I think everyone knows this, but considering the interest in panoramas for the fake hdri thing, its real easy to make panorama scenes in Bryce. Double click the render button and select "cinemascope". That gets you a wide format render space. Just to the right of all the render buttons is a down arrow. Click that and select 360 degree panoramic projection. This way you can make your own panoramas and not need to find them on the web.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=995596

Unfortunately these panoramas will not be full 360 degree projections vertically, so they may look odd when trying to use them as an hdri map. Check that link for another method. http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=995596

Hello EricofSD where have you been? The QTVR Panorama will also give a good size for a panorama. I use them, but does anyone know what should be the real aspect ratio for a good panorama view?

Attached Link: http://claygraphics.phase2.net/cubicqtvrexamples.html

You can do "cubic QTVR" scenes in Bryce: http://claygraphics.phase2.net/cubicqtvrexamples.html You just have to have a stitcher program like makecubicppc free from Apple's website, you render out 6 images in 90 degree increments, open make cubic and Voila, it stitches them together for ya:-)

Clay,, what is the name of that software? Is it free?

UHm.... I think he said it was makecubicppc. Or maybe CLay just typed it for fun? (grins) Panoramas are pretty cool, but at best only a quick workaround for actually having to make an entire scene.

I did search for that name but there was nothing in apple's website as that name... :))

These may be helpful http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=948077 http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=995596

Try this too http://www.worldserver.com/turk/quicktimevr/QTVRlinks.html

panorama tools can be found here http://home.no.net/dmaurer/~dersch/Index.htm

When mappign your bryce panorama's in sinus-mode you can smetimes eliminate the nasty effects of a reflectionmap that doesn't fit vertically.

Is there a way to take the 6 images and make them into an equirectangular (flat spherical) image? Also, is there a way to take the 6 images and make them into a "cross" (flat) image without going through the trouble of cut-n-paste in Photoshop? TMG

makecubicppc does exist but for mac os only it seams, try this link for other qt things http://developer.apple.com/quicktime/quicktimeintro/tools/ :)

the windows euivalent is called gocubic sorry no link. TM, you have to use the program called hdrshop (free, pc only) to convert between image formats: http://www.debevec.org/HDRShop/

Attached Link: http://fartur.free.fr/galerie/tutorial/qtvr-tutorial.html

cubic vr tutorial.... http://fartur.free.fr/galerie/tutorial/qtvr-tutorial.html and some examples i've made: http://renderring.com/comcomovie.mov (312k with hotspots) http://renderring.com/green2000.mov (173 kb, no hotspots) the most important thing to remember when rendering multiple camera views is to turn off the "link sun to view" option. Also, i bought this software for creating hotspots and virtual tours (mac only, very very good software) http://www.clickheredesign.com.au/products/cubicconnector/

Attached Link: http://hoptour.com/downloads/gocubic/

You can find gocubic here

The real question is where have U bean? I'm still on the corel chat room every night (while you're sleeping there on the other side of the pond). Actually, I've been setting up a monthly challenge for the Poser forum similar to what AgentSmith does here. We're not far off from going live with it. By the way, Agent, thanks for the challenge you do here. I stole a lot of ideas from the system you perfected. As for this thread, lots of good ideas here. Well worth looking at the suggestions. The panoramas would work better inside a cylinder than a cone. I guess that's where the hdri issues would be a problem. QTVR works well too, but I don't think you can really get full spherical images with that either. I think the box idea works if you do 6 renders with 6 camera positions, but to convert that to spherical sounds problematic. I didn't read all the tuts above so if I sound like hot air then just point me towards a balloon and send me around the world for the next 80 days.

Yeah eric there are tuts above to alieviate your gaseousness....LOL

It seems one could take the 6 images and bring them into a 'stitcher' program and then export as equirectangular. This 2d spherical image can then be brought into HDRshop and made into a HDR Image for use in a rendering program. I'll try it and post results.

Blah, blah blah... If it's internal reflection you seek, try modeling the whole scene! Or if worse comes to worse, then just model the whole scene! Better yet, if you don't have time for any of THAT, then just MODEL THE WHOLE SCENE! Environmental image maps produce a great deal of paralactic displacement distortion in terms of reflections, and even worse, they cannot cast shadows. Contrare to popular opinion, the world actually exists! It is not just limited to spheres. If an artist is just trying to make eye-candy, or just save a lot of time, why not just take real photos instead of doing 3D imaging at all? Not trying to be negative, merely scoffing at laziness.

If laziness equals an analytical approach to problem solving then I am guilty. I have always been told that there is more than one way to do something, and that one person's way might not be the best for another person. TMG(guilty of being lazy) :> BTW~for some reason I CAN get environment maps to cast shadows. Am I doing something wrong?

Well, TMG, I assure you your hatred of me will only grow with time. I am the Storm. But what I meant was, that most of the world-reflection work we're seeing is just technical stuff, a materials test of sorts. And of course your world-sphere can cast shadows, but I believe you are misunderstanding the math on this one. Sarcasm wasn't my intention, but thank you for your opinion on my opinion!

Youre welcome :] and I assure you, there is no hatred, merely healthy disagreement. I am intrigued by you views on this. Please, share with me the math, for I am eager to learn new ways to create. Seriously. Is there something I can read up on or a scene I can disect? TMG