I'm not sure if this is the best place to ask, but there's no general forum for 3d lighting. Anyway, Instead of taking multiple exposures of a chrome ball from a single position, does anyone know how easy/hard it is to just make a 360 degree panorama? Besides factors like crowds, people, etc. This way you have the total environment, not just the 180 degrees the chrome ball gives you.

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 ;-)

A pano tripod head would be handy too:)

Attached Link: http://www.channel360.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=C3IIG&Category_Code=tech

An expensive way to do it.

Same method as  Lew's.  I thought the "How to create..." page was informative.

Mike

YES - here's the kind of head the guy (whom I can't find) was talking about! It's so you can configure the head and lens to spin exactly where the center of image projection is - that way you don't have any parallax distortion - though, again, you can make up for this in Photoshop rather easily.

And you don't necessarily need THEIR  attachment post - any tripod with degree markings on the head can give you that - and most have a version of bubble level so it will spin perfectly horizontal.
Good luck-
-Lew

This one is vaguely on topic.
Found while on walkabout on Google Earth. It is actually a panorama with timelapse!!!!

http://geoimages.berkeley.edu/worldwidepanorama/wwp905/html/AndrewNovinc.html

Quote:
Canon EOS 20D digital camera. Sigma 8mm fisheye lens. Kaidan QuickPan Panorama head. Multiple images touched up and combined with Photoshop prior to stitching. Stitching done with Panorama Tools, PTGUI, and Enblend. QuickTime generated with PanoCube.

Thank you for all the suggestions, I feel more confident about this now than I had. I'll post any noteworthy results I obtain.