VR 360 screenshots?

Ooh, I might make one of an underwater reef. Then VR users could examine it free of sharks... or breathing.

Success! My first test set in the interior of Dragonsreach in Skyrim turned out well. I feared my laptop might explode when the stitcher software reported its 200th iteration, but it was a quicker and simpler process than I expected.

I started with that scene for a few reasons. One, Skyrim has an option for 1st-person. Two, it's single-player with a save-anywhere system (in case of any surprise events). And three, an interior shot doesn't have as many complicating dynamics as exteriors, like changing weather, to make one panoramic still too different from another.

Tomorrow, I will start adding complications. I have stills for an exterior and starry sky in Skyrim. Then I have some sets from For Honor, which involved an ever fidgeting character in inescapable 3rd-person. If those work, I'll move onto Hitman and finally Sea of Thieves (multiplayer, dynamics, moving waves, etc).

This 360 screenshot business could be pretty cool. I found a beautiful 360 shot of a forest in World of Warcraft. It was magical.

Well, 3 of my first 10 attempts at making 360 screenshots for VR turned out well. There's definitely a learning curve. I haven't tried Sea of Thieves yet (scared to), but here are 2 from Skyrim and 1 from Assassin's Creed: Origins.

Dragonsreach:

Skyrim SE - Dragonsreach interior at night

near Whiterun (with Vivid Weathers mod)

Skyrim SE - bridge near Whiterun

Library of Alexandria

Assassins Creed: Origins - Library of Alexandria

Well, after trying to produce 360 images of Sea of Thieves, I have yet to succeed after a dozen attempts. I've started manually stitching the stills, rather than rely totally on the Hugin software. But I can't even successfully reproduce a small scene, like inside a tavern or an Order of Souls tent.

It might help if I knew the default viewing radius in the game. It seems to be greater than 90 degrees.

Manual stitching helped, but I still haven't gotten it quite right.The default field-of-view in Sea of Thieves is 78 on console, apparently. So, assuming that translates directly to 78-degrees lens orientation, maybe that setting will help.

It feels like progress. Maybe I will have a 3D image of SoT to share soon.

Done at last, though not perfect. You can now visit the Ferry of the Damned in VR. https://kuula.co/post/7P4db

I probably won't try any more 360 images in Sea of Thieves for a while. Between the soft-edged art style, the dynamic lighting, and other dynamic elements, SoT is particularly resistant to making these. I tried over a dozen other scenes and failed. Anyway, hope y'all enjoy the Ferry in 3D!

I lied. Here are more Sea of Thieves scenes in VR (albeit with errors). More to come, at some point.

Devil's Ridge Cavern (SDR)

Sea of Thieves - Devil's Ridge Cavern

Devil's Ridge Cavern (HDR)
https://kuula.co/post/7P5Sc

Daggertooth Outpost gear shop

Sea of Thieves ‎- Gear Shop (with errors)

Daggertooth Outpost clothing shop

Sea of Thieves ‎- Clothing Shop (with errors)

Generally, Sea of Thieves has too many dynamic elements and interruptions to make VR images. I can only do it in interiors with minimal dynamics. Skeletons interrupted me twice in the cave, so I was lucky it turned out as well as it did.

If Rare ever gave me access to an offline version of the game that let me pause the action (studio visit?), I would make tons of these and include exterior scenes! Not that I have a passport at the moment.

Kuula's app is a work in progress. So, for the time being, I can only test VR scenes after publishing them. After testing, I removed the HDR version of the cave because it was just dark and torchlight. The SDR version is okay, but with some errors that were not evident in 2D preview.

I will try to increase the number of stills in the future to avoid errors. But I think too much overlap can cause problems for the stitcher software. I'm using Microsoft's Image Composite Editor (ICE) instead of Hugin now.