You'll need a good tripod with degree markers. Don't use an exptremely wide angle lens as you'll get all kinds of distortion that's hard to line up without seams and merge together as if they were one flowing image.

Someone came up with an algorithm as to how to place the head/lens nodal points but for the life of me I can't remember who or where it is! It's all very technical and was created before Photoshop anyway, in which case you can custom stitch a bunch of sequential images into a 360 view much easier.

Put the camera on the tripod, set your zoom, take a picture, then swivel the head so your next view actually has overlap of the last one - this will make it easier to bend and blend the images so they are seamless. Continue to do this for your complete 360 degree view - all images with some overlap. Bring them into Photoshop (or your app of choice - PaintShopPro, PhotoPaint, whatever) and stitch them.

You can then import them into your 3D app and use them as LDR (Low Dynamic Range) images. I do this in Vue all the time (loads the exact same way as HDRI images - not a problem!) and love the results - it just doesn't have some of the extra info 3D programs use for better lighting, but you'll get lighting from it which you would then augment ANYWAY with the sun and extra lights. Even with proper HDRI maps the lighting is fairly bland - you'd do this anyway.

Lemme know if you need more info - not sure if I covered it all for you.
Good luck-
-Lew ;-)