Library

360° Content Editing

This guide will help you capture, edit and share 360° content using equipment available in the VR Lab. Your content can be viewed both on traditional devices and in VR (Virtual Reality) headsets. 360° content has a wide range of teaching and learning applications through immersive storytelling. Some examples include virtual field schools, historical site tours, broadcast journalism, interior design, museum tour and new world exploration.

The primary 360° cameras being used in this guide are the GoPro Fusion & Ricoh Theta. These are both available for checkout from the VR Lab. For more details about each of the cameras review the Beginners Guide° to 360 Cameras guide, the GoPro Fusion Guide or the Ricoh Theta Guide.

Below are some basic functions of the GoPro and the Ricoh Theta V cameras. There are also more detialed guides for the GoPro Fusion and the Ricoh Theta V available. 

For this guide, we will use Adobe’s video editing suite, Premiere Pro. The computer’s in the VR Lab and additional computers in the library have this software. 

Importing 

1. The first step is to create a Premiere Pro project. The default settings are appropriate, leave them as is. 
2. To bring your files into the project, drag them from their imported folder to the bin in Premiere Pro. 
3. Once the files have been imported into the bin drag your first clip to the blank timeline. This will ask if you would like to allow it to change in the sequence settings; select yes. 

Viewing 

1. To view your video in a 360° viewport, toggle the VR Video Display; a 1:1 square in which you can move the view.
2. To widen this viewport and reflect most headsets and the YouTube Viewer.
   1. Open the settings
   2. Open VR settings 
   3. Change the settings to 170°

Editing

1. With the video now imported you can edit the video as you would normally. Note, cutting works as intended, the text will be placed on a sphere and some transitions will not work.
2. In some situations, you might want to change the default VR view, this can be done by setting the default positions with the VR Rotate Sphere effect. If you have large amounts of text the VR Plane to Sphere effect can be used to flatten it. 

Exporting 

1. Select the sequence in the bin, then navigate to File > Export > Media. This will open a dialogue box.
2. Choose appropriate settings for your project, the default for YouTube are listed.
   1. Export Settings
      i) H.264
      ii) Match source - High bitrate
   2. Bitrate Settings 
      i) Target bitrate - 45 Mbps for 4k
      ii) Quality - Good
   3. VR video
      i) This video is VR
      ii) Frame Layout - Monoscopic 

Once you have your final 360° video you have the option to share it through YouTube or locally on headsets.

Local Viewing 

1. Connect your headset to the computer, the headset will appear as a drive. On a Mac, you will need to install Android File Transfer.
2. Put on the headset and ‘Allow access to data’ by selecting OK.
3. Drag your selected 360° to the devices folder VR-Headset>Internal Shared Storage>Movies.
4. Your imported photo and videos will appear in the Gallery tab on the headset.

Youtube Account

1. If you want to share your video and access it on multiple devices, YouTube allows you to upload 360 videos. You will need a Gmail account for this. You can:
   1. Use your pre-existing Gmail account. All Gmail accounts are YouTube accounts.
   2. Create a Gmail account, either by creating a new email address or using a pre-existing one from another provider.
2. Upload your video to YouTube. This will take a while as the video needs to be processed after uploading it. If you wish to keep the video private set it to Unlisted. This will still give you a link to share.
3. After the video is processed, confirm it is VR by ensuring that you can drag the view.

Viewing

1. Open the URL in a VR browser on your headset or phone. This will play the video in a 360 viewer or take you to the YouTube app.
2. Open the video on the YouTube app. On a phone, you can watch as a flat video or place in a Google Cardboard you look around. In a headset, you can look around to change the view.

Both cameras have the ability to shoot photos, while the photos from the Theta can be edited right away, the photos from the fusion need to be stitched together using the Fusion Studio software following the same process as videos. 

Importing

1. Open the file in Photoshop as you would with any photo and apply any edits you would like such as colour balance and exposure. 

Viewing

1. Create a 360° panoramic, telling Photoshop that this is a 360° photo. It will ask you to enter a 3D workspace, click yes.

2. Adjust the FOV to your liking to frame the shot if you want a normal photograph. If you are exporting the full 360° you can skip this step.

3. Drag the photo to move the view. You can export this view as a flat image.

Exporting

Flat Image (the current view)

1. Crop the image to the appropriate size and select the view. 
2. Export by selected ‘Export As...’ 

360° Photo for use with a 360° viewer

1. Export by selecting “Export Panorama…”

Viewing

360° photos can be viewed in various viewers such as:

1. Google Photos (recommended)
2. Google Tour Creator
3. Facebook
4. Google Street View

If you have any questions, would like to check out the equipment/software, or just come and try out more technology visit the VR Lab during open hours.