limiting panorama views?

[Rhodesy]

We keep getting asked about creating panorama VR views and its something we are definitely wanting to investigate further when we get just a second to look in to it more. One question I do have though is, is it easy enough to do say just 180 degrees rather than the full 360? Im thinking when its for external shots where you dont want to model the rest of the world that would traditionally be behind the camera.

Also is the Corona VR tool the best option for creating and editing these in with hotspots and then also generating outputs that can be packaged up for clients? Sorry for the noob Q.

Thanks

[TomG]

CoronaVR is great and handy for VR - however, it is for 360 panos. In fact, I'm not sure I know of any viewing app that allows a restricted amount of head tracking to stop the viewer from turning around a full 360 degrees. You can use conventional 3D with no head tracking for stereo only, and then any conventional 3D viewing app (although I am not aware of any that offer warp points, and of course it has no head tracking at all, what is in frame is all you see).

For packaging up and delivering to clients, with CoronaVR being in beta, I will get back to you on the current best process for that.

Thanks!
   Tom

[Rhodesy]

Thanks Tom. I've just realised there is a whole section in the Forum for the VR stuff, so sorry if this is in the wrong bit. Please feel free to move it.

Regarding the restricting view I would have thought this would be a popular request. I get the 360 freedom works well for interiors but once you are outside wanting to look back at a building there is a big can of worms waiting to be opened when people start to look around and expect the rest of the world to be modeled up and created. Restricting the view would make this less of a problem and there could be control over what is seen.

With the export formats I think our clients are mainly thinking embedded in websites for sales and then also the option for google cardboard etc. Is there a way to do this with coronaVR or are we best choosing something like pano2VR? Is the CoronaVR limited to using it with the corona host machine rather than sending off to clients for looking at on their PCs?

Thanks

 

[filippo.previtali]

I was looking for exactly the same option. Limiting the stereoscopic view would be great....most of the time 360 degrees are only needed for interiors.

For Vr Platforms at the moment we are working with this: https://theviewer.co/home
But I have recently found this one, pricier but definitely more powerful and complete: http://www.instavr.co/

Hope this helps

F

[Rhodesy]

Thanks Filippo. Blimey even the cheaper one is expensive really. we wouldnt want to be signing up for any subscriptions. We would just want something we can use as a tool to add hotspots and publish to various formats and package off to the client to do what they like with. Most probably using through a web browser. I think we might give pano2vr a bash as there is a free demo and I assume we can just bring in a corona pano jpeg and it should work. Looks like there is a good list of formats. Im hoping it should also make it easy to switch in new versions if there is a design update too.

[TomG]

During the beta, you can deliver content by pre-installing the app plus the images on the client's device (you will need to make sure that they are also signed up for the beta).

theConstruct are who we have partnered with for CoronaVR, they develop the mobile app side of things - if you want a polished, final delivery of the app to the client, this is possible during the beta (and has been done, e.g. by Recent Spaces whose sample tours you can see in the CoronaVR app and in our blog articles on CoronaVR), then you would need to contact piotr@theconstruct.co and request a build of a custom app. Piotr will provide you with a quote for how much that would cost.

CoronaVR doesn't offer a web-based delivery at the moment at least. Pano output from Corona can of course be used with other VR delivery systems, though you will need to use their external programs to add warp points etc, they can't be created and generated from 3ds Max like CoronaVR warp points can, but only by external editors.

Hope this helps!

[Rhodesy]

Thanks for the info Tom, very helpful as always. Sounds like going for an external app might be the best option at the moment for us. Do you know if the final release will be a subscription service like they have at 'theViewer' which I think is the same company? Not something we would really want to get in to especially at 3x the price of a corona monthly sub!

Apologies again as this is maybe in the main thread for this, but other than being able to create hotspots in Max, what benefits does the CoronaVR bring over an external app that can package out a variety of formats?

[TomG]

We won't have pricing info until the final release is closer, sorry to say, so there will be a wait before final details are unveiled on how the pricing works.

On the advantages of CoronaVR, adding the hotspots in the 3D scene is a bigger advantage than it sounds :)
- No need to have the manual task of going through every image in a tour and adding hotspots, they will all be correctly generated at render time (though can be edited manually later if need be)
- Because they are in the 3D scene, the same hotspot will appear in different locations and at an appropriate depth (distance from the viewer) from any view, rather than trying to manually line it up manually and separately in each image
- Re-rendering to accommodate a change won't mean having to manually re-add the hotspots after
- All the locations for the hotspots are saved in Max so they are there if you return to a project 6 months later, without having to remember where each one was supposed to go :)

Other things that are planned or we are exploring - though important to keep in mind these are just plans and development is still ongoing - are: easy delivery to the phone (save the render to a particular folder on your PC, and it will sync with the app); ability to create projects as folders so that clients will just see their folder and not your other work; ability to have this as customizable so there would be no Corona logo or need to run a third party app and "load" the images, the client would just be able to run their unique app (so they won't see themselves as running CoronaVR and loading their project, just as starting their "SuperHomes Tour" app, great for your client's clients, vs. them running VRViewerApp105 and loading their images), again see things like the Recent Spaces examples, which also exist as standalones.