Add a "VR Camera in Sphere Position" to the available VR effects

While VR Rotate Sphere is extremely useful, another type of mapping would be able to create even more interesting 360 videos. I refer to 360 videos from devices such as the Insta360 X series. I am seeing more and more of these out there.

That would be something like “VR Move Camera inside Sphere” effect (needs a better name!) where it would be like a rotate sphere in that there is a camera “looking” at the inside of a sphere mapped with the 360 equirectangular image/frame. But the enhancement would be to allow XYZ positioning and animation to the camera in addition to rotation. This would allow a “zoom” into objects that might be too far away to see well. I understand the resolution limits, but a modest 1.5 zoom would make for very interesting videos.

I also would have a IPD setting as well to compensate for the move.

Currently there is no way to do this in Pro. FOV or Motion effect changes breaks the 360 video seams. The only way to do it currently is to use animation software like Blender to map the frame to the inside of the sphere, and then animated the camera. The is very labor intensive, and my idea would be far simpler for an editor to use.

From Gemini:

is it possible to have the 360 video on the inner side of the sphere, then move the camera closer to the sphere for a zoom effect? would that break the 360 seams?

Yes, this approach works, and no, it will not break the 360 seams—as long as the camera moves purely inside the sphere and the equirectangular footage is mapped correctly to the interior faces.

Why the Seams Stay Intact

• Spherical Geometry: The seam of a 360 video exists only where the left and right edges of the flat equirectangular image meet around the back of the sphere (360∘ wrap). Because the texture is wrapped seamlessly around a single continuous, inverted UV-mapped sphere, moving a camera around inside that sphere does not create or reveal any new edges.

• Camera Translation vs. Lens Zoom: Standard FOV (Field of View) zoom or flat 2D scaling can distort perspective or stretch pixels non-uniformly. However, physically moving the 360 camera off-center toward a target on the inner wall maintains the natural spherical perspective of the projected image.

Important Technical Caveats

• Perspective & Parallax Limits: A 360 video is a single monoscopic or stereoscopic capture from a fixed central point. Moving the virtual camera closer to the wall simulates a "dolly in," but it cannot generate real parallax (i.e., you won't see behind objects that were obscured in the original video).

• Resolution Pixelation: As the camera moves closer to any specific section of the sphere wall, that area will occupy more screen real estate. The video will start to pixelate or blur depending on the original source resolution (e.g., 5.7K or 8K).

• Stereoscopic 3D Considerations: If you are working with 3D VR footage (3D 360), moving the camera off-center without updating the eye-separation/interpupillary distance (IPD) can create minor depth distortion or eye strain for VR headset viewers.

Implementation Setup (e.g., in Blender or 3D Software)

1. Invert Normals: Assign your equirectangular 360∘ video texture to a UV Sphere, and flip/invert the faces so the normals point inward toward the origin.

2. Set Texture Mapping: Ensure the UV mapping uses standard Equirectangular (Spherical) projection.

3. Animate Camera: Place your perspective camera at the center of the sphere (0,0,0) and keyframe its position vector toward your subject on the inner surface.