Well it’s all a bit confusing at first, but it works like this.
The Theta should be broadcasting a WIFI hotspot that you can see and connect to on your phone or mac. If you can’t connect to this hotspot then you need to figure that out first - it doesn’t care what OS you use. The hotspot functionality is built into the device, so the plugin doesn’t have anything to do with the hotspot working or not working.
You might try just turning on the theta and making sure the wifi logo is on. Maybe you need to hit your wifi button to toggle it. Once you can connect to the hotspot and you’ve held the mode button to load the plugin, then you can open the webpage.
Once the plugin has completed capturing images and processing you should see .exr files. These open fine for me in Photoshop CC.
Do you need the Theta to have developer mode enabled for this to work? I have not been approved by Theta yet do cannot set my Theta to developer mode.
I am able to connect to the Theta’s wifi but am unable to see any web interface. I use the IP address 192.168.1.1:8888 but it dose not load in Safari or Chrome.
I have also tried connecting it via Vysor but that also will not connect.
I have the plugin on the Theta and can trigger it manually by pressing the shutter button, it takes the 30 images, on image capture I can see them but they do not have and file extensions like .jpeg or .exr. I can also see them with the Theta file transfer for Mac app but there is no .exr file only jpegs.
I have tried multiple things multiple times yet keep hitting brick walls, on this thread the webinterface is mentioned many times but there is no instructions on how to access it apart from the use of the IP address 192.168.1.1:8888 which dose not seem to do anything. I feel completely lost!
I am a VFX Supervisor, on a shoot now and would love this plug in to work but it seems I will have to resort to doing bracketed exposures manually or with an app for now but I would love to get this to work as the theory of it is brilliant and would save me and the crew a lot of time and I think the results for the .exr would be much better than my manual bracketed exposures.
Hi, just got the Z1 and am testing this out. I have a couple questions and maybe some requests.
My main questions is this taking RAW or JPG to combine to make the EXR?
My thoughts on features are:
-If you are taking RAW it would be nice to have them downloadable rather than the JPGS.
-I’d like to be able to set the white point rather than have it set it itself. Often we want to set it to match what the DP is using for the shots or we may want to lock it to daylight or tungsten.
-I’d also like to set a center exposure offset. For example, since we are shooting for HDR, we would like to favor detail in the brights by making the center 2 stops under.
-Is there some way to store your setting for the capture? At the moment it’s a bit of a pain as it is to have to change the mode and connect to Wifi every time (which I realize is probably hard to get around). Adding to that the need to do your chosen bracket every time really slows things down. Can it write it to the Z1 Plugin in any way? That way you could take the HDRI without connecting to a laptop or phone to make those setting changes each time.
-What is the color space of the resulting EXR? Looks like sRGB. Is this because of it being made from JPGs? It should probably be linear.
thanx for the quick reply, sorry for my late. Good points. Looked through the logs (which are looooong) did find some error. Most interesting one is that it says that it is not able to save temp.dng file in in /DCIM/0/. Now I will look into getting that file and renaming it and moving it around.
no developer mode is not needed.
step 1:
turn on camera, hold the mode button on the side for 2 sec, now it will ask on the display if you want to start the authydra plugin, (assuming you have download and installed it on the device) press the shutter (the big one in the middle to make pictures ) to start the app.
step 2:
connect to the wifi of the z1, it should be something like THETAYN#########.OSC where the ###### is the serial of your z1. (and also the password of the z1’s wifi)
Once connected the wifi symbol on the camera should stop blinking.
step 3:
now naviagate to the website 192.168.1.1:8888 and you should be in the webinterface, it should look a bit like this:
Keep in mind that the current version on the store is still very buggy with the z1. I’m working on fixing this but the bigger resoluation of the pictures arew eating all the memory so a lot more of memory management is neede to keep it running. Best for now to always set the denoise to 1 pictures.
some answers below:
-If you are taking RAW it would be nice to have them downloadable rather than the JPGS. yes ofcourse. that is absolutly the plan. Right now I’m still struggeling to get the raw fiels working. Not much stuff on it out there.
-I’d like to be able to set the white point rather than have it set it itself. Often we want to set it to match what the DP is using for the shots or we may want to lock it to daylight or tungsten. somehow setting the whitepoint from the API is not working. I played around quite a bit with it but in the end didn’t get it to work. The whitepoint set by default is okey. Once all the other stuff is fixed I will look into it again.
-I’d also like to set a center exposure offset. For example, since we are shooting for HDR, we would like to favor detail in the brights by making the center 2 stops under. hmm interesting, if you shoot your HDR in the right way this shouldn’t be necessary. It should contain the whole dynamice range of the scene. On the app you can set quite a few steps and also you can set the number of stop jumps between brackets. My experience is that on the theta you can easily cover the whole dynamic range. Often you have 2 pics that are fully white. black is a bit harder as the with the lowest iso, shortest shutter it often still contains very bright parts (like the sun).
Do you use this feature often on set? How many exposure do you usually take on your old setup?
-Is there some way to store your setting for the capture? At the moment it’s a bit of a pain as it is to have to change the mode and connect to Wifi every time (which I realize is probably hard to get around). Adding to that the need to do your chosen bracket every time really slows things down. Can it write it to the Z1 Plugin in any way? That way you could take the HDRI without connecting to a laptop or phone to make those setting changes each time. yes good point error454 and I where discussing this. I’ve added a feature to save your default settings. It will be in the next update.
-What is the color space of the resulting EXR? Looks like sRGB. Is this because of it being made from JPGs? It should probably be linear. it is sRGB. haven’t really looked into it. It is just the way it comes out of the opencv functions. guess is has to do with what you put into it (which is sRGB in this case). I’ll added it to the list!
Thanx for the feedback!! keep it coming. Hope it is usefull!
My issues seems to be that I can’t connect to the website 192.168.1.1:8888
I get the message ‘Safari cannot open the page because it cannot connect to the server’ . I have tried it with Chrome & Firefox, the Theta is switched on has WiFi, your app is installed, I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling, I am able to fire the Theta off manually using Authydra but the files I see in Image Cature on my Mac are just a lot of jpegs no exr.
I think it would work if I could see the website interface but just not having any luck connecting to it even though the phone or computer is connected to the Theta.
I am trying to do this on a Mac and iphone, is it that it is only supported on Android?
This plugin sounds amazing! Thank you for all the work you have done.
I noticed in your last post you are in the process of getting the dngs working with Authydra for the Theta Z1. I am about to purchase a Z1 myself for VFX on set work at the end of the month and so was wondering when you might be posting a new version to the plug-in store?
My usage will be for speed, turning off the HDR merge, with offline processing later. I would be very interested in an update for saving unprocessed dng.
I am also very interested in the save default settings update.
I received my Z1 and have run a few tests. I understand you are working on Z1 bugs, DNG etc, thought it might help if I shared some of my findings (for you and for users).
I am using my Theta Z1, firmware version 1.20.1, file format: JPG (DNG turned off as I know you’re working on this), sleep timer: 10mins, tested using interface on iPhone X and MacBook Pro (both worked for capturing and download).
Downloaded and installed the plug-in, but the interface doesn’t show the “Merge HDR” check box to turn off processing. Attached is a screen shot of what I’m seeing. Do you know why my interface is not showing it? I’d love that option.
Tested with these settings: Brackets: 5, 7 and 9, Denoise: 1, stops jumps: 2.0.
With 5 brackets it all worked great, 7 brackets sometimes it worked, sometimes it crashed/interface lost connection, 9 brackets always crashed/interface lost connection. From above it sounds like this is a file size/resolution issue.
*To fix after operation crash/connection lost, just restart the Theta Z, and redo (with lower number of brackets)
A quick user tip as I noticed above people having issues with connecting via wifi. When plugged in to USB, the wifi signal is off. Make sure the Theta is not plugged in when trying to connect via wifi.
Another easy user tip. I was using image capture on my Mac to transfer files. However, I started to have an issue. I captured a successful HDR and when I plugged the Theta in to my computer, Image capture said the files were corrupted. So, I instead connected to the Theta’s wifi with my laptop, opened the Authydra web interface on my laptop; 192.168.1.1:8888, and downloaded using the Authydra “manage files” page of the web interface. Much easier and it preserved the folders (which image capture doesn’t do).
After looking at the resulting images, here are my ideals for Authydra for on-set VFX work:
a) download unprocessed, bracketted DNG image sequence, in their raw, 180º fisheye form
b) option to change shooting order of the brackets ie -2, -1, 0, +1, +2, rather than 0, +1, -1, +2, -2.
c) default settings, so that you can activate the plugin and just press the big button (added this one for a complete list, I know you’re working on it).
Again, I wanted to say thank you and say how great your plugin is, I have even more appreciation for it now that I have played with the Z1 and tested it. The Theta app’s Multi bracket shooting method is cumbersome and slow to set up. Whereas Authydra sets that all up automatically, Awesome!
It was simple for me to get working, I love the interface and icon. The ability to watch the capturing/processing is excellent and the “you may now move the camera” message is the cherry on top.
Thanks again and looking forward to the next version!
I am assisting Kasper with submission of Authydra to the store. As Kasper is generously making both the plug-in and the source code available to our community of users, I am asking for volunteer help in creating images to market Authydra on the plug-in store and possibly social media.
If you submit an image and Kasper decides to use it for the store, the image will be under the Apache Public License. You’re giving the image to the project, which Kasper controls.
The THETA Plug-in store can house up to 5 PNG images. The images need to be in of size 960x520
Patrick,
Thanks for your post and congratulations on using your new Z1 with Blender.
I’m trying to get better screenshots of examples of use for the sites below. If you want to contribute any screenshots to help out @Kasper and the community, please post.
) to start the app.
