3D & 360 VR questions

3d87c4 wrote on 5/31/2017, 9:50 PM

I'm editing some Vuze 3D VR video in Vegas 14 & have some questions. It's a mix, so I'll ask first and 'splain second.

Is there any way to use pan/crop to apply different masks to the left and right portions of a 3D video? Vegas seems to want to apply the same mask to both.

Is there any way to render a 3840x3840 video? I want to create a Top/Bottom Full resolution intermediate, but Vegas is outputting 3840x1920 Top/Bottom half, regardless of my inputs.

OK...the long story...

I recently received a Vuze 3D 360 view camera, but cannot use their stitching software because they don't support Windows 7 & I don't want to switch to W10. I bought Autopano Video Pro & Giga, instead, and am working my way up the learning curve. I am rendering 3D Top/Bottom full videos from AVP, using their Cineform codec. I've created a few videos now, experimenting with my workflow.

This weeks experiment is to use a combination of the Photoshop and masking in Vegas, to hide my tripod arm. I use Vegas' snapshot feature to create a jpeg. Use Photoshop's clone stamp tool to cover up the tripod arm. Load the resulting image onto a timeline below the video clip, and create mask openings in the video so the still image is seen instead of the tripod arm.

This works fine, but in my first experiment the masks showed up when I tried to cross-fade the masked clip with another.

My thought was to go ahead and create the masked clips, render them to intermediate files, and use those for my final edit (so I could get clean cross fades). In my first attempt I loaded the top/bottom full files into a non-3D project, did the masking, and attempted to render only to discover I cannot render a 3840x3840 file. Is there a workaround for this?

I then set the project to 3D, did the masking and attempted to render Top/Bottom Full...but am getting 3840x1920 top/bottom half files. Oh, and this is where I noticed I cannot create different masks for the left and right images. Pan/crop won't even display both images, so the left (right? I forget) masking was done "blind".

I'm rendering the clips now & can live with them, but...

I'm going to double check the cross fade issue when I've got the intermediates rendered.

Comments

3d87c4 wrote on 5/31/2017, 10:38 PM

Cross fades still reveal the masks.

The files I was rendering turned out to be 3840x1920 files with an aspect ratio of 2 (from mediainfo) which translates to a 1920x1920 top/bottom full image in a 3840x1920 clip...i.e. big 960-wide black regions on either side of the image.

Going to punt and render as 3840x1920 top/bottom half & move on.

TheHappyFriar wrote on 6/1/2017, 5:54 AM

I have never edited 3d/vr but perhaps when rendering do not select 3d as an export. Then change the render properties to the era you want. Worth a try.

3d87c4 wrote on 6/1/2017, 12:52 PM

That was, in effect, what I tried first...but the raw file is 3840x3840 and I don't know of a render option that will support that.

The original, un-stitched, files are 1088x1600 pixels so I may just try my masking trick with those files at the same time I'm correcting their 3D alignment in Vegas.

Alternatively, when I render the stitched results from AVP, I could render the left and right clips into separate 3840x1920 files, do my masking trick to each file, render a 3840x1920 intermediate, and combine the left and right clips in the final edit.

3d87c4 wrote on 6/1/2017, 12:57 PM

Here's my first attempt. The original clip plays first, with the tripod arm visible, followed by the modified clip with the tripod hidden.

TheHappyFriar wrote on 6/1/2017, 1:12 PM

You should be able to customize the output resolution once you select a preset. Are your project properties 3840x3840? My oculus rift says it wants 3840x1920 for playback. Does YouTube want higher?

3d87c4 wrote on 6/1/2017, 2:09 PM

3840x1920 is about the limit for the Vuze...the native resolution of the camera is just a bit lower than this, actually.

The Top/bottom full 3D file is 3840x3840. Vegas can edit this (in a non-3D project), but I couldn't find a way to render a 3840x3840 file. The AVC and Sony MP4 presets won't output a 3840 height (neither will AVP's MP4 options, so I used Cineform AVI).

In Vegas, my 3D project settings are 3840x1920 Top/Bottom Full & I render 3840x1920 Top/Bottom half for YouTube.

steve-h5836 wrote on 6/4/2017, 6:51 PM

Great work 3d97c4!

So your using Cineform AVI as your output codec?

How do you go with the surround audio in Vegas?

Thanks again

3d87c4 wrote on 6/4/2017, 8:23 PM

AVI from AVP, yes. I think MOV would work too, but have had issues with Quicktime video in Vegas so, not really knowing any better, am avoiding MOV...

I'm not making use of the 4-microphone audio from the Vuze, yet. My FFMPEG scripts, and stereo alignment in Vegas preserve both (stereo) audio tracks, but AVP doesn't. I don't trim any clips 'til the final edit in Vegas, so it would be easy to recover the original audio. I haven't done my homework vis-a-vis surround audio, or better yet, ambisonic audio. I welcome any clues on this topic.

3d87c4 wrote on 6/4/2017, 8:29 PM

Oh...here's another "Foley" experiment... I combined two frame grabs at different times and combined them so I didn't show in the resulting jpeg. I then put the image below the video and used a negative mask in the pan/crop tool to delete myself completely.

The original clip runs first, followed by the modified version. If you watch carefully you'll see my mask was too small and my belly makes a brief appearance.