Hi guys
if you have ever asked yourself how to produce 180° renderings images in azimuthal equidistant fisheye / domemaster / circular fisheye projection for the use in a planetarium this is the way to go:
-
Render your scene with the CoronaCamMod in spherical override mode
Render “region selected” to save time. You’re only needing the middle of the render anyway.
(see attachment 1) -
On to PTGUI (you don’t need the pro version)
- import your renderings
- see attachment 2 for lens settings (should be this way on default)
- panorama settings are: circular fisheye with 180° / 180° (attachment 3)
- render your images in your desired format/resolution (attachment 4)
See attachments “corona_1k” and “mRay_1k” for comparison - it fits! mRay_1k was rendered using the domemaster3D plugin for 3dsMax / Maya which is widely used by dome producers.
- now there’s an easy command in FFMPEG to render the video if you need to
$ ffmpeg -r 24 -i input%03d.jpg output.mp4
-r sets the framerate
input%03d.jpg specifies the name-format of the input pictures. so in this case, it’s 3 digits ( input000.jpg, input001.jpg, …)
If you happen to have an HTC Vive (or another HMD) like me you then can model a virtual planetarium for your productions to test in VR (tell me if you’re interested in a tutorial how to manage this 
)
I hope this helps someone!
