Panoramic Scene in Lightwave

[iggy21]

I know Lightwave can do a QTVR object, but i wasnt sure if it could do a QTVR scene (panoramic). If someone could let me know that would be great, thanks.

[Justinw]

Hi Iggy,

If you are referring to a QTVR movie (pan, tilt etc...) have a look in the manual at chapter on Render options (ch 16??). They have a how to under the ouput files section.

Cheers,

Justin W.

[Lightwolf]

Justinw:
You'll need a plugin to render out a panorama, try this:
Special Projection Engine (http://www.arrakis.es/~juanj/).
You'll still need a tool to convert the result to a QTVR though, this only renders out a spherical panorama image.
Cheers,
Mike

[Justinw]

Hi Mike,

I have played with QTVR's straight from LW without plugins. You don't need a spherical map, (unless you want a custom background), as you tell the camera to render out every frame that will be visible. A bit tricky to setup (to get all frames you need, while keeping the file size down), but seems to work OK. I'll setup a scene if you want to take a look.

Cheers,

Justin W.

Sorry, forgot to say thankyou for the link. Good stuff!!

[Lightwolf]

Justin,
That section only covers QTVR objects.
Sure, you can use the same technique to create a pseudo panorama, but you'll get a huge file.
Spherical Panoramas only consist of one image, and are much smaller.
Cheers,
Mike

[Justinw]

Hi Mike,

I must be getting my terminolgy mixed up a little. What is the difference between a QTVR object & a QTVR panorama?? I thought that the file size was determined by the step / frame settings for pan & tilt. Have you scene or movie I can have a look at? You've got me intrigued now...

Cheers,

Justin W.

[Lightwolf]

JustinW:
A panorama QTVR is basically a 360°x180° image wrapped onto a sphere, you're (virtually) inside the sphere and look around. The camera's position is static, but the angles vary (in LW terminology).
An object QTVR is basically the opposite. It allows you to look at an object from all angles, by pre-rendering all those angles for you. Basically, the camera would be positioned on any point of the sphere, but always point toward the origin.

In the firstcase you can get away with one image, in the second you have to create many, because the camera moves, you thus have perspective changes, and there is now way to create a single image that contains all different perspectives of an object.

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/products/qt/overview/qtvr.html

Panorama QTVR:
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/overview/qtvr3.html

Object QTVR:
http://www.apple.com/hardware/gallery/

Some more in depth info (Covers Mac Software):
http://www.edb.utexas.edu/teachnet/QTVR/

Cheers,
Mike

[Justinw]

Thanks for the info Mike.

Makes things a bit clearer now. I had in effect created panoramas, but with the object method (therefore giving me large file sizes). I wasn't aware before that panorama sizes could be so small. Thanks again.

Cheers,

Justin W.

[Lightwolf]

JustinW,
you're welcome, I'm glad to have been of some help...
Cheers,
Mike