All media shown here is with zero post-processing outside of Notch.

After initially designing the content in a traditional camera / 2D render workflow, we wanted to then convert it into a 360° VR video. Notch easily renders out stitched 360° video with a single selection change in the project file parameters. This allows for a fluid and integrated workflow between modern delivery mediums.

VR / 360° presentation via web is still a relatively new field. There are many challenges that VR / 360° content designers face in the current workflow.

Appropriate content design software for VR / 360° is still sparse due to the difficulty of accurate previewing for the designer. The use of a VR headset in design software environments would involve porting software GUI and interfaces into VR headsets with limited display resolutions.

Another concern is image quality. The effective viewer resolution is limited to a section of the equi-rectangular format. In turn, delivery resolutions are increased to meet the same viewer resolution. This contributes to an increase in rendering time and file sizes.  For example, our export into a lossless format came out to ~200GB for a 3+ minute video @ 8192 x 4096, 60FPS*. Web upload typically requires compression into H.264, which is limited by its current standard of 4K x 2K at a maximum (see section below).

On the client end, viewing 360° videos beyond HD resolutions requires a significant amount of internet bandwidth and computer processing power for smooth and fluid display. This causes issues in particular for mobile devices, as they are typically limited in both processing power and display resolution.

Despite the many challenges facing VR / 360° content production today, we believe that it will soon evolve into a standard delivery medium as internet bandwidth & computing power improve together.

Vimeo currently supports 4096 x 2048, 60FPS for 360° VR content.

YouTube currently supports 8192 x 4096*, 60FPS for 360° VR content.**