Hi! I decided to take some time this week to figure out what program was best for my needs to share my 360° media. Today I’m focusing on the Orbix360° website.
I used the Ricoh Theta SC Hatsune Miku to capture my photos/videos and an iPad Pro to edit them. I am interested in trying out different 360° programs in order to find what fits my needs best; something quick, efficient, and optimized for social media.
Initial Thoughts
The Orbix360° tool is meant to share not only 360 photos but also VR creations. Taking a look through the gallery of works currently up shows a lot of creativity, and even some scenes that seem like photographs are actually VR mock ups. If you are sharing 360 images, Orbix360° seems most useful to create “walkthroughs” of a scene. This is probably best used for real estate walkthroughs or cohesive stories (such as walking down a street!). This reminds me of Google’s VR/360 offerings, which I’ve written about here.
Here you can see the different available settings. It doesn’t matter if you are designing a 360 walkthrough or a VR space, your starting workspace is one in the same. Here are the options below:
Your scene is made up of elements, which seem to be mostly useful for VR and not so much for 360. Unless you designed your original 360 image to need a digital element added in, this is not particularly useful.
Of course, who would I be if I didn’t share a screenshot of me having done something terribly strange? Such as trying to add in a “ground” but not being able to process any images I selected? Here, let’s take a look.
This was after I tried dropping a JPEG into the “Ground” element I had selected. As you can see, it didn’t work. However, other elements I tried did work! When you add elements into your scene, they float up and down gently, like a sprite in a RPG. This is because the elements I added were not generated for VR but were instead flat images. Orbs (the term for your Orbix360° creation) that others made highlighting their VR art was much more seamless and immersive. I highly recommend checking some out, even if you don’t have any images to upload.
If you’re once again wondering what happened here, the short of it is I tried to add a photo in the sky but it looked very strange. I changed the dimensions of it, and then I was in outer space. I decided to roll with it, because it was the chance of a lifetime to let Miku float in the cosmos (like the bright star she is). I also made a working tour of part of my backyard, which you can find here.
In summary, here are my pros and cons for the Orbix360° web tool:
| Pros | Cons |
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Concluding Thoughts
If you like weaving images together, Orbix360° is a good choice for you.
If you are looking to edit your images with filters, cropping ,etc., this is not the web application for you. If you’re looking to process your polished images (maybe a tour of a house, an art gallery, an adventure), it is simple enough to create an account and get started. So if you are ready to share your images and aren’t looking to host them on social media, this is a fine option.
Until next time!