Cineversity

Hi,
I’ve been doing a lot of VR Videos lately, and ran into a strange issue that I feel needs another set of eyes to look at.
since scale is so important to VR, I decided in this project to work in inches, as it felt like it was an easier way to create the environment I want to be in.  In my current scene I set up a standard figure (which is 72 inches or 6 ft tall) as a base for my scene.  I then built around this guy for proper scale.  My IPD for my VR cam should then be 6.5 cm or roughly 2.56 inches.  I can’t seem to get any useable stereo renders out of this scene unless I put the IPD down to .1 inches.  I thought maybe I converted the scene from cms to inches at some point, and so there is a scaling issue.  No problem right.  I simply added a new figure into my scene, and noticed he didn’t match the original.  So I scaled him down to match to the 72 inch human.  Then I thought I could scale my IPD based on that.  That should be approx. .8 inches.  Again, nothing above .1 or .2 is even viewable in stereo.
My hope is someone could take a look at this scene, because something may jump out at another set of eyes that I’m just not seeing.

On a side note, if you’ve been doing VR, what are your thoughts on 360 stereo vs 360 mono?  I’ve found the 360 mono looks so much better because of having 2x the resolution.  I think the trade off of losing the stereo effect is definitely worth the better resolution.  Anyone else feel this way?
Sincerely,

Mike Goldberg

Hi Mike Goldberg,

I think the figure is just too close to the camera. The VR-Camerig suggests at least 50% more distance. While this distance is not the preferred starting point, at least for my taste. Stereo and VR are often used for those extreme “effects” to the disadvantage of the audience and from my perspective endangering the whole idea and future of it, as people feel un-comfortable. Most people I know avoid 3D movies in theaters, even I think they had enough in the early days and no interest to try again. By setting the eye separation smaller the the whole scene becomes larger, as it translates to one’s own eyes. This effect is normally used to make a scene look like a miniture or to feel like a giant – or just the opposite.
I would take, in real world measurements anything even further than the green safety “egg” in the CV camera set up suggests.

Stereo or Mone, well, for non interactive HMD [head mounted displays] the stereo effect is limited anyway, as no head movement changes the parallax at all. Close to the eyes it is un-comfortable and after around 30 meters the effect vanishes nearly. So, if there is no reason in the main space to deliver depth information, then quality might be the preferred idea. This is a case by case decision and I would think an artist call. As an artist you know what you like to show, and with that the decision is not in general to answer.

All the best