Panoramic scenes

[DCLeadboot]

Finally getting back to my Cluedo project, I am near to finishing the Hall scene. The only thing I'm lacking is a grandfather clock that I haven't built yet.

 

The 3D scene itself will be used properly for some short animations, but for my purposes the interactive part will be done in Macromedia Director using QTVR.

(Off-topic: for those who don't know what that is, QTVR is Quick Time Virtual Reality. A panoramic wrap-around image is used as the background and by sliding the image left and right it looks as though you are in a virtual scene. Hotspots will be used to represent clues and other things.)

 

What I need to know is how to create panoramic scenes using A:M?

Do I need snapshots that I stick together? Or is there some easy way of doing it?

(I will attach snapshots of the room later)

[oakchas]

a program called autostitch would put together your snaps. In order to do a panoramic environment with no geometry (a background) I suppose you would just make a ring around the area you are centered in and paste the panorama decal as is on the inside of the ring.

 

Look in Radiosity forum for info on HDR lighting, that may help you as well.

 

Autostich is free (non commercial use) do a google on it, you should find it (it comes up as the first "hit" for me).

 

all of this depends on how elaborate/accurate you want to be.

[DCLeadboot]

Well, that Autostitch program certainly saved a lot of headaches!

I experimented first of all and, satisfied with the results, I followed these steps:

 

1. I rendered a 33-frame clip of the scene with a fixed camera doing 360 (the first and last frames finished up the same).

2. I imported the movie into Adobe After Effects and exported the frames as JPEGs.

3. I left the donkey-work to Autostitch.

4. I opened the resulting image in Adobe Photo Elements to tidy up the top and bottom edges.

 

The result can be seen below. This is the Hall.

In practice, the upturned table in front of the alcove will be a separate entity, because in the game it will be subject to change depending on the clue structure (solutions).

A:M users may recognise the table, the hatstand, the two suits of armour and the axe as archive models. I had to construct the rest of the room myself.

That's 1 down 8 to go.