If you haven’t already- click and drag in the movie below to scroll around the video. Immersive 360 panoramic photos are nothing new now that we are all familiar with Google Street-View, or if you’re into any first person video games this is no shocker. But to see that same first person control in immersive video is a bit surreal. I came across the video below by Steye & The Ottowanians via Dept of Non/Architecture and was blown away with the creative use this technology has. The ability for live action video to be controllable from a first person camera, rotatable in 360 degrees, opens amazing possibilities.

Future DVD’s will allow you to flip the camera around to check out the behind the screen action, or change the view of your favorite chase scene. But until then I give the guys at Steye & The Ottowanians props for their creative use of an emerging technology. You can download their free CD (suggested donation) here as well.

Continue reading to read the BEHIND THE SCENES details of camera and software that helps to make this possible and more videos like this. (Read More)

VIDEO REQUIRES ADOBE FLASH 10: GET PLUGIN HERE.

At the moment it seems the technology of both input and output is fairly new to the scene. Expensive equipment, plug-ins and a need for good video encoders has hindered this type of viewpoint, but that seems to be changing rapidly. Just think: it was only a few years ago that we didn’t know what Street-View was.

As for the making of the music video by Steye & The Ottowanians, I will refer you to this behind-the-scenes on Barcinski-JeanJean’s blog. The article is highly technical, but it does explain some of the encoding issues.

Photo via Red Giant

On the software side of this process, it appears that the video is stitched together into a 3D environment with Adobe After Effects and a plug-in called Trapcode Horizon by Red Giant. This would also allow you to place the text and other things into the stage as well.

Now the tough part seems to be the camera. I guess one could link together 6 or more cameras or the spherecam experiment option. Or we can wait for a consumer version of the Dodeca 2360 camera from Immersive Media. Used in the video below to give you clickable access to the video from inside the barrel of wave as only a surf boarder could see. Check out this article by Physorg.org to get the technical data about the camera.

Photo via Physorg.org

YellowBird Camera:
Another company I came across, in my research, called YellowBird. They have developed an all-in on workflow from the recording equipment, software studio, media player, even down to the hosting. At the moment it doesn’t appear they are selling anything on a consumer level. You can check out there work in the video below.

Here is an excerpt from Yellowbird:

A variant of the yellowBird camera is being utilized within the Google Streetview technology. The prominent difference is that the yellowBird camera records video instead of photographs. The camera uses six cleverly divided lenses in order to capture every possible viewing direction. The data stream generated by the camera is impressive. Through a double glass-fiber connection, a stream of 1200 Mbit per second is captured and saved in an uncompressed format. Next to the camera, a surround sound microphone system enables to record audio at 96 khz as well.

Photo via cgexplorer.com

If you know more about the how-to or DIY solutions, please let us know.

...  In addition to Zeitgeist Studios, Tyler maintains his own freelance company, Analog Design Studios, which has provided architecture and design services since 2006. As a recent graduate of the Master of Architectural Design at The Bartlett in London in 2009, Tyler is heavily influenced by his recent graduate work dealing with our current addiction to media, technology, and its resulting disconnect in our current world. read more Read more from this author