simple background/ground

[Tannins]

Hey everyone, I'm wondering if there is a really simple way to make a 360 degree background. I have a 360 degree panoramic picture and I was thinking of projecting it onto a sphere (from inside the sphere). Would this work with reflections on objects inside the sphere? Would anyone have a simple example of how to do this? Also if I want to make a ground plane extend out from the middle of the sphere to the 'horizon' but I did not want it uniform - what would be the best way of doing it? Any help is appreciated.

[dayvbrown]

Hey everyone, I'm wondering if there is a really simple way to make a 360 degree background. I have a 360 degree panoramic picture and I was thinking of projecting it onto a sphere (from inside the sphere). Would this work with reflections on objects inside the sphere? Would anyone have a simple example of how to do this? Also if I want to make a ground plane extend out from the middle of the sphere to the 'horizon' but I did not want it uniform - what would be the best way of doing it? Any help is appreciated.

Hey hey,

If i understand you correctly the 360 image on the sphere for reflections will work and is easy to set up. This quick setup is a good starting point...

At scene level -

Create a sphere

Jump into object and change the type on the sphere sop from "primitive" to "polygon Mesh"

append a Uv Project sop

Change the "Group Type" to Vertices and the "Projection" to Polar (spherical)

At this point you may want to go the "Initialize" tab and hit the initialize button. Houdini will take a guess at the best size\rot\transform for the projection gizmo. You can adjust it manually in the Transformation tab.

Now there are a couple of options. Very very easiest is to append a UV Quickshade sop. This will have a default numbered grid texture that you can see but no shading, ie self illuminated (but not giving off light). You can point the "Texture Map" to your image. (At this point as well go back to the uvProject and change between Vertices and Points, you'll soon see why you did that)

If you want it to be in reflections but not show up in the render go back up to scene level and select your sphere geo node and under the "Render" tab turn on "Phantom"

Hope it helps,

Dave.