Blender QA with Ron Proctor

Ron Proctor is a respected planetarian, and Blender enthusiast, releasing Blender-produced free planetarium shows like Sizing up Space, Expanded View, etc. I asked him some questions over email, and he graciously replied promptly.

Hello Ron,

I'm just starting out with Blender for show production, and tried out your ""Starball"" and fisheye rig at http://webersci.org/blendheads/?p=13

Just wondering - in Blender 2.4, there is an option in Camera settings for Panorama. Is this there somewhere in 2.5 also? Can this be used instead of your fisheye rig?

Thanks for your time.

The panorama setting was moved to the camera properties.

Unfortunately, it does not produce correct fisheye images. A native fisheye camera would be great.

Presently, the only ways to get fisheye out of Blender are:

- Fisheye Camera Rig (Reflective Hemisphere)

- 5 (or 6) camera frustum + external stitcher (such as Paul Bourke's cube2dome).

- Third party renderer (I have no experience with these).

You are welcome to use our fisheye camera rig under the terms of the provided license.

Good luck in your work.

Thanks for the quick reply, Ron.

Are the 3D models of objects like Chandra / Hubble / Voyager spacecraft etc available somewhere? I suppose we could roll our own Planets using spheres and textures.....

You might start at the NASA 3D Repository. Celestia Motherlode also has some resources, but make sure the source data are ok for use.

Can I ask a few more questions please?

I've tried to put background images to the rendered scenes using the Blender World -> Texture , choosing Global Co-ordinates for the World Texture.
(details and pictures are at https://hnsws.blogspot.com/2011/10/blurry-background-for-video-on-fulldome.html )
Do you have any other preferred way to add background images to a scene rendered with your fisheye camera rig?

Also - the Blender Game Engine seems to have a Dome mode, with a Fisheye dome camera,
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Source/GameEngine/2.49/Fisheye_Dome_Camera

Since I'm using exactly the same technique from Paul Bourke
( http://hnsws.blogspot.com/search?q=mirrordome )
was wondering if there is some way in which I can get these warped dome images directly rendered to files from the Game Engine and not just interactively displayed using the game engine?

Thanks in advance.

No problem.

Q: I've tried to put background images to the rendered scenes using the Blender World -> Texture , choosing Global Co-ordinates for the World Texture.

A. This should work, but I don't use it.

Q: Do you have any other preferred way to add background images to a scene rendered with your fisheye camera rig?

A. I prefer to use a big UV sphere that surrounds the scene. It gives more intuitive control, especially when animating things like daily motion.

Q: Also - the Blender Game Engine seems to have a Dome mode, with a Fisheye dome camera,

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Source/GameEngine/2.49/Fisheye_Dome_Camera

A. Yes. It's pretty cool. Unfortunately, I don't think it's supported in Blender v2.5x yet.

Q: Since I'm using exactly the same technique from Paul Bourke

( http://hnsws.blogspot.com/search?q=mirrordome )

was wondering if there is some way in which I can get these warped dome images directly rendered to files from the Game Engineand not just interactively displayed using the game engine?

A. This has been done, but I don't know if it will work with the fisheye camera. See item #6 on this page: http://www.blendernation.com/2006/12/03/using-blenders-game-engine-for-more-than-just-games/

I hope that helps. Have a good day and happy Blending!

Thanks Ron. I'll take some time to understand the Blender Game Engine file which you pointed out, but basically  I gather that it is possible to take screenshots from the Game Engine with Python.

I prefer to use a big UV sphere

Your "starball"! I should have thought of that. Somehow, I thought I should use the starball only when there are no other objects, thinking that other objects would collide with it... Now I've tried it, found that it is large enough to not interfere with other objects, and the result is great.

I'm also looking to map a hi-def 2d movie, something like the Known Universe movie, onto the dome. To map it to a large area of the dome, I've tried texturing it on a plane and keeping it very close to the fisheye camera, slightly angled since we have unidirectional seating, like below. But is quite distorted. Maybe acceptable for some parts of the video. Any comments, suggestions? Did you use something like this for your Expanded View show, or did you have some other technique?

It depends on the situation, but for regular "flat screen" video, I usually go with something like this (45º above the front horizon, directly facing the camera):

In Expanded View, AmyJo subdivided image planes in edit mode and used proportional editing to achieve curved shapes.