Is this possible? Any hint on how to set it up?

Is it equirectangular? Download my free environment sphere. Attach the image.

http://sites.google.com/site/bagginsbill/free-stuff/environment-sphere

Hi BB,

I'm wanting to output a panoramic image, not use one as source material.

The program I'm preparing them for calls for "Cylindrical panoramic projection." In short, think of the old carrot of standing in one spot, and taking a series of pictures as you turn full circle. Then, stitch them all together to make a panorama.

Am I making any sense?

The program I'm working with is Adventuremaker. There is a tutorial that covers absolutely EVERY 3d rendering package out there EXCEPT (of course) Poser and Daz.

Just wondering if it can be done.

Any help appreciated.

No you cannot produce this in Poser. You can in Vue, and Vue can load a Poser scene.

Note: I think I can trick Poser into doing this, via a specially built lens. But such a lens is just a few scribbles in my notebook right now. I've never heard of anybody producing such a lens that converts from perspective to cylindrical or spherical projection.

Maybe I'm missing somthing. Why not use your GenIBL to create the angular image and then use hdrshop to transform to Lat/Long aka spherical.

There was a tutorial somewhere on the net that gave instructions on how to create the "mirrored ball" technique in Bryce, then use a free plugin that you could use in photoshop to convert it to equirectangular image. The trick was to place the ball at the right height in the scene and have the camera looking down directly over it. This could possibly be adapted for Poser, and would look great rendered in Lux using Pose2Lux.

In kerkythea, you can use a spherical camera to render a 360 degree panorama. That's probably not the format you need, but maybe HDRShop can convert it using one of the panorama transforms. Kerkythea also has a 'cylindrical camera mode - not sure what that produces.

As basicwiz identified AdventureMaker as the target, and that is about embedding you in a virtual world, a detailed 360 degree image is called for.

A mirror ball does not cover the whole world. There will be a large gap.

My GenIBL will cover almost every bit of the world, but there is still a gap. Also, the IBL format, angular map, compresses and stretches a good sized cone into a ring of pixels. Converting these back using HDRShop produces a weird artifact that would be clearly visible when immersed in the 360 panorama.

The suggestion to use a mirror ball in Lux is not necessary. If you're rendering in Lux, Lux has a 360 panoramic camera. Maybe Pose2Lux does not offer it, but I did expose that camera choice in LuxPose. I played with it quite a bit - it makes perfect equirectangular images that work great on my environment sphere.

basicwiz, you mentioned cylindrical projection. Are you sure (or is the author you got that info from sure) you mean cylindrical? That's a very odd choice. Most 360 virtual world thingies use the equirectangular format, which is spherical, not cylindrical. I don't have time to hunt down the tutorial you mentioned to see for myself what they're doing.

Adventure Maker supports the pictures obtained by projecting the 3D world on a cylinder. That kind of projection is very common, and is called "cylindrical panoramic projection". Other types of projections exist (spherical, cubic...), but they are currently not supported by Adventure Maker.

Here are some small examples of cylindrical panoramic projections:

If you look closely at the pictures above, you will notice that they are circular, meaning that the very left part of the picture is the sequel to the very right part of the picture.

You can also notice that the aspect ratios (the ratios width/height) can vary. For example, the aspect ratio of the first picture is 4 (meaning that the width is 4 times the height), while the aspect ratio of the second picture is 1 (meaning that the width equals the height). Any aspect ratio can be used with Adventure Maker.

 BTW...

Thanks to all who have commented.

This is not a major issue. Adventuremaker will take Poser renders and create the world in the style of Myst where each view is a separate render, and I'm fine with that. I was just wondering if the gurus had ever run into this, and if so, how it was done.

Again, thanks to all!

Quote - ...Here are some small examples of cylindrical panoramic projections:

If you look closely at the pictures above, you will notice that they are circular, meaning that the very left part of the picture is the sequel to the very right part of the picture.

The example image given is most certainly not a cylindrical projection of the environment. A cylindrical projection would leave the heights of objects consistent. Moreover you cannot see a flat surface with a normal that is aligned to the projection cylinder (luckily, there is a water surface in the image, so you can tell).

What they probably mean is: They take a panoramic image (one where the left side matches the right) and project it onto a cylinder surrounding the viewer. I have seen the term "cyclorama" sometimes refer to that technique in poser-speech. Perhaps there are some online resources on how you can create them, but i did not look (yet).

I actaully have a piece of software that came with my digital camera called "Panorama Maker." This takes a series of photos and "stitches" them together automagically. I suspect that if I make a series of renders rotating the camera between each of them I can use this program to create the images I'm considering. It's probably the only solution based on what BB is advising.

"What they probably mean is: They take a panoramic image (one where the left side matches the right) and project it onto a cylinder surrounding the viewer."

That's the impression I got.

wiz, they do those fotos slightly differently (reflective sphere).  holding a camera, turning and taking successive snapshots may lead to various errors in re: exposure, edge distortion et al.

Miss Nancy,

The reason I think it might work is the tutorial on making images suggests that very technique for making an image with a digital camera from the real world.

I've about decided, however, that I prefer the approch taken in Myst and Riven and will go with scenes that change with viewpoint. It would simplify things considerably.

Again, thanks so much to all who have contributed. I appreciate it.