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Manipulating the Viewing Direction

We expect that typically the camera platform will not be particularly stable, so that you want to control the nominal viewing direction presented to the user. (If the user stands still and looks in one direction, do they keep seeing the same thing, or does that viewing direction change.) Regardless of the stability of the original footage, the nominal viewing direction is an artistic decision.

If you haven't already (in the Using Add Many Trackers process), you should run Stabilize from Camera Path to accurately stabilize the imagery to the world coordinate system. The camera follows its 3D path, but its orientation is locked to the Front view. A viewer who remains physically looking in one direction will continue to see the same viewing direction in the VR environment. In most cases, this is probably the easiest approach for viewers, especially where the scenery is of most interest.

The other optional artistic choice is to run Align Camera to Path, if you'd like the final 360 VR product to maintain its orientation based on the camera path (heading), rather than world coordinate system. The typical use here is to provide a view out of the front of a plane, for example. The stationary viewer sees where the plane is heading, even as the plane veers about. This is better when a dynamic stomach-churning experience is desired. The camera viewing direction can be determined from heading and tilt, or just heading.

For final tweaks to the horizon line, use the Re-aim stabilized shot script. It can make an overall tweak to the scene/horizon alignment, but after you run the script, the Adjust tracks are available so that you can hand-animate the horizon line over the course of the shot to make any desired fine artistic adjustments, or to compensate for any long-term drift in the solve.

When you've finalized the path, use the Image Preprocessor's Save Sequence to write the stabilized version of your 360 VR shot.

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