fulldome.org

immersive projection environments

Using Glom

I have just started testing Glom and have a few questions.

Firstly, I am using 3ds Max with a 5 camera rig, ky_trail effects,

to go to glom. This will create output for the Spherical Ball Method

for one projector, warped with targawarp for PC.

On Glom should I select "all sky" or domemaster output

and what does the hemi and BRC buttons.

I am just one week into design and this is all new to me!

Thanks

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Philip Mayer on January 7, 2011 at 10:00pm

Hi Mark,

As I previously mentioned to Amr elsewhere on this site, if you are thinking to go down the five-camera route and using Glom in 3DS Max, I would additionally suggest using another plugin, which helps to automate the process. It is called The Didder and can be found here:

http://didder.dequid.net/

all the best,

Phil.

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Permalink Reply by Brad Thompson on March 17, 2011 at 2:50pm

I just joined here, so my reply will probably be too late but...

You'll most likely want to use "all sky" format. The Domemaster setting is the same as all-sky, except mirrored. The reason for the naming is historical. Sky Skan originally coined the term "dome master" and their original fulldome systems required this mirrored mapping. The term "Dome Master" stuck around and became something of an industry standard. Their mirrored mapping didn't stick around though. Now they use all-sky style mapping too.

"Hemi" stands for Hemisphere, and simply changes the polar sweep to 180 degrees. This is the default. BRC changes the polar sweep to 212.58 degrees for a hypersphere. We added this preset specifically for the volkswagen autostadt dome.

Glom hasn't been updated in many years and most people now use direct fisheye rendering. Glom does still have it's uses though. We had to use it for some super-dense particle rendering in our latest production. I've been pleading for an update with EXR support, but it's not a high priority these days.

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Permalink Reply by Theo. A. Artz on March 29, 2011 at 7:06pm

Hey Brad! (and everyone at Spitz!)

So, without EXR handling internal to Glom, what's the workaround...1) Render out the separate, discreet (ambient, specular, reflection. ..refraction) channels from each of the multiple cameras, then 2) Glom together each channel's rendered output into a new sequence of "dome masters", and then 3) composite these stitched layers together (Nuke, AfterEffects, Shake, Fusion...) ? OUCH! Helluva lot of files and a gnarly bit of clerical work, ta-boot!

And I'm guessing that the channels that hold such data as motion vectors and/or Z-depth would be a bit dodgey when edge-blended via an EXR-enabled Glom, no?

(Just a couple of thoughts.. ..and a way to pop in to say "hello-oooo!"))

Brad Thompson said:

I just joined here, so my reply will probably be too late but...

You'll most likely want to use "all sky" format. The Domemaster setting is the same as all-sky, except mirrored. The reason for the naming is historical. Sky Skan originally coined the term "dome master" and their original fulldome systems required this mirrored mapping. The term "Dome Master" stuck around and became something of an industry standard. Their mirrored mapping didn't stick around though. Now they use all-sky style mapping too.

"Hemi" stands for Hemisphere, and simply changes the polar sweep to 180 degrees. This is the default. BRC changes the polar sweep to 212.58 degrees for a hypersphere. We added this preset specifically for the volkswagen autostadt dome.

Glom hasn't been updated in many years and most people now use direct fisheye rendering. Glom does still have it's uses though. We had to use it for some super-dense particle rendering in our latest production. I've been pleading for an update with EXR support, but it's not a high priority these days.

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Permalink Reply by Brad Thompson on March 30, 2011 at 9:16am

Hi Ted,

Long time no speak! You've got it. For the shot we used it on, we just needed beauty, alpha, and depth passes, so it wasn't that bad. The depth pass was a little wonky from the filtering, and since GLOM only supports 8-bits/pixel, there wasn't much usable range. It worked out in the end. I had to write a custom fusion tool to deal with the strange depth channel, and I wouldn't want to use the technique anything that would be closely examined. The alternative in this case was trying to raytrace 8 million facing particles with a fisheye lens and real 3D motion blur and shallow DOF. I'm sure it would've been beautiful... when it finished rendering 10 years from now. ;-)