Is it possible to adjust a 3D Camera to make it render as 360 spherical VR?

[heynewt]

The title pretty much sums up the question.  Basically there are a lot of complex ways (creating 6 cameras, etc)  and plugins you can use to render VR scenes from After Effects.  Why not sim

[heynewt]

(hit post too soon)

Why not simply have the 3D AE camera where you can set the FOV for 360deg VR? 

[Rick Gerard · Accepted solution]

The math involved would be extremely complex and laying out a comp in 3D space with a 3D camera would be a whole new experience. The plug-in from Metal does a great job of creating the projections in a workflow that is fairly easy to understand and follow.

[Mylenium]

Why not simply have the 3D AE camera where you can set the FOV for 360deg VR?

Mathematically impossible. A simple pinhole camera such as AE uses it for its model can never be 360 degrees because then the filmback size would be zero. This requires specific code, which isn't there. Even if it was, it's debatable whether there are actually any genuinely valid 360 cameras out there. As long as everything is patched together from multiple cameras, that's probably not the case and you can establish a similar workflow already by using Skybox Studio from Mettle.

Mylenium

[heynewt]

Well, I'm asking because I'm working in Modo where I'm rendering a perfect 360 VR scene from their 360 VR camera.  And I need to composite on top of the scene I'm rendering in AE.  I'm using Mettle Skybox V2, but it's a difficult process, because the Modo camera is moving, and Skybox V2 requires a lot of extra steps to composite on top of - and match the movement of - a moving camera.

Modo, Maya, C4D and pretty much every 3D package have 360 VR spherical cameras now.  How they achieve that, I don't know, but you work from a single camera, and it produces a perfects, seamless 360 VR render.  I guess for the people that developed the 360 VR cameras in the 3D packages, they used a different approach than a "pinhole" camera.  But if they can do it, why can't Adobe?

Robert