TIPS and TRICKS on How to use IC 360


https://forum.reallusion.com/Topic292713.aspx
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By Alien Maniac - 8 Years Ago
Hi Guys
Well, we now have IC 360 for our videos. Nice but any tips or tricks seem to be unknown so I started this post to allow us to collect any info here from all users.

ADD YOUR TIPS and Tricks here;  and any info we can use. Lets keep it limited to that so we can reference it anytime here and not clutter the info needed with other things.

What I have experienced so far is:
1. All audio must be added in IC.....NOT POST in any other video editor as that changes the 360 format.
    That means that the video will not work properly on YT.
2. A To do any editing after setting the video to 360/YT> You can not work on the project. UnTic it to
    go back to do any further edit work.
3. Once 360 is set and you have the screen showing your clip> you may want to zoom in closer for centering
    or selecting n area point of turn. That allows you to move the areas of interest for better viewing.
4. Adding Cameras> that can cause problems if not placed correctly for 360 viewing.
5. Lighting> when you view at 360 you must set the lights according to what areas will show the lighting and
    how much light. Lights will shine far so set them properly.

OK that's all In have so far. Please add any info, tips and tricks here from your experience with 360.
By Alien Maniac - 8 Years Ago
YT Audio>
On YT once we upload our 360 video and publish it> the normal song addition will remove the 360 format.
BUT>>>>

You can experience a video's sound in all directions, just like real life, with YouTube spatial audio. Use it to take your spherical (360° and virtual reality) videos to the next level so that viewers can immerse themselves in your content.
You can only use spatial audio for 360-degree and virtual reality (VR) videos.

Learn how to upload 360-degree videos and virtual reality videos on YouTube.

By Skuzzlebutt - 8 Years Ago
i mentioned this in the other thread.

to edit your 360 or add sound:
shut off the "youtube" option in the panoramic section
before rendering from iclone.
do your VFX,edits or sound in your editor
and export with the same settings
then use meta injector and upload to youtube

download meta injector
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6178631?hl=en
download 360 viewer
http://www.kolor.com/kolor-eyes/download/

i will post optimal export settings later
and a few more tips.
By Alien Maniac - 8 Years Ago
Hi Bud
I am wondering about this injector? WHY would anyone need that? IC does it all for you. Just tic>360 and YT.then render the scene and wala upload to YT and watch it.
I have uploaded a few 360 vids clips and have had NO problem viewing them at all on YT in 360 views.

So why do we need that at all? Can you clarify the need for that and the proper usage, please so we all understand why and how and what purpose it has.

Thanks much! We all need to know all about all aspects of IC 360.
By Alien Maniac - 8 Years Ago
VR and 360 are 2 different types of videos as I understand it according to pro mag articles.
ON YT anyone can view any 360 video by just moving the scene around.NO Glasses needed or anything else.. but to view it on a headset it we must use a 360 viewer app installed on our cells. There are many free apps for that out there.

There are also many low budget 360 headsets that work fine. about $15 up on Ebay. 
Perhaps someone can explain the difference between VR and 360 for us to understand it better.




By Skuzzlebutt - 8 Years Ago
yes iclone does do it automatically,  you stated above you cant add audio or edit
this is because the video when re-rendered is no longer YT 360 compatible
and needs the meta-data.
its best if you need to edit to not have the meta injected at all
and only done as the final step before upload.


By Alien Maniac - 8 Years Ago
Ahhh thank Bud
Now I understand why and when and um how useful that is. Thanks again!
So basically, we make our video and then save it normally in IC. Load it into a video editor and add music/sound and save that and add the injector? Um How? details please.....
BUT then why at all? IC does it all....sounds, voice, music

On my com sys, I can not drop and drag from outside IC, weird and no solution. I can in any other program I have though just not IC. Inside IC>from dir/s I can, no problem.....but that caused me to add all of my audio files into a proper dir in IC. wo.

Thanks for the tips and explanation....it helps a lot for those like me that are 360 dummy certified. LOL
By Skuzzlebutt - 8 Years Ago
Bray42 (7/29/2016)

Perhaps someone can explain the difference between VR and 360 for us to understand it better.

                                      
                                            this graphic sums it up..
http://i63.tinypic.com/29f86s5.jpg

By 4DFans - 8 Years Ago
Actually a 360 video is VR when watched thru video goggles at least the video portion. YT 360 seen in vr googles, Is not interactive and the version you do thru iclone does not have the audio experience but it can be pretty immersive. The yt 360 you see on your computer screen or smart phone is just a cleaver tool for Viewing and interacting with it but it is not VR.

some one mentioned having problem editing the IC360 video. I'm using a cheapy AVS Video editor, and I have been able to splice everything together (multiple videos, audio tracks, and images with title and transition effects) and then imprint it and it runs fine on YT. My only difficult was finding the right video formats to render it so it keeps the best quality (and admittedly doesn't crash).
this worked:
H.264/AVC (Intel) 
3840 x 2160 (or whatever resolution your using)
MP4 iso v.2 
Bitrate=16000

What I really came here for:
Want to start a Discussion on how to do VR Movies/Stories:
I re-rendered  my Blade Runner video as test in 360  (highly recommend seeing it in VR goggles) And it has brought up a lot of questions for me on how do you make a Movie in VR. When I went to edit my old video, I found my old video cuts just don't work. I wound up limiting the camera switch and pan/zoom to give the person the sense of being there and allow him to look around comfortably (I actually put him tin the police spinner as it's flying around). I also wound up adding additional props to make the environment more interesting (added the Blimp, more detail in the Sky to extend the city, and extended the road the spinner takes off of). Where I came into the biggest dilemma is when I was editing the camera in the scene of when Decker meets Rachel I realized I had no clue what I was doing. I don't thin my approach to dialog works. I planning on continuing to work on and add scenes to the blade runner video a way to experiment with doing a movie in 360

My observations and questions so far.
1) VR is more like a play than a cinema only with the audience on the stage, you can move (teleport) him around stage but you can't fix where he is looking. 

2) I can tell part of this effort is going to be balance giving the audience time to experiencing the environment (aka look around) while keeping his attention on story you wish to tell.  I think the spinner ride does well in the experience category. I was thinking of adding Decker walking from the back of the office (where Rachel and Tyrel appear from) to where he see the owl, to give the audience the ability to experience opulence once I add the statues, art work, cool technology, what ever I can think of. The difficulty is going to be getting his attention back into the story line. 

3) Along these lines, any ideas on how to get him back into the story.
        a. You can use some sound cues that something is happening but that would get to be rather contrived.  You would still need to make the audio cues early enough so that some one to find the object  you want them to look at.  
         b. You can have other characters in the scene look in the direction you want the audience to look.

4) Forcing someone to look behind them is difficult especially if the audience is sitting down so try to keep the action generally to the body plane forward. 

5) VR permits you to get in close but try to make it seem nature, don't get to close that you feel you violating personal space (unless that is what you are trying to convey). Also don't stand directly between to people talking.

6)  Should I  maintain a constant eye level for the camera is if it were a person with a specific height.   Or should I try to alter the camera height to create a dramatic effect.

7) if you try to tell the story from one of the characters in the  story (ie do a POV) and put the camera where the guys head should be how do you do represent his body and the heads attachment.
By Rampa - 8 Years Ago
Might be interesting to use a "Camera man" that does not show up in the scene. Whether it's just the idea of a camera man, or an actual avatar, you could use the "look at" feature and moving position to guide the viewer. 

Jump cuts will be jarring, so have the camera actually walk around (or the floating camera just move around). One long, single take for an entire scene. Think of how you would view a street performance. Walk around to get different points of view.

I think sound/visual cues are appropriate. That's what gets our attention in real life.

Changes in lighting are used in theater to focus attention. The strongest example being the spotlight, but often with more subtlety.
By Rampa - 8 Years Ago
Oops. posting hiccup! Blush
By Rampa - 8 Years Ago
Twice! Everything jammed up, and I hit the post button again. Sorry.
By 4DFans - 8 Years Ago
Inspired by the U2 VR Music video "Song for Someone", I tried to see if my editing program could do split screen

And it can. Starts at 23 seconds in. I used the video inlay; scaled to the full vidoe frame, and then masked it and moved horizontally to position it. I'll experiment with different sized masked area and I should be able to move the video horizontally and split the video when I want to change the mask. I haven't figured out how to make mine do the animated reveals in the U2 video and I had to overwrite their masks,  This would have been a lot easier if the editor had video cropping features. I suspect this could be done in almost any video editor with video overlay capability.  

I am thinking of trying this for dream sequences, distant conversations or maybe chase scenes (seeing it from both the chaser and victim point of view (aka chasing Zhora)
By 4DFans - 8 Years Ago
Rampa
The Virtual camera man Idea is Ok but I don't think the "look at" idea will work mostly because you can't control the camera angle. I'm finding that you really want to keep your camera horizontal to the plane you want the audience to be in and let the audience look up or down to get the effect you want.  If you look up or down with the camera it slants the whole viewing plane. I did this rather badly in the intro to my latest Blade Runner 360 video
 
The title looks pretty cool in VR, until you pan around and see the viewing plane is skewed and so the title is slanted. Admittedly I never really noticed it until I added the title so I suspect the brain  compensates for the slanted environment.  I think a better way to add dramatic effect from camera angle would be to keep the camera fixed to the horizontal plane of your scene and move the camera up and down to get the desired viewing angle.  

1. Using it with your virtual camera man idea could be don by adding a dummy object to the root of object that your camera can link to  and track to the axis of the object your looking at in a horizontal plane.  From there you should be able to move the camera vertically and rotate about the dummy object to get the effect you want.

2. If you are trying to do a POV from a character in the video, you could link the camera to the head of an invisible avatar. Also you could create a virtual body by making the head and all its pieces (eyes/mouth) transparent.  You might want to cap the neck with a flesh color disk to hide the hole. I don't know how jarring the head motion of walking and running would be. If this proves to jarring you might be able to constrain the camera to the horizontal plane (can you actually do that?). I might need to do some experimenting to see what works best.

The use of jump cuts may be jarring but probably not a lot more than they are in a regular videos; I suspect we get use to it. There is a Muse VR Music video that use a lot of cuts but does a good job at fading in and out to make the transitions smooth. The big problem I see that if some one is looking around when you jump he may miss something you want him to see. The MUSE VR tends to have things happening all around you so you are constantly looking around and the jumps actually bring more events in front of your view. In a less clutter or more focused plot you will have to keep the attention of the audience on the character or event you want. 

The sound clues are indeed important but unfortunately Iclone does not support them. Eventually RL should consider making iclone support more complete VR. Going stereoscopic should be easy (since they actually do that. the audio thing is significantly harder. Theoretically they could use the sound and location associated with each avatar and prop to generate the associated vr audio file but I suspect that's not a simple task. They may see if they can find some 3d party app that they can send the VR data too and have it build and render the file, much like they do with  indigo.  Hmm Can indigo do 360? might have to try

By 4DFans - 8 Years Ago
I converted my Forbidden Planet tribute I did a fw months back  into 360 video. I didn't have to change a lot from my original video other than cameras. I feel I did not get close enough to the spaceship for the VR ... in my next one I will try to make it come down right on top of you and do addiona scene with Roby, Alta and Morphius. Admittedly I will ultimately need to balance the VR thrill ride with what works best with the plot and story flow.  I also think I may work up some props to do tiles  in 3D the standard 2 D ones look a little weird in VR.  I did the spaceship, terrain, sky, faces and outfits in iClone 5 along with GIMP, Hexagon 2,  Earth Sculptor, AVS Video editor and of course the Free Spatial Media Metadata Injector. 

Any comments and suggestions would be appreciated.
By 4DFans - 8 Years Ago


WIP Just playing around a little. Tried to make the Forbidden Planet letters humongous and have the ship nearly land on top of you. Kinda cool. I also did my own credits In 360.  I really designed these effect for VR goggles. I'm using forbidden planet and Blade runner to figure out how to do drama and action in VR/360. Thinking of doing my next scene with Robby or maybe in Morbius house I got some great models off 3D Warehouse

I'm figuring out how much the stereocopic contributes to teh VR expereicne. Does anybody know if iClone 7 will do stereoscopic 360? 3D audio would also be nice
By 4DFans - 7 Years Ago
If you would like reallusion to add Stereoscopic (Top/Bottom) 360 to iclone I've added a feedback tracker for it.
Iclone-really-needs-to-be-able-to-do-Stereoscopic-Top-bottom-360  Please VOTE
They did not have one for future versions, so I put it for latest iclone hoping they get the message
By 4DFans - 7 Years Ago
If you would like reallusion to add Stereoscopic (Top/Bottom) 360 to iclone I've added a feedback tracker for it.
Iclone-really-needs-to-be-able-to-do-Stereoscopic-Top-bottom-360  Please VOTE
They did not have one for future versions, so I put it for latest iclone hoping they get the message