The Stitched Angles and the room’s floorplan
In order understand and familiarize with Virtual Reality, simulation is mandatory. Having to think that an immovable camera films all the different angles simultaneously, is something quite uncommon for the average mind that views filming through traditional cinematic lenses. Recreating a room in 3D was the first step to visually grasp how a camera with 16 go pro can be used in a specific environment. After the room’s formation and decoration, the camera was put in the middle and take pictures according to the angle of each pair of go pros. Think of the camera as a bizarre multifunctioning organism full of pair of eyes. 16 go pros make 8 pairs of eyes and they seems as if 8 people are looking around the environment you are in, towards all possible directions as well as up and down in some VR cameras. Thus, the viewer wearing the Oculus Rift headset is witnessing what the cameras recorded for him/her but without restricting the possible head movements. This kind of freedom implies the creation of a well-structured environment and a demanding post production processing for the end product to adequately resemble reality.
The experimentation with the different pictures takes from the 3d room helped us understand how all the partial angles match to each other and therefore can be stitched together since they are all pieces of the same puzzle. The process after this realization was to print the pictures of each angle and “stitch” them (glue them one next to the other) together in order to create the feeling of the 360 environment. This revealed to us how much of a delicate procedure is to position the camera in the right place and then stitch the cameras’ footages avoiding overlapping angles and creating an as much as possible realistic environment for the Virtual Reality users.