Skybox alternatives?

Question

I'm looking to do some 360 VR work, and Skybox seems to be the perfect fit for an immediate project I have - unfortunately, it is no longer for sale. I know that Adobe bought it, and I submitted a request for a license, but I get the impression it might be a wait until that happens - so... .I'm looking for some alternatives in the meantime.

My need is fairly basic, I have a map that is being projected onto a sphere - so it's really the inverse of what most 360 applications are, but I think the workflow would be the same. On my map, I have some videos that need to play in a window on the sphere - if I do it just as a basic layer on the rectangle, the video windows are "bulging" out - my understanding is that Skybox would compensate for the curvature - but I really can't think of a workflow to achieve the same result - short of manually warping of the video layer. I've thought about doing it in Cinema 4D, but given the length of the videos I'm playing and the sheer number of them - production would be a bit time consuming with that flow.

wigginsray · Accepted Answer

Thanks for the tip. I sometimes forget about Optics Compensation (I don't do a lot of video correction, mostly motion graphics).

I ended up using a Bezier warp and eyeballed it a bit (the projection globe isn't perfect in its optics). Skybox was helpful in getting the UI elements correctly positioned on the globe (i'm developing an interactive piece for a touch globe)

Luckily, I received the Skybox plugin link now and all works well. Looking forward to that getting integrated into After Effects.

thnx

raywiggins

Mylenium · Answer

Really depends how your items are scaled and where they are placed. There would be nothing wrong with using the Optics Compensation effect on a simple sphere if the videos are not placed too close towards the poles. Those VR tools really are mostly about that - fitting the edges and seams and creating a projection that is accepted by most VR players, not so much the actual projection matrix. At the moment aside from Skybox there seems to be no Fulldome plug-in, but I would not panic. The Mettle peeps are usually very helpful in those matters. You could also follow them on Facebook and see if one of their followers might be able to help you out.

Mylenium

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