360 panorama in After effects?

[Karim Zouak]

I would prepare a photoshop file or a precomp that is very wide, and then use the Distort>Offset filter to track it around.

>Either way how many pictures minimum would we need? I guess, using the CC cylinder effect could be a way…any ideas?
It depends on if you’re trying to optically recreate the human eye or going for a look. If you want it to look real, I’d guess about 10 shots or so, but you’d have to look through a standard lens on your camera and line up a common object on the edge of each frame…

best of luck,
-k

Karim Zouak

[Kevin Brock]

When you take the pictures, it’s going to be critical that you rotate around the nodal point of your camera. If you don’t, then you’re going to end up with parallax issues where the pictures will not mate up side-by-side when you go to merge them into one unit.

That’s why folks that do VR movies use special tripod heads. For instance, Kaidan makes & sells some of these specialty tripod heads. The other key thing these heads do is ensur that your camera is completely level as you rotate.

[Joeythedog]

Photoshop cs has the ability to create panoramas from a series of overlaping photos.
It will make certain compensations to adjust for not the most perfect photo techniques during the taking of the images. I don’t know much more than this since I have not worked with panorama in Pshop. It is worth looking into before you start taking photos, though.

[Sami Syrjä]

the stitching function in Photoshop seems quite limited in what it will manage, at least with less than perfectly lined up images. I tried a demo of a program called Stitcher, and it seemed to handle things much, much better. But then, it’s dedicated for exactly this purpose.

Sami

[Kevin Brock]

You’re right…photoshop is very limited in this respect. I use stitcher myself for panoramic image stitching. But like I said before you have to capture it in the lens. If you’re not rotating around the nodal point (or very very close to it) then there’s only so much, that even stitcher can accomplish. but it is a dedicated app solely for this purpose and is far superior to photoshop’s “photomerge” ability.