Virtual Reality Streaming Tools and Workflow, Part 2: Production Workflow
In Part 2 of this 3-part series on VR streaming, I detail the workflow for producing VR video in Vahana VR, which is the software in charge of stitching together the video from the 6-camera GoPro rig I used to shoot the video.
his is the second of three articles on VR production. In the first article, I described the project, and the camera and other gear used. In this article, I detail the workflow for producing VR video in Vahana VR, which is the software in charge of stitching together the video from the 6-camera GoPro rig I used to shoot the video.
When you first open Vahana, you are prompted to either choose an existing configuration, or start new. If you start new, the interface looks pretty much like that shown in Figure 1 (below), except there are no inputs in the center.
Figure 1. The Vahana VR interface. Click the image to see it at full size.
Click Edit input on the bottom of the right-hand icon column to open the interface shown in Figure 2 (below). Here you choose the inputs on the Magewell cards that corresponds with your live GoPro cameras. There are eight slots, but only six cameras, and it may take some trial and error to figure out which slots are live.
Figure 2. Choosing the appropriate inputs slots on the Magewell HDMI input card.
Click the Setup icon on the lower left of Figure 2 to open the Configure input parameters dialog shown in Figure 3 (below). The top two settings are the default settings that you should leave alone. Though in most cases you won't capture your final audio with your VR camera rig, you definitely want to capture reference audio so you can easily sync it to your final audio during editing. I captured audio from one of the HDMI cameras as shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3. Choosing my source for reference audio.
Close the Input configuration screen, and you return to the screen shown in Figure 1. The next step is to crop out the letterboxing in the input camera feeds so they piece together into a cohesive whole. Click Inputs info on the right side of Figure 1 to access the controls shown in Figure 4 (below). The cropping will vary from camera rig to camera rig; with the GoPro-based system, I had to crop 240 pixels from the left and right. I did this by entering 240 in the left and 1680 on the right.
Figure 4. Cropping the letterboxing from the video.
On the bottom left is a checkbox that you can select to apply the crop to all other inputs. Select this and press Save on the bottom right, to move on to the next step.
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