Holograms

Highly detailed pre-rendered objects in VR

Hologram Tutorial.mp4

What Is A Hologram?

In APS a hologram is a image or video that is displayed in VR as a stereoscopic rendered texture. Artists can create holograms from nearly any Blender model and render them using Cycles at super high detail to create photo-realistic animated holograms that can be placed in the VR scene for context or atmosphere.

Using holograms is a way to include highly detailed appearing objects in the VR world easily using videos that have been created from models pre-rendered in Cycles or EEVEE.

When creating transparent media using Blender it is important to enable the Transparent checkbox. And to create holograms with depth you should also enable the Stereoscopy checkbox.

And rendered in a video format that supports alpha transparency such as .webm VP9. But must be converted to VP8 in the next step.

Transparent Checkbox - With this enabled Blender will render each image with a transparent background. This is required if you'd like your holograms to appear like a cutout. If you leave this disabled Blender will still render in stereo but with the background still visible like a movies!

A important note is to render the animation videos using a format that supports transparency.

Render > Film
Only certain video formats support transparency eg. .webm VP9

Stereoscopy Checkbox - When enabled you can adjust eye separation and convergence distance. To enable the stereo camera in Blender simply click on the Stereoscopy checkbox under Output Properties.

Properties > Output > Views
This also enables advanced options on cameras.

Stereo Camera Setup - When the Stereoscopy toggle is enable then additional camera options can be found in the camera panel for setup of the stereo camera for achieving a quality result.

Camera > Stereoscopy
convergence plane should be set to intersect the object.
interocular distance can be adjusted to your own eye spacing if you are working with a scene that is true scale, otherwise you might need to adjust this , greater IPD give the appearance of increased depth, high values may cause some distortion.
It's recommended to render as stills first and test various camera locations, IPD and lighting values. And load the images in APS as a simple hologram before starting rendering a animation video!

Top/Bottom Stereoscopic Format

For a 3D video or image to be displayed properly in APS it must be composed of two images stacked vertically, resolution is not important, but when working with videos it is recommended to use a resolution of the form 1920x2160 (same as: 1920x1080x2) which produces a aspect ratio = 0.8888. Higher resolutions are also possible.

HD resolutions are supported (I believe) up to 8K stereo depending on hardware.
When a .webm video with aspect ratio = 0.8888 is loaded in APS the 3D option is automatically enabled.

The image of the Renamon (by skamiroth) I rendered as a stereo hologram image .png when setting up the stereo camera.

You can add the image to the APS Media browser to check it out simply by saving the file to the folder:

%USERPROFILE%\AppData\LocalLow\Animation Prep Studios\LUXOR\VR_Animatic

Click to see Full Animation video

Render Output Settings:

Properties > Output

Rendering .webm Video

Once everything is ready for final rendering you can set Blender to save the animation as a video that supports alpha. For this I am using the .webm format. But ffmpeg only includes the VP9 condec so we must use that. Be sure to click on RGBA!!!!

.webm is a video format that supports alpha transparency.
Be sure to select the VP9 codec.
Be sure to enable RGBA (transparency must be enabled).
When rendering stereo images Blender must render a right and left image so render times may double.
When rendering transparent Blender skips the empty zones so render times may improve.

Render Viewport

Notice the background is transparent, the red/blue coloring is only shown in Blender and will not be included in the rendered video.

Download then open Shutter Encoder and load the rendered video, be sure to set the output format to VP8 and that Enable Alpha Channel is enabled.

⚠️It's been noticed that using HandBrake might leave artifacts and remove the Alpha channel transparency layer for animated WebM token graphics.

Shutter Encoder is a free alternative to HandBreak and can be used to properly encode .webv VP8 videos with alpha channel.

Convert VP9 To VP8

Using Shutter Encoder to convert a .webm VP9 to a VP8 with transparency.

Save To Media Folder

After Shutter Encoder has converted the video to VP8 you can add the video to the game's media folder.

Add the video file to the folder:

%USERPROFILE%\AppData\LocalLow\Animation Prep Studios\LUXOR\VR_Animatic

This will make the video available in the game.

Example .webm VP8 encoded Videos

Here are two HD videos included so you can check out the results quickly! They are simple rendered animations of spinning models. But you can create any animation!

You can add them to the APS Media browser by saving the videos to the folder:

%USERPROFILE%\AppData\LocalLow\Animation Prep Studios\LUXOR\VR_Animatic

furball_stereo0001-0200.webm

Furball Hologram

yellow_flower_spinning_vp8.webm

Flower Hologram

Enable 3D Rendering

Media Panels include a 3D option that enables the Top/Bottom stereoscopic rendering mode.

Must be enabled manually for still image and some videos.

When a .webm video with aspect ratio = 0.8888 is loaded in APS the 3D option is automatically enabled.
Panels can be resized so the hologram appears life-size.
Panels can be located anywhere in a scene simply by grabbing.
You can hide the panel bezel by clicking on the Eye icon.

flower hologram.mp4

Holographic Media

Once the video has been added to the game's media folder you can then launch the game and open the "Media" panel from the game VR menu. You should see the new video in the media files list, seeing a transparent thumbnail indicates that everything worked!!

When a video panel is added it is very small , for avatar holograms you can increase the size of the panel to life-size by using the resize buttons found on the top right of the panel.
It's recommended to stand at about the same location as the original camera used for rendering the stereo images, this is for best appearance, you can move from this "optimal" position but slight distortion will start to become noticeable the fruther you are from the ideal location.

This tutorial is still being worked on!! Check back soon for updates!

Thanks for reading ❤️