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Suggestion for HDRI capture routine
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| DonDeG | Date: Wednesday, 02.10.2013, 23:31 | Message # 1 |
 Observer
Group: Newbies
United States
Messages: 2
Status: Offline
| Hi
First, wow!! Space Engine is a GREAT PROGRAM! I am totally addicted to it! Thank you so much for writing it and making it available for free! Aside from the incredible visuals, I am learning a lot about astronomy! THANK YOU SO MUCH!
To start, I searched the forums looking if anyone has requested this previously and couldn't find anything. So, I apologize in advance if my request is redundant.
I find myself making 360 degree HDRI panoramas to import into 3D rendering programs such as 3DS max for scene backgrounds.
I was wondering if you would consider including a routine to automate the task of taking screen captures in 360 circles at different exposure settings so that these can then be taken into something like Photoshop to construct a 3D HDRI panorama for import to rendering programs.
Right now, here is what I am doing:
1. Finding a nice place for the 3D panorama
2. Using the 'U' key to rotate roughly every 30 degrees
3. At each degree, taking a series of 5 screen captures, each at a different exposure setting.
4. This gets me about 60 images I stitch together into an *.hdr file.
The main problem is that I can't control how much I rotate the scene.
Anyway, this would be an INCREDIBLE feature to add and would make the program invaluable as a 3D rendering resource. It would be ideal if you could specify (1) a rotation angle (e.g. take screen capture every 30 degrees), (2) the field of view (FOV) setting, and (3) the exposures at which to capture (e.g. at EV = 0.15, 0.5, 1, 3, 5, or whatever).
Below I have attached a couple examples. The first is a panorama I made. This is just a JPG, but the original is an HDRI 32 bit file. The 2nd image is a frame of a rendered animation in which I used the HDRI file as a 3D panoramic background for the rendered scene.
Ok, that is my request! I would be curious if anyone else is doing this in Space Engine, and how you are doing it. I would love to hear from the Developer if he thinks it is feasible to add a command in to do this function. Seems like it shouldn't be a major coding job.
Again, THANKS SO MUCH for such a GREAT AND AWESOME PROGRAM!!
Best wishes,
Don
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| HarbingerDawn | Date: Thursday, 03.10.2013, 09:09 | Message # 2 |
 Cosmic Curator
Group: Administrators
United States
Messages: 8717
Status: Offline
| Could you make use of the skybox exporter? It creates a cube map projection skybox of the entire scene automatically. In the current version, unfortunately, it only works with each face at a resolution of 1024x1024, but at least it would give you a consistent result each time.
All forum users, please read this!
My SE mods and addons
Phenom II X6 1090T 3.2 GHz, 16 GB DDR3 RAM, GTX 970 3584 MB VRAM
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| SpaceEngineer | Date: Thursday, 03.10.2013, 10:33 | Message # 3 |
 Author of Space Engine
Group: Administrators
Russian Federation
Messages: 4800
Status: Offline
| Yes, you must try the skybox export (it is in the Editor menu).
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| DonDeG | Date: Thursday, 03.10.2013, 12:13 | Message # 4 |
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Observer
Group: Newbies
United States
Messages: 2
Status: Offline
| Thank you both for replying to my query. I was not aware of this feature. I will look into the skybox exporter and let you know the results.
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