for bringing this issue to my attention!

Hopefully we will get it sorted out for you asap!

I've always wondered: why 110 degrees FOV?

- Frank

To allow a 20 degree overlap giving the stitcher application a good amount of data to blend between the images. This is useful for preventing a visible seam between images, due to GI mismatch.
The workflow is similar to shooting real HDRI's with a fisheye lens (just without any lens distortion :))

If you use the alternative procedure in TG2_Batch it renders nicely without seams (providing image is an even number in dimension)
http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=12769 (http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=12769)

but you have to have Hugin (which uses Nona to do the stitching) and I need to make an installer for more people to install it.

Thanks!

How this come tutorial for skyboxing i cannot see. It's for 360 panoramas

A skybox and a 360 pano are the same. However if making a skybox for rendering your rendering s/w will probably require the image in a specific format. Many formats are used by different s/w.
Equirectangular projection is one of them, othes include 6 separate views, or a cross format image or dds file. There are many other mechanisms, formats, projections to enable this to happen.

Its up to you to convert the resulting skybox/360 degree panorama into the specific format your rendering s/w requires.

A few years ago in 2008, I created also a Tutorial which explains exactely how to create HDRI Sky Boxes with Terragen 0.94.
Well... even it is an old one, it is worth to share it here :-) Please allow me to note, that it is unfortunately written in German (note: for our english spooken users).

In 2008 I stitched the rendered HDRI files together with a program named "cube2cross".
Nowadays you can do the same with stichting software like Hugin, PTGui or a simple HDRI Pano Software.

Nevertheless... in the ZIP you will find the simple scene so that you can see the setup in TG 0.943

Click to download my German Tutorial from my site...
http://www.dirkkipper.de/Galerie_Download/Download_Dateien/Galerie_Download_1.zip

STORMLORD
http://www.dirkkipper.de

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